Hitchhiking Isn't What It Used To Be

Driving east toward Capulin Volcano, we were amused by the sight of two hitchhikers just out of town. One was sitting on his backpack, his thumb jutted out in the generational direction of the highway. The other guy was leaning on the handle of his wheeled suitcase. Things have changed, no?

Capulin Volcano

We've not been to this part of New Mexico before, and it's quite beautiful. A friend of mine from IBM grew up around here, and always told me how pretty it was.

I don't have my notes in front of me, so will have to revisit this entry. But I will post a few photos of this beautiful place. Who would have thought there'd be volcanoes in New Mexico?

Capulin Volcano is just off the highway, and is considered to be extinct. There's a great visitors center, and you can drive to the rim, park, and hike around the rim or down inside the crater. Probably would have done that, if it hadn't been a hundred degrees, and if we hadn't needed to be in Amarillo by suppertime.

But we had time for an earth cache, a short hike, and lots of photos.

No Free Lunch

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. I think this is even more true of breakfast, which many hotels are offering these days, to sweeten the pot (or make you think more kindly of the high room rate you just paid). But not all free breakfast is the same…

Take the hotel in Trinidad, NM. Dodgy. We got to sit in the restaurant next door, and had a choice of two kids meals, both of which were undercooked and unsatisfying, and did not include coffee. Then we had to wait at the register for what seemed a lifetime, before one of the four employees would stop and take our money (we had to pay for coffee). Dave finally grabbed one of them, and said they either waited on us now, or they wouldn't get paid.

In contrast, most of the other hotels we stayed in had a buffet or cook-your-own setup, with food ranging from yogurt, fresh fruit, cold cereal, bagels and toast with jam and PB, waffles, coffee and tea, and two kinds of juice. A couple of them had scrambled eggs and sausage patties, and another even had biscuits and gravy along with the eggs and sausage.

Bishop's Castle... castle building the hard way

Hot, hot hot… we bolted for lower elevations, and stopped in Manitou Springs. This is an old town that's full of historic buildings and cold mineral springs, with fountains and monuments. It was probably once very charming. Now it's just touristy and crowded, with not enough parking (Get those cars off the main road and things will be much better!) We stopped for an earth cache and a cold drink, and more allergy pills, then headed for New Mexico.

We headed south again, and took a scenic drive recommended by a Colorado visitor's guidebook, called "Frontier Pathways." It took us west out of Pueblo across the prairie toward the mountains (which are much farther from I-25 in southern Colorado. After the extremely straight-as-an-arrow highway running due west (my grandfather would have been proud), we began to see tall rock formations, the road began to curve around the geology, and things began to look interesting. and into Hardscrabble Canyon, and the Wet Mountains. Lots of wildlife pathways, but we didn't see anything but antelope. The canyon was gorgeous, though.

The most interesting thing along the way was Bishop's Castle. We swung around a bend in the road, and blew right past this fantastic stone castle. I recognized it from our scenic drive print-out, and we did a U-turn and went back.




It's a fantastic structure made from stone, with a glass roof and stained glass windows, fanciful wrought iron balconies and railings, plus ornate trim. It even has a working fire-breathing dragon. No entrance fee, just a box for donations (a local woman later told us that he brings in about $1000 a day during tourist season). But it was worth the $5 we pushed into the box. We spent an hour there, trying to photograph it all. It's so big, even with my camera set to wide angle, I couldn't get the entire structure in a photo.

People were clamboring all over the structure; I kept hearing parents calling to their kids about where they shouldn't go, but it was pretty futile. This place is like the ultimate amusement park feature, with no padlocks keeping you out of anything. (There is a prominent sign about a required signing of the liability waiver, however.)






The stained glass windows were gorgeous. We found it interesting that the interior is unfinished. There are a couple of spiral staircases to get you to different levels, and there are antique kitchen fixtures in one corner. But no sign of plumbing or wiring. I was particularly taken with the wrought iron work, and have since read that custom iron work is the family business.

14er Number Two

Pikes Peak. Pretty darn impressive. A big bare rock mountain from the flat land around Colorado Springs; wonder how far east you can see this monolith? My second 14-er. Dave's second also, but his record is more impressive than mine. He hiked to the 10,000 ft. level of Washington's Mt. Rainier, then roped up and climbed to the 14,410 ft. summit. Getting there on your own two feet is much more worthy of documenting, don't you think? But since mountain climbing is out of the question for me, I'll continue to list my two feats: Mt. Evans, and Pike's Peak.

It's a long, slow drive to the top, impressive to look up and ahead, and see the switchbacks in front of you. Once we reached the top, we did a quick geocache, joined by a couple from Germany, here on holiday. And we were lucky—the cog train is already here, bright red and very photogenic.




Windy and chilly on top, but we stayed quite a while, enjoying the views. And we were lucky enough to be there when the cog trian headed back down the mountain. I was on an upper platform, my camera thrust between the bars, trying to hold it steady in the wind. But this shot turned out pretty good, especially since there were no people on the lower platform. Sometimes you just get lucky!

Suzie & Tony

Heading out on the next phase of vacation: a geocaching road trip. Last night we were doubly entertained. First, dinner with Suzie and her boyfriend, Tony. They suggested The Chart House, a restaurant in the hills above Golden with views down the canyon toward Denver. Second, with a stupendous storm that broke outside our picture windows, complete with torrential rains and a two-hour lightning show over the valley. Not common for the Denver area in the summer, except for this year, apparently.

We enjoyed getting to know Tony, and he and Dave found a lot to talk about: aviation, working on cars, hunting. It was a great way to end the first part of our vacation, and kick off the road trip.

Littleton Roots

This morning I had an appointment at the Littleton Museum to do research on my grandmother's family. This was a first for me, as my sister is the genealogist in the family. But I thought since I was going to be in town, it was a good chance to see if they had any information we didn't have. And it was really fun to see books, deeds, certificates, ditch logs, water rights documents, all sorts of things related to my great-great grandfather, John G. Lilley. Thanks to my sister Laurie, I was able to correct some errors in their documentation, and the museum would like us to send them a more complete history than what they currently have. They were able to locate more photos than those we saw on our visit in 1989. Took notes on all the photos; prices have quadrupled since the last time we ordered copies, so I couldn't get everything I wanted.

When my sister and I were here a couple of decades ago, we visited the cemetery where several of our Lilley ancestors are buried. It's a beautiful day, and I wanted to linger, so I walked through the cemetery and looked for the oldest section, and was lucky. I found the Lilley section there, and in between cycles of the impact sprinklers, managed to take took pictures of all the headstones. One of our ancestors has the dubious distinction of being the first burial here. Her date of burial is some time after her death; the historical society people suspect she was buried on the family ranch, then moved to the cemetery at a later date.



The old section of Littleton is beautifully restored, and after scoring the only parking spot on the street, I walked the short Main Street and found the building that my great-great grandfather built. The cornice on top of the brick building is different from the original (I'd just seen photos of the block when the buildings were new). I ordered a copy of the photo that showed the building, with the family's livery stable next door. The stable is long gone, replaced by a small, single-story building.

I loved this old town, beautiful surroundings, great Main Street, very inviting. I also loved the antique stores, the first I've visited since arriving last weekend. When you fly someplace, you can't go crazy in an antique store. But I did find a treasure: a 1940s green hatpin-style flower frog for my collection.

Single Malt

Tonight we had dinner with a friend of Dave's, who is also at the conference. We decided to walk to the 16th Street Mall and stop when something looked good to us. We liked Marlowe's, but thought we'd try something new. We walked the mall, and chose Katie Mullen's, an Irish pub. Good food, excellent beer.

Afterwards, I suggested walking to the Brown for a drink at the Ship Tavern. I wanted Dave to see the place anyway, the inside is too spectacular to miss. So we walked the couple of blocks on a perfect summer evening, and through the side door into the center of the hotel. First, I had them look straight up to the stained glass ceiling. Then I pointed out the iron balconies, and recounted the story about the soldiers who liked to rapel down to the main floor. As we walked to the Tavern, we stopped to look at the elevator mural, and the antique mail drop. But their jaws dropped when we walked into the Tavern, and they saw the paneling, the ceiling, the triangular shape, the braced "mast" coming through the floor and continuing through the ceiling. Plus all the scale models of sailing ships, displayed around the room.

The Ship Tavern has a great atmosphere. Even though it was crowded, it wasn't loud and noisy. The television wasn't blaring. We could have been in a British bar, surrounded by people, but able to talk and enjoy ourselves. Mike was right—they have a great single-malt menu here. We each chose a different one to try, and also sampled each other's. My first whisky tasting!

My First 14er

This was an experience I didn't expect: driving to the top of a 14,000+ foot mountain. Mt. Evans is one of many 14,000+ foot mountains in Colorado, but usually lands on top of the list because the road to the top is the highest paved road in America.

Suzie told me that this was one of her mom's favorite places, and she could have come up here every day without getting tired of it.

This was only my second day at mile-high altitude, so climbing another 8,000 feet was faintly disturbing. But oh so worth it! Even on a partly cloudy day, the views were amazing. At the first stop there's a small lake at the foot of a scree slope, hiking trails, and an old stone mountaineering hut. A crew is busy building two new structures, which will be stone like the older one. Construction is tough here--everything has to be lugged up the mountain, tools run by generator, and the weather can change in a heartbeat.

When Suzie thought I was acclimated a bit, we tackled the last part of the road, which switchbacks through tundra to the summit. Just up the first slope, she spotted a big herd of goats, and we stopped for photos. And just down from the summit, we saw another herd. Both groups had pristine white kids, and adults that looked a bit worse for wear! (We also saw clumps of shedding goat hair everywhere, on buildings and guardrails, and on the ground.)

Finally at the top, small parking area, the remnants of the restaurant that burned, and the standing walls reconfigured to create an obervatory of sorts, with openings toward the views. And what views they were! You can look east to Denver and beyond, southeast to New Mexico, and northwest to the peaks of the central Rockies. There are signboards that explain the natural history here, and the old restaurant provides a handy shelter from the gusting winds. It's wide open and bare up here, true tundra landscape. And, it was snowing.

We stuck it out long enough to enjoy the views, took some photos (including this inquisitive little guy who climbed the mountain of boulders to spy on us), then headed down. I was fairly out of breath after an hour at elevations you can't drive to in Washington State, but loved every minute of this day!

Architectural Roots

I wish I'd visited Denver earlier in my life, to walk the streets and enjoy the historic buildings, when it was still possible to talk with my dad about architecture in Denver. I spent the morning walking the downtown historic area, enjoying the buildings and ornate carvings, the native granite and sandstone, the massiveness of the building styles. All the while, wondering whether I was walking in his footsteps. Where did he learn to love architecture, and decide to pursue it as a career? Did he walk these streets, and love these same buildings? Were there any he particularly liked? I wish I knew.