C²olorado

6/14-17

Sitting in the passenger seat, cruisin’ through Iowa in the rain listening to Lorde, I confessed to Lily that I have not yet started this post. But aha! That is no longer true. Here goes: four days in Colorado.

Lily suggested I include some Pythagorean-related tidbits, because of the diagonal line we cut across the rectangular state. Here’s a graphic I made of the journey, for the readers and for her:

Our entrance into Colorado is the only border crossing of the entire trip we made on foot. We drove into the Four Corners monument after a(n incredibly brief) stint in New Mexico, waited in line, snapped a few photos and jumped around. Then we got back in the car and crossed the border again in the car. We slept that night just west of Durango, CO.

We decided to head into Durango for breakfast and some cafe time. The cafe we chose (Blue Wing Coffee) was in a building reminiscent of Somerville, MA’s Armory that had an active art studio/vending space that we explored. Lily worked on the last post on here and her lifeguard recertification and I read (Kafka on the Shore - great!) for a few hours. Then we hit the road again, following the hypotenuse towards Great Sand Dunes National Park.

Our notable stop of that day was in the town of Pagosa Springs, a town that smelled vaguely of sulfur and had a river lined with hot springs running through it. We bathed in the cooler springs, which we estimate to be around 110* F (otherwise, we agreed, we would’ve felt like soup), and intermittently dove into the cold river. Very nice.

The sand dunes were funny-looking. I’ll include a picture at the end of this, but until then, picture a very small elevated desert with mountains on one side and some plains along the other. Definitely unintuitive! We walked along the dunes for a bit and then set up camp and made dinner.

Interestingly, while we were eating, our tent spontaneously flew away. It was okay though, we caught it before it made it too far away and didn’t set it back up until we were ready to go inside of it and anchor it down. And anchor it we did, as the wind blew across the dunes and into our campsite all night. Thankfully, we never ended up airborne, but it remained a possibility throughout the night.

In the morning, we stopped by the visitor center and split up so that Lily could trail-run and I could trail-meander. Once we re-grouped, we bid farewell to the dunes and headed to our next destination: more hot springs!

This time, the hot springs were not a public town amenity, but instead part of a sort of commune in the mountains. They were pretty incredible, and we met some characters. I think it might be unwise for me to say anything more on here about the experience, but feel free to inquire privately if you are curious!

After this stop, we headed straight for Leadville, CO, a town that sits over 10,000 ft above sea level. We had pizza, spent all of five minutes in America’s Best Wild West Saloon, and wandered about Main Street. Our campsite was under 10 minutes from the center of town, so in the morning, after some oatmeal, we headed right back to explore further. We stopped by the infamous Melanzana factory, a Jewish museum (who would’ve thought?), and a bookstore.

The day was set to end in central Nebraska, so we finished out our journey on the hypotenuse, briefly stopping in Denver to get s’mores supplies at a latino grocery store, and then crossed the border. Bye Colorado!

-El

STATS!

Crosswords started (cumulative): 13

Crosswords completed (cumulative): …3

Swims: 2

Music: Fleetwood Mac: Tusk, Tracy Chapman: New Beginning, The Rolling Stones: Let it Bleed, Phoebe Bridgers: Stranger in the Alps, Peach Pit: Being So Normal, Sweetums live @ Flagfest (voice memo), Black Sabbath: Paranoid, Feist: Let it Die, Cage the Elephant: Tell me I’m Pretty, Adventureland soundtrack, Enya: Watermark, Mk.gee: Two Star and the Dream Police, Mitski: Bury me at Makeout Creek, Horse Jumper of Love: Horse Jumper of Love, Guardians of the galaxy, Vol. 2, Horsegirl: Versions of Modern Performance, The Growlers: Chinese Fountain, Black Country, New Road: Ants from Up There, Carole King: Really Rosie, Aimee Mann: Magnolia soundtrack, Led Zeppelin: In through the Out Door, Wednesday: Rat Saw God, Ariel Pink: Dedicated to Bobby Jameson, Water from your Eyes: It’s a Beautiful Place, Neutral Milk Hotel: In the Aeroplane over the Sea, CAKE: Comfort Eagle, Emitt Rhodes: The Emmit Rhodes Recordings (1969-1973)

PHOTOS!