Category: Uncategorized

Bent’s Old Fort, Colorado

Built in 1833, near a ford on the high plains where the Santa Fe Trail crossed the Arkansas River, Bent’s Old Fort was primarily a trading post. It is east of today’s La Junta, Colorado, and north of Route 50.

In its heyday, the fort served travelers on the Santa Fe Trail who were two months out from Independence, Missouri, as well as fur trappers and Native American tribes.

In 1846, it became a staging point for U.S. troops during the Mexican-American war. It was an important factor in the development and settling of the territories west of what was then the extent of the United States. As time went on, though, changing conditions affected the fort. Military animals overwhelmed the ecology of the surrounding land, relations with the Native American tribes soured, and there was a cholera epidemic.

By 1849, only 16 years after it was built, the fort was no longer useful, and a new fort, which came to be called Bent’s New Fort, was built 40 miles away.

The fort you see in the pictures is a reconstruction, though I was assured by a park employee that it is “as close as possible to the original.” It is a National Historic Site administered by the National Park Service.

La Junta, Colorado

The Santa Fe Trail was an important trade route through the American west in the early 1800’s. La Junta (“the junction”) grew up where the Santa Fe trail turned south to New Mexico and another trail continued west to Pueblo, Colorado.

La Junta later became a regional headquarters for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. As Route 50 passes through La Junta, a rail yard is on one side and the center of town is on the other.

A wind turbine blade on the railroad in La Junta

Pueblo, Colorado — Gourmet Dining

This is a beer float. Not a root beer float, but a float made with porter, a style of dark beer historically related to stout.

As you can see, in addition to beer it includes ice cream, chocolate sauce, and whipped cream. At the first sip, you notice the absence of the sweetness normally provided by root beer. After that, you settle down to a pretty tasty treat.

Want to try one? Head to the Shamrock Brewing Company pub on West 3rd Street in Pueblo, Colorado, a few miles south of Route 50.

Canon City, Colorado — Copper Roofs

The copper steeples and roof you see in this photo are on the First United Methodist church in Canon City, Colorado.

Why copper? It’s lightweight compared to most other roofing materials, and it resists damage from hail, fire, and natural processes such as mildew. What’s more, it’s durable: If properly maintained, a copper roof can last fifty years or more.

So, why don’t we all have copper roofs? Perhaps most important, the metal itself is costly, and as a result they’re expensive. This is not a minor consideration, since estimates can run as much as fifteen times the cost of a traditional roofing material, such as asphalt shingles. In addition, copper roofs transmit noise, and so need additional material to muffle sound — especially from rain and hail. What’s more, copper expands and contracts with changes in temperature. This can loosen the fasteners securing the roof, requiring regular maintenance.

Whatever the pros and cons, we can tell the copper covering the steeples and roof of this church is relatively new, because of the distinctive orange-brown color. With age, the color of copper gradually changes, and in ten to twenty years the copper protecting this church will develop a blue-green-grey patina — actually oxidation which will shield the surface of the copper.

Arkansas River, Colorado

This is the Arkansas River, which flows out of the Rocky Mountains. Route 50, visible in the photo above, follows the river through the western high plains and along much of the highway’s climb to the Continental Divide.

Kayakers ride the river, rafters float it, and Christo, the artist known for wrapping buildings in fabric and other large fabric-based installations, once wanted to “wrap” it.

He called his project “Over the River” and planned to suspend almost six miles of translucent fabric panels above the Arkansas between Salida, Colorado (upstream from these photos) and Canon City (downstream). There are 42 miles of river between those two cities, and the installation would have covered eight different parts of the river.

Drivers on Route 50 would have looked down at the top of the fabric, while kayakers and rafters would have floated under it. The installation would have taken two and a half years to build and been in place for two weeks.

The project won approvals from federal, state, and local governments, but there was also determined opposition, and legal challenges delayed planning and installation for five years. This despite Christo’s willingness to pay all costs through sales of his art, including, as his website explained at the time, “all direct expenses to create the temporary work of art, as well as costs that result from it (e.g. environmental analysis, traffic control, trash removal and sanitation).”

The installation was originally planned for the summer of 2011, but the conception, planning, and proposal process spanned twenty years, and Jeanne-Claude, Christo’s wife and artistic collaborator, passed away during that time.

Christo turned 80 in 2015, and in early 2017, he announced he was dropping the project. His stated reasons were the legal delays, the total length of time the project consumed, and, because the installation would have been on federal land, his personal distaste for benefiting, as he saw it, the project’s new “landlord,” recently elected president Donald Trump.

Salida, Colorado

Salida, Colorado is just 23 miles from Monarch Pass, where Route 50 crosses the Continental Divide.

The Arkansas River flows through Salida, 60 miles from the river’s headwaters, formed by Rocky Mountain snow melt near Leadville, Colorado. The Arkansas is the sixth-longest river in the U.S., and 1,400 miles downstream the water you see passing through Salida will flow into the Mississippi River.

There’s already plenty of water for kayaking in the river, though, so head on over to the Boathouse Cantina, where you can watch the kayakers while you munch.