Flurry, Light, White light. Every which a way, the snow falls, a dozen inches or so. Transportation halted, yet people seem to make it, some make it to the ditch some make it home. As for me...
I stare...as I have done many times before, out the window. Looking at the Sangre de Cristos,
wondering what all is out there. Coming here a few short months ago has sparked many old desires for travel and exploration. Craving the crisp Colorado air and the unexplainable feelings that comes with setting foot on the dry rock of this great place. I plan, plan the move, my next move. Where? When? With whom? Hopefully soon...Geared up and ready for the trek; fluids, food, and fire, GPS mapped out. Cross county is a novel idea out here, not feasible however. No more than a few hours into this excursion I found myself in what the locales call a large arroya. I think it means a ditch or canyon. The Union Pacific railroad bought up the canyon beds and laid track out here over and hundred years ago to transport coal, walking along these empty beds delivers a sense of...? I am not sure, micro comes to mind. Thinking back on the folks that homesteaded here. The American West, the true frontier....1914: Mining companies forced workers to buy, live, and educate their children at company owned town sites. Dictating wages and the price to live. These workers go on strike, only to have the state militia with hired company hands gun down entire families. In coming across this massacre site I find a trap door which leads to an underground cellar no more than 10 feet below the ground. It is cold and damp...and eery. I later find out 3 mothers and their children suffocated to death in that same cellar after their burning home collapsed and trapped them in. Smoke and all. Being more sensitive to my surroundings and almost feeling the life, love, and death...the history of where I tread, I look around. My wife is sitting on the couch editing photos, my dog begs for attention and I...well I finish typing my report for work. I am getting hungry, but I look out the window, at the snowy Sangre de Cristo mountians, thinking maybe I'll saddle up and get some grub...............hmm, just maybe.
