November 18: Lamar, Colorado, to Lakewood, Colorado

Another day that started off cloudy but soon cleared up. My goal for the day was to arrive at my sister's home in Lakewood about 3:00pm or so, but I was undecided whether to head west to Pueblo and then take the interstate north to the Denver area or to first go north on a back country road and then head west to the same destination. I finally decided on the latter.

But first I got off US route 50 and took state route 194 to La Junta. On the way there, I discovered Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site. What a find!

This is another fort along the Santa Fe Trail. It was not a military fort but a trading fort. It was built with adobe and was operated from 1833 until 1849. While the original fort was burned and then destroyed by time and weather, archeologists had excavated the base of the original walls in the 1930s. Quite wonderfully, a sick traveler who had been laid up in the fort in the 1840s had undertaken to sketch it with measurements of all of its rooms and walls in his journal.  He thought it so outstanding that he expected to use his sketches as a model for other trading posts in the west. While that never happened, his journal gave all the information to reconstruct the entire fort. That rebuilding was completed in 1976. What exists now is an exact reproduction of the original fort. Here, perhaps about a month's journey along the Santa Fe Trail and 600 miles from its origin in Independence, Missouri, was an outpost where indians, fur trappers, adventurers, and merchants met, lived, and traded. The primary language at the fort was Spanish, but French, English, and three native american languages were also spoken. There was nightly entertainment, shared meals, and even a huge pool table.  I really enjoyed walking through the various rooms of the fort, the kitchen, blacksmith's shop, carpenter's shop, doctor's rooms, and the living quarters of the men who ran the post.
If you want to know more, here is a link:
http://www.nps.gov/beol/index.htm

After leaving Bent's Old Fort, I took state route 71 from Rocky Ford to Limon. This route runs about 90 miles through some beautiful, beautiful grass land. Not as flat as parts of Kansas, there were some small rolling hills that afforded views that must have stretched 20 miles at times. There were some cattle out on the grassland, but not many. There was one cross roads about half way along this route and a house at that crossroads - 1 house, not more.  Isolated, yes, but so very beautiful.

Once in Limon, I took another minor road, Colorado route 86 westward and got my first view of the Rockies. Most of the higher mountains were snow capped and glistened in the sun as I approached them from the east.

As I approached the metropolitan Denver area, I could see a low haze that made it hard to see the base of the Rockies even though the higher elevations were crisp and clear. Urban haze.

I made it to the home of my sister and brother-in-law in Lakewood just about the time I had hoped. I hadn't visited them both here in quite a few years. At my request, my sister played her cello and my brother-in-law played his guitar in a little concert. They have both been taking lessons on their chosen instruments for some time and are quite good. That was a really nice way to end the day.