So I Went to America

Apologies for a long silence, but we’ve been in places with no wifi or cell signal.

If you click to enlarge that, you’ll see a tiny image of the San Juan Catholic Spiritual Center in La Garita, Colorado, to the left of the exquisite architectural treasure of a Bureau of Land Management vault toilet. Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background. The BLM changed one of my favorite campgrounds from first-come availability to reservations only, by the way, and we’d really like to thank them for that. The campground we ended up in had a good view of the mountain WE WOULD HAVE CAMPED ON. We met some of the locals on a hike:

But we knew we would, because I said, “Oh, hey, rattlesnake country” the moment I looked at that landscape from the car.

I’ve said and said and said, and will go on saying, that everybody should go to America as much as possible, especially if work or family trap you in a blue zone. It immediately makes the psychological warfare of Blue America feel very remote. I did notice, on the hours-long drive through the Navajo reservation, that the Navajo aren’t enormously sentimental about dogs, details carefully omitted, but that drive is still worth the change of atmosphere. And southern Colorado features the best two hundred miles of driving outside…well, the rest of Colorado. We stomped around in the snow at Wolf Creek Pass, so a typical summer road trip. The hot springs at Pagosa Springs back right up to the San Juan River, so you can go from snow melt to hot tub in a few steps. This makes me want to go back to Pagosa Springs and not ever leave.

Farther east, I was surprised to find a sizeable Amish community in the San Luis Valley, but apparently they got here twenty years ago. SLV Discount, out on County Road 5 E, is Amish-run and focused on affordable bulk goods for the Amish community….

….but they’ll cheerfully sell you a sandwich even if you’re not Amish.

Oh, and if you’re passing through Monte Vista, Colorado on Highway 160, there’s a new store downtown:

I bought a $12 pair of Trump socks, just for the chance to wander around and say hi. They’re bright yellow and tremendously ugly, so if anyone wants a pair of free socks….

Back soon. Doing as much of this as possible with Miss Teenager before she turns into a grown-up:

And yes, I looked in on the political events of the week as we rolled back into a town. They made me glad we spent a few days in a place without an Internet connection.