We quickly left the mountains behind and saw and felt the difference in the altitude (down almost 2000 feet) and water availability. The loss of altitude and moving east from the mountains meant the temperatures climbed to the low 100s. Thankfully the humidity dropped to near 10%. (There is more danger of becoming a mummy from desiccation than of drowning in your own perspiration. Salt may encrust your body however so that you become a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife.) The landscape was much drier and only along the creek and river courses could you see the cottonwood trees. Cactus started appearing more frequently along the roadside. There are plenty of farms using irrigation ditches from the Arkansas River and others that join it and I was surprised to see several sod farms. Terry and I speculated about the idiots who would put in a lawn of sod in such arid country when the wild grasses and sage would do so well with no watering.
We got to the KOA in La Junta around 10 AM (it was only a drive of about 120 miles) and unhitched the trailer so we could do some site seeing. A short drive to the east and north off US 50 is a reconstruction of Bent’s Fort. Originally built in 1833 on the north shores of the Arkansas River, which was then the border between Mexico and the US, it served as a trading post for mountain men, Mexicans (whose goods usually came all the way from Mexico City—if they got that far north) and Indians until the fur trade collapsed due to changing fashion and the war with Mexico. It was destroyed in 1849. Cholera among the populations around the fort also may have played a role in its abandonment. The reconstruction of the adobe fort by the National Park Service is detailed and there are both guided and self guided tours through the rooms and grounds inside the fort.
From the fort we drove a little further east to Las Animas and the Kit Carson Museum. This museum was not what I expected having little to do with Kit Carson and lots to do with the history of this small town. They did have some materials from Carson’s days but much of the displays were donations from long time families in the area. Some collections go back to the mid-1800s while many are of materials from the early to mid 1900s. The building itself is one of the barracks from WWII when the town was one of the POW camps for captured Germans. (This is interesting also because just down the road at Grenada, CO there is a Japanese-American internment camp that is being refurbished as a high school project.)
Getting back to the campground, we took a dip in the pool and then went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant down the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment