Pearl spent last
week trying on hats. Twisting back and
forth, she closely examines herself in mirror.
She’s a bit vain, desiring the hat that best accentuates her positive
features. At long last, she chose the
medium Thule. Our cars all talk
exclusively to Bear who then reports what they’ve said.
We leave Denver
Colorado somewhat promptly at 10:15AM, driving off into the proverbial sunset,
except that it is morning and we’re headed south, not west. Details!
Reality forever messes with my great expansive ideas.
Unfortunately, our
departure isn't all that prompt as we stop at the bank and the eyeglass store. Although Louisiana lies 1,600
miles in our future, Bloodroot has forgotten to pick up his distance
glasses. Why would we need to see where
we’re going? Why start now when we’ve
paid scant attention to direction most of our lives? Wisdom prevails. How boring!
Equipped with money and vision, we depart Denver only a wee bit later.
We’ve packed Pearl
and her hat to the gills. The full
family of mobility devices accompanies us.
Besides the three of us, Sven, Sven’s charger, Bess and Tinky join us
for the ride. Around all this we fit our
clothes, camping stove, cooler and boxes of cooking equipment. When we stop, if I exit the vehicle, we move
anything sitting on the van floor. Sven
needs the room to spin in a circle carrying both himself and me down Pearl’s
ramp. Throughout our trip, with every driving pause, we reorganize, repack and
reconfigure.
Cruising down
I-25, we again reacquaint ourselves with Colorado. To the east, the browns of winter cling to
the plains as far as the eye can see to the east. South and west Pike’s Peak pops up while ever
so slowly the mountains near. I claim to
see Katherine Lee Bates[1]
sitting atop Pike’s Peak. The boys don’t
believe me.
We turn west on
160 at Walsenburg. We stop for a cup of
tea at the Alpine Rose Café, primarily, I humbly confess, to use the
restroom. The smell from the street
should have put us off, but somehow clarity of thought escapes us.
Undeterred by our
noses, we enter. Sven terrifies the
other diners, zooming around their table to the restroom. We crash into the bathroom door. Sven can go no further. Bloodroot carries me the final few feet to
the toilet.
Our logic eludes
me here, as we carry water, pans, a camping stove, tea and milk in the cooler. We had eaten at this café years ago when we
returned home from Santa Fe during an Easter blizzard. We were hungry enough that the food didn’t
seem all that bad.
Relieved, and
having used their bathroom, we order coffee and tea. The server brings us lukewarm water with tea
bags. I request milk for my tea,
forgetting that in greasy spoon establishments, one must always request and pay
for a glass of milk. I liberally pour
the proffered “milk” into my cup. The
resultant tepid creamer slurry is undrinkable.
A gas station would have been cheaper and cleaner.
Piling back into
the van, we head west toward the Donner Pass.[2] Just kidding – the Donner Pass is in
California. Don’t worry! The aroma arising from the Alpine Rose Café
has turned our stomachs. We won’t be
hungry for days, trapped in snow on the La Veta mountain pass or not.
Cruising through
bright sunshine, we head toward a gathering storm. The scenery changes from high plains desert
scrub to forested foothills. Pearl
greets the mountains, purring, rising slowly with the road. The exuberance of youth upon her, she knows
that she can take them. “Bring them on,”
she says. Pearl sniffs, eagerly
anticipating a fierce storm, her first, which never materializes. Disappointed,
she turns south on 159 toward Taos.
Leaving the realm of Walsenburg and noxious odors, our stomachs
settle. Keith feeds us chicken salad
wrapped in lettuce. He’d made the salad
before we left home. We drive south in
the broad valley keeping the Sangre de Cristo Mountains[3]
to the left and the San Juan Mountains to the right.
A low flying bird
swoops down over Pearl. The boys cower,
fearing an encounter with the terrifying anal probe bird. Pearl snaps at the bird, veering off of the
road in her zeal to defend us. Bloodroot
recovers the steering. “On to Taos and
safety,” they urge Pearl. The boys argue
for the next three days as to who is the bird’s intended victim. I turn up the sound system. We’re listening to Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. Despite my interest in the book, I settle in
for a long nap.
In midafternoon,
we drive into Taos, finding an entire town built of adobe houses. OK, mostly fake adobe made from cement, but
Taos still looks cool. We later learn
that real adobe, made from mud, has visible straw. We find our first stop, the Fechin House
and Museum. Arriving in style, Bloodroot
motors up the exit drive marked “Do Not Enter”.
He ignores our parking advice proffered repeatedly then more forcefully,
finally parking in some trees. Keith
refuses to exit Pearl, fearing the trees will give him a piney headbuff as he
leaves the vehicle. After a bit parental squawking, Bloodroot moves Pearl over
a couple of feet and extends the ramp.
Sven and I exit, running smack into a fence. We extract the Sven from the mud and fencing
and enter the house, only a bit disheveled.
The Fechin House,
on winter hours, closes at 4PM. As we
haven’t much time, the staff lets us in for free. The museum opens the fire doors allowing Sven
to enter. Using a running start, we ram
the one step up into the living room.
Nicolai Fechin, a
Russian artist and woodcarver, moved to Taos in the 1920s. He built the adobe Fechin house, filling it
with his portraits and woodcarving.
Fechin painted portraits of local indigenous people as he had previously
in Siberia. The portraits capture each
subject’s essence; their eyes look out at you through the years, their
personalities revealed by portraiture.
He refused to alter people, never using props or dressing up the Indians
as so many others did. The museum houses
many other early Taos artists. Along
with the paintings, we enjoy Fechin’s wood carving decorating every cabinet,
window and door. Bear loves the house,
roaming, exploring and dreaming of bear caves.
The museum closes,
an ever present theme in our lives. We
head over to our Airbnb casita (little house).
Our host built the little house in back of her house for when her
children visit. Our casita has heated
floors, a kitchen and spectacular views.
Despite hauling
half of our kitchen with us, we decide to eat out our first night. We’re on vacation, right? Relying on positive recommendations from both
our host and our guidebook, we decide upon the Taos Inn. The narrow sidewalks surrounding the Inn
scare both Sven and I. Our sight clouds
with apocalyptic visions of toppling into the street where traffic smashes us
like bugs. Although quaking with fear,
we pause and admire the Inn’s old 1940s neon sign. Hopefully it’s not the last thing we see!
Breathing a large
sigh of relief, we enter the eatery to find a set of three steps barring our
way. Shit! Never fear, the enterprising staff removes
the center stair rail. With obvious
pride, they bring out their shiny new ramp for Sven to climb. Unfortunately, each time Sven approaches the
ramp, he just pushes it out of the way.
Bummer! They tried so hard! We so applaud effort. At long last, sighing, the staff lead us out
a back door, through a maze of courtyards, back in through the kitchen and out
above the steps.
[1] Bates climbed Pike’s Peak
in 1895, becoming so enraptured that she penned America the Beautiful. And
yes, she’s dead.
[2] In 1847, the California
bound Donner wagon train became stuck in early winter snows in the Sierra
Nevada Mountains. Trapped and starving,
the survivors resored to cannibalism, hence the infamous Donner Pass.
[3] Blood of Christ
