There is nothing to see in eastern Colorado. It's all flat and treeless.
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I was right about where the red arrow is pointing in the graphic from the United States Drought Monitor, and what was in theory a quail-hunting trip was, admit it or not, turning more into disaster tourism.
Outdoor writer Chad Love blogs from a location downwind of that location, and he has posted some photos that, once converted from color into black-and-white, evoke the Dirty Thirties.
I didn't photograph those six cows, nor the herd I saw somewhere on Colorado Hwy. 10 grazing in the slanting sunset light in a pasture that was about half dirt, even though it would have been nice and National Geographic-y. Like something from East Africa.
Windmill on the national grasslands. Not pumping. |
We drove on to another spot closer to the Purgatory River where there was a little water, but all we saw was a single mule deer slipping away. Very quiet. Very dry. Just a general sense of absence.
Chasing scaled quail involves a lot of a windshield time—and to be honest, I have done better in more agricultural areas, but this trip was degenerating into disaster tourism.
So I admitted that I was doing that, ate a late lunch of crackers and coffee, and drove around.
We drove past the Huerfano River Wind Farm outside Walsenburg—as usual for wind farms, not all the blades were turning—and Fisher got a piss break at Huerfano Butte.
And there is the mystery of those deserted commercial buildings on the gravel road in totally misnamed Apache City.
It was good to be back into the mountains and seeing snow.
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