Saturday, August 21, 2010

Roots n Boots train trip

Colorado is famous for train trips... we decided to take the "festival flyer" on the Rio Grande Railroad from Alamosa to La Veta, which stopped for a concert in a place called Fir. It's not on any map ! What a trip !!!

We left Creede Friday at 6:30 am, ate bfast along the way, got our tickets for the "dome car" and boarded at 9am. First hour was thru high desert... saw deer & coyote, ranchettes etc. Picked up more passengers at Fort Garland... then the next hour wound our way up, UP thru the mountains & forests... saw more deer & elk, then arriving at Fir, a concert venue at the 9,200' La Veta Pass Summit.
Then the train left us !!!! Some passengers went on to La Veta for shopping.


OMG what a place.... in the middle of the mtns and no way to leave ! Even the musicians had to ride up with us on the train. They built a small concert stage, a train depot w/ restrooms, a place for serving food.... but no running water or electricity !!



Everything - even the amplifyers .... were wind & solar powered !!! From noon until 3:30 it was continuous music by folks ya'll have not heard of.... Chuck Pyle, Trout Fishing, Don Anderson and a few local talents. It was loud, funny, great instrumentation, good story telling and just plain good music. And the weather - glorious ! They had bbq plates available for $10, soda & water for only a $1 and even beer/mixed drinks. Even better..... we were able to bring in our own food & non-alcoholic drinks and they rented lawn chairs for only a $1 !
The train was supposed to be back at 3:30, but didn't arrive until 4:15..... seemed it had trouble coming back up the mtn.... wheels kept slipping and they had to hand sand the tracks !!! Okay..... we boarded for our 2 hr trip back... BV and I rode most of the time in the last train car.

Why ??? All the musicians were in the "parlor" having a jam session !!! So we got more music and more fun !!!!!

After having a meal (Colorado Mexican food) and doing some final grocery shopping....... we returned to Creede around 10pm. WHAT A GREAT TRIP !!!!

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