We first visited this area not far from Brazos, New Mexico, back in the analog age of the 1990s with two old friends, Ruby and Axel. Camera technology had failed people as the cost of getting a somewhat good photo or two from expensive film was skyrocketing, so people just stopped taking so many photos. Had the world looked so incredibly well-defined, colorful, and grain-free back then, I believe there would have been no need for digital cameras, but Kodak failed us. Today, though, this is what northern New Mexico looks like, and I think everyone should come and see it for themselves.

Look hard, those are the faces that are in the mode of celebrating America’s Declaration of Independence because if you’ve not noticed the date, it’s the 4th of July.

If this were all you ever knew about Colorado and you allowed this to be the image of the state, minus the snow-capped Rockies, of course, then you’d have a pretty good sense of the place. Oh, I should add, just forget about the eastern half of Colorado as it’s just flat and Great Plains-y.

With over 23,000,000 waterfalls, Colorado has more of these features where water tumbles over edges than anywhere else on Earth, including the United States.

Oh my god, are those Stukas over Colorado, or am I in Disneyland?

Maybe those planes were effectively the announcement that festivities were getting underway here at the 4th of July parade in Pagosa Springs, Colorado? Yeah, that’s what that was.

If we’ve learned nothing else, it would be that the 4th of July should be spent not just once but multiple times in small towns as there’s something wholesome (sorry for the corny word) about being in places where simple things are appreciated and celebrated. You should check out our trip from a few years ago to Canadian, Texas to see that we really do love these small-town American adventures.

Sorry about the irreverence of this post and its potential to veer out of control instead of just respecting the holiday, but that reference above regarding the Stukas Over Disneyland was a nod to the punk band The Dickies. Well, that memory took me over to YouTube to check out this band I last listened to back in the late 1970s, and it turns out that I needed to listen to them in real punk rock style. Huh, you’re not sure what I mean? Ya know how the songs were short? Listening to those hits all these years later, I managed about 20 seconds of Where Did His Eyes Go? before skipping to Attack of the Mole Men. I made it about 15 seconds into that before clicking on I’m a Chollo, which was pretty good for almost 45 seconds before I’d had enough of this punk rock session.

If only this horse-drawn buggy had a gun turret mounted somewhere, anywhere, even on the horse, this photo could have been the epitome of what it means to be America: flags, guns, streets, sitting around, beer at the saloon, food, and well, that’s enough.

Traveling north on Wolf Creek Pass – US Highway 160 north of Pagosa Springs, Colorado. There’s a song from C.W. McCall penned in 1975 titled Wolf Creek Pass; it’s not punk, nope, it’s worse, don’t listen to this turd.

Over the course of this blog post, we are working to document no less than 10% of all waterfalls in this great wet state. This is but number two, with only 2,299,998 left to go.

Lunch was at the Peace of Art Cafe in Del Norte, Colorado. This is not their location.

Russell Lakes State Wildlife Area in Saguache, Colorado, as I said, is wet. Just last month, with my mother-in-law Jutta in tow, we all went out on a Wandering Out West road trip, a weekend really, but during that time, we detoured, and then more than a dozen years later, when I was actually writing that post, we had to figure out where the heck we had gone. Well, same thing here as this is yet another post that didn’t see the light of day until August 2022. Where are we?

A couple of days ago we had no idea where these pictures were taken, not a clue. So, while I was out writing whatever stuff I made up for that other post, Caroline and her super-sleuthy skills pegged it. The motivation back then to take this 40-mile detour north is lost by now, but that’s what we did, and instead of looping around towards the Great Sand Dunes National Park, we apparently turned around and went south the way we came.

Maybe you are wondering about the scattershot writing style and want to ask, “What’s up with this post, John?” Just as we are out celebrating the 4th, we are free to see what we want, photograph what we want, and say any old crap we want because this is America.

Birds fly, while some quack and others do both.

San Isadore Church ruin in Las Mesitas, Colorado west of Antonito, Colorado.

Traveling the Cumbres Pass via Highway 17 from Antonito, Colorado, to Chama, New Mexico, and stopping at the Conejos River. If you are wondering if I’ll return to snark, punk references, or lay down some, “I’m American, which means I have the freedom to be as crazy as I want,” you might be looking for a while because by now I just want to be done with these old posts.

Jeez, this road is long. I mean the one where I account for every travel day Caroline and I have taken since we started taking digital photos. Today, meaning this particular July 4th, 2009, represents our 663rd day away from Phoenix, Arizona. It was back on August 8th, 1999, that I found our oldest digital image of us traveling to Los Angeles, California, with friends; that is Day 1 in my grand index. This means that I’m in the first ten years of our travels in the digital photography age and still have 13 more years to ensure I’ve covered here on this blog. Remember, although I reference 2009 here, I’m writing this sitting in a Starbucks at 32nd Street and Union Hills Drive on August 9th, 2022.

The paragraph above is called filler for the empty mind because I didn’t know what else to say, so I go for relatively superfluous stuff that, while conveying something, really has nothing to do at all with our drive to Colorado and return to New Mexico on this day.

Ah, this is the Cumbres Pass area that will play a significant role in tomorrow’s big adventure.

At this moment, Caroline and I stood at the most beautiful scene we’d ever seen and would ever see on this particular day at the time we stopped to take it all in. Sure, there will be others in the future, but never again will we capture this moment like we did at this moment.

Cumbres and Toltec Steam Train in Chama, New Mexico, not that we’re going to be on a train tomorrow or anything, but if we were to be on a train, that would be a mighty fine way to spend a day.

I once found something just like that in my Christmas sock but I didn’t own a steam train, so I still wonder just what that signified.

After a ton of joking, one might be inclined to believe that the next thing I share is hyperbole or nonsense, but this part is real and true. This was one of the two best fireworks shows we ever experienced. Right here in Chama, New Mexico, the proximity and acoustics of the show left us in awe.

The other fireworks display that hit hard was at Disneyworld in Orlando back in late 1999; that one brought us to tears.

This is about it. I’m outta stuff to say, and I can’t think of any more witty things to add or draw in, so I’d kind of just like to end this post right here, but there’s the matter of the two photos below this.

Yeah, this is one of them, and the other, as you might have guessed, is just below.

At this moment, I’m feeling like a poor writer as I’ve tried pulling readers all the way to the very last photo without any written payoff other than this mea culpa that I’ve failed to add some compelling narrative of why you’ve traveled all the down to the bottom of this post. On the other hand, there is this spectacular firework image to dazzle your eyes with. Till tomorrow.