A little of Colorado Un poco de Colorado

Uncle Tim goes to the mountains

Getting ready to get ready

I had a hunch when I left my beloved La Vida Nueva in Port Isabel, Texas, it was going to be a long time before I could get back.  I was right.  The recession and some foolish mistakes have cost me dearly.  I am in Denver trying to fix things but the fixing isn't going fast!  Bummer!

Friend, Melquiades Ortiz, on top of treacherous Loveland Pass!

As I mentioned in prior blogs, one thing I miss in most sailing blogs are the roots.  Where did my fellow sailors come from and how is it they ended up in the sea?  You will get a good idea of where I came from if you subscribe to this blog!

This entry  is about a trip I made to Breckenridge, Colorado.  I have also been involved with the immigrants rights movement and that is taking some time, and helping me keep my thoughts off of my rotten fortune.  

The Argo Mine in Idaho Springs, Colorado.  Considering mining is

unprofitable in the U.S., the owners turned to mining tourists instead of gold these days!

Most of you know my story by now.  I started my sailing trip on Lake Dillon high in the Colorado Rockies.  I brought the boat down the snake River, thereby joining the Colorado river.  I sailed down the Colorado, along the same route as John Wesley Powell.  Better said, I mostly bounced my 37 foot Tayana through the deeps and shallows. 

Melquiades keeps the Statute of
Military hero Dan Conners company

Eventually, I was able to sail onto Lake Powell.  What a spectacular place to sail!  But the lake is way down and you have to watch the depth sounder with great care!  I left Lake Powell at Page, Arizona, and soon after passing Laughlin, Nevada, was able to find a canal deep enough to head East.  It was a hell of a trip spanning many weeks.  I daresay, it compares with the more popular great loop, but because of the Continental Divide it is one way in and one way out!  Actually, I am not sure you could get in.  Getting out is all down hill!

Mason 'd Ski.  Good folks, at least when

I was getting my snow legs 35 years ago!  It is Still around today!

Skiing became one of our big tourist attractions

after soldiers who trained at camp Hale in Colorado

 came back from the war and decided to try it just for fun!

When people spot my home port of "Breckenridge, Colorado", painted on the stern of La Vida Nueva, they smile.  Most don't believe anyone could get a blue water sailor with a six foot draft down the route I describe and they probably have good reason to doubt my claims.  It makes for a great yarn and maybe it happened that way!

My friend, Melquiades Ortiz, joined me for a drive from Denver to Breckenridge, Colorado.  Let me tell you a little known truth about the "Big D" as we call it.  Considering the harsh weather, I don't see why anyone would live there during the God forsaken winter unless they were getting high on weed and skiing every day, or they were simply trapped!  

Monument to mining 

Driving Up Loveland Pass

Melquieades pushes his Dodge Durango up the hill

Summer is very different.  Still, if it were not for the Mountains, you would have to be plain nuts to stake your claim in Denver.  Clearly, when you hear a cool mountain stream flowing by your feet, inhale gulps of crisp mountain air, and watch a cutthroat rise to a fly, the insanity of living in the "Big D" starts to make sense!  In the winter, falling into the marshmallow powder of a deep snow while skiing leaves one with the same conclusion.  The beauty and peace which nature brings to life makes the "Big D" all worth it.  The only thing close to it is El Mar.  That is Spanish for the sea!

Loveland Pass summit

Once you reach the summit of Loveland Pass there is a stairway into the sky.  After making it to the top of the stairs you feel like you are in heaven.  Needless to say, I have had a few spiritual experiences after huffing my way to the top!

Melquiades and I decided to take the old route to Brecky. That took us over Loveland Pass, long feared by truckers and flat landers during snow storms, as one of the most treacherous roads in the country. If you make it up the Colorado River one day be sure to call me and I will come meet you and give you a hearty pat on the back and a quick tour of the mountains!

Stairs into the sky!

We are going up there?  He asked with wide eyes!

Melquiades makes the summit!

I made the summit, too!  (Of course!)

After we froze our nuts off in the wind as it ripped through our clothes, we trekked down to the road, hopped back into the Durango, and started the descent from the mountain peak.  The scenery is breath taking, the cold mountain air stops you in your tracks, and the trip was a total blast!

Once we made it down the steep grades of Loveland Pass we came to spectacular Lake Dillon.  As beautiful as the Lake is, a boat the size of mine is a lot happier splashing in the waves of the Gulf of Mexico!

'

Lake Dillion Cut Disappears into the snow!  The ice will clear in a few weeks!

Today, the last day of ski season, Lake Dillon disappears into the mountain fog and snow.  The Lake takes a sharp turn and runs down the valley towards Dillion.

If you get your boat up the Colorado river to Lake Dillion, be sure to look me up!  It is well worth a side trip up this way! 

Having fun, spirituality, If Billy Graham could have had it so good

Life is to be lived, not spent!

I soon will be 'out there' too!

R  U  with me?

I am working hard to get things set so I can continue with my life journey on the sea.   Business matters have become complicated when I needed them to be simple.  Oh, well, a higher power than me has other plans.  What can I do more than my best?

Until the day comes when I can return to my beloved Tayana 37, La Vida Nueva, I enjoy living the dream along with others.  Hope you do too!

GO W
by Giaccom_Films

Montezuma Hot Springs, NM United World College Armand Hammer

The hottest pool of the Montezuma hot springs feels like a billion pinpricks and is immediately invigorating.

What does the state of New Mexico and the United World College have to do with sailing the Caribbean?   

I love reading the many sailing blogs on the net.  However, what is missing for me, is where my fellow cruisers came from.  How did my fellow sailors get to the Caribbean?  Where did their dream begin?  What are their roots?  The answer gives hope to thousands of young and old alike who dream of one day being “out there”, too. 

  

The trip to Colorado was a lot of fun. On my last day out I was able to stop by one of my favorite haunts, the Montezuma Hot Springs at Pemberton, a tiny city, near Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The Montezuma Hot Springs is more famous for the castle perched above it than for the springs themselves. That is saying quite something since most hot springs have a strong following and diverse reputations.

The Montezuma castle was built by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad as a luxury hotel specifically for the well-to-do. The castle is over 90,000 square feet with 400 rooms. It is actually the third structure built on site as the first one burnt to the ground about a year after completion in 1881. The second structure suffered the same fate on a similar time table. Perhaps the conflagrations were by chance, perhaps through arson or because of bad wiring. These were the first buildings in New Mexico to have electric lighting!

A building of such distinction needed an architect of the era to design it. The famous architectural firm Burnham and Root from Chicago designed the structure. Theodore Roosevelt, who loved the west was a guest, as was Ulysses S. Grant, William Tecumseh Sherman and more notorious guests like Jesse James and Emperor Hirohito from Japan.

Unfortunately, the hotel’s greatest asset, it’s remote setting, was part of it’s undoing.  The immense structure was deemed a financial failure and it closed as a hotel forever on October 31st, 1903. 

The bare knuckles boxer Andrew Chiariglione, better known as Fireman Jim Flynn, used it's vast halls to prepare for his challenge for the world title against Jack Johnson on July 4th of 1912 in nearby Las Vegas, New Mexico.  The training was for naught, as the match was stopped by the Las Vegas Sheriff after Flynn was warned several times against head butting.

"An occasional movie was filmed on site, including The Evil"

The YMCA owned the building for a short time.  The Southern Baptist Church used it as a college from 1922 until 1931.  In 1937 the Catholic Church purchased the old hotel and Mexican Jesuits operated it as a seminary until 1972.  An occasional movie was filmed on site, including The Evil, but mostly the building sat vacant and fell into ruins to the point of being considered unsafe.

In 1981 the spectacular building received a new owner and a new mission.  Armand Hammer purchased the old hotel for use as the US campus of the United World College, or UWC, a school with some mystique.  The College was founded after World War II in an attempt to foster world peace and discourage the nationalism which was, in part, at the root of the world war. 
The college literature states:

"UWC is the only global educational movement that brings together students from all over the world – selected on personal merit, irrespective of race, religion, politics and the ability to pay – with the explicit aim of fostering peace and international understanding."

In order to be selected for study at the college you must be very bright.  Some of the students and faculty tell their stories.

you can raise money for the United World College with everyclick. Go to their web page and choose United World College

You can take a tour of the castle grounds at various times during the year.  I was blazing through New Mexico on my way to a spiritual event in Aurora, Colorado, so I did not have time to take the tour.   The hot springs are another matter! 

"there is an iron ladder which brave bathers use to lower themselves into the caldron"  

Montezuma Hot Springs has one feature most other springs lack:  One very hot pool!  The springs vary in temperature from 98 to 112 degrees.  In the rustic "hot" pool, there is an iron ladder which brave bathers use to lower themselves into the caldron.   

As I dipped my body into the pool a million needles attacked my skin.  It is an immediately invigorating experience!  I can definitely say I will have a bit more empathy for the crab and lobster I hope to consume when I finally get undere way! Hotsprings of New Mexico 

"The buildings are gone and except for rustic soaking tubs the springs are undeveloped"

There are at least three pools to choose from.  The use is fairly light during the week so you don't have to share this gift from higher powers with too many others if you don't want to.  In days gone by the springs were enclosed in bath houses.  However, the buildings are gone and except for rustic soaking tubs the springs are undeveloped.

"Follow the rules, the most enforced of which is no bathing in the buff!"

While entrance into the springs costs nothing, there is a price.  Follow the rules, the most enforced of which is no bathing in the buff!  The county mounty watches the springs like a hawk, and enforces the speed limits on the roads leading to the Montezuma Hot springs.  

While I prefer to bathe in the same suit I was born in, if that is the only way to keep access open, I am for it!  Since I did not bring my suit, I stripped to my underwear which is about all that is required.

I look forward to learning about the history, the people, the culture of the many places I visit on my sailing adventures through the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala and the Caribbean.  I am sure the stories will be as colorful as that of the Montezuma Hot Springs and Montezuma Castle near Las Vegas, New Mexico.  I am also sure I will find symbols of hope for world peace like the one fostered by the United World College (UWC).