8/30/22 AND 8/14/24: Exploring Colorado & Northern New Mexico's Quirky Roadside Attractions!

Almost exactly two years ago, my friend Darlene and I headed for a short getaway from our homes in Littleton, Colorado so she could show her fabulous fiber creations to a gallery in Taos, New Mexico about three hundred miles due south. 

Shortly after leaving Denver's congested southwestern suburbs, we came across the iconic Coney Island Hot Dog Stand in the community of Bailey. Built in 1966, the hot-dog-shaped diner was 42-feet-long and weighed 18 tons. It was way too early for hot dogs so we drove on. Steven had spent several hours scouring the Roadside America website for quirky or amusing places he thought we might be interested in stopping at and the hot dog stand certainly qualified.

Fast forward to August 24th, 2024: Almost exactly two years later, Darlene and I retraced our earlier road trip from Denver’s southwestern suburb of Littleton so she could once again show her fiber creations to the same gallery owner in Taos. Steven found several more Roadside America attractions he thought we might be interested in. The first was also in the quiet mountain town of Bailey also known as Sasquatch or Bigfoot territory! The Sasquatch Outpost, housed in an unremarkable building on Main Street, satisfied locals' curiosity about one of America’s most infamous mythological creatures. As we’d gotten a very early start, Darlene and I didn’t come face to face with any Sasquatch sightings!

Unless otherwise noted, all the pictures are from August 30th, 2022.

Darlene and I could have taken the interstate most of the way to Taos but we chose to drive the back roads instead so we could play tourist along the way as we were in no rush. With views like this, we were sure glad we did!

You know you're in the Wild West when you see an antler signpost!

On a distant, private hillside located on private property in the community of Grant was the 55-foot-tall statue of Christ the King, a gift from the Dower family that was erected in 1933. According to Roadside America, the statue was built as a kind of billboard for what was then a former resort turned into a Catholic summer camp for poor boys and girls. At the time of its construction, it was either the second or third tallest Jesus in the world depending on what you read. As it was very close to the YMCA Santa Maria Camp, I’d always thought it was the Santa Maria statue!

Another view on 8/14/24:

I just realized when doing research for this post that Colorado's state tree was the blue spruce. I would have bet money on the mighty aspen trees we saw on our approach to Kenosha Pass would have garnered the honor of being the state street. 

I wonder what pioneers thought of these magnificent views as they crossed the 10,000-foot-high mountain pass.

Other views of Kenosha Pass on 8/14/24:

Large ranches dotted the valley.

The community of Jefferson was established when the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad stretched its tracks across South Park in 1879. The railroad built a frame depot and a two-story section house at Jefferson. The post office was established on October 3, 1879. 

About a mile off the highway was the small town of Como which became famous in 1859 when prospectors rushed to Tarryall Creek after placer gold was discovered. However, the town got its start as a coal mining camp when Italian immigrants came to mine coal and named the camp after Lake Como in Italy. In 1885, a mine blast killed 13 Chinese workers but their names were never recorded nor were their bodies recovered. Eight years later, a blast at the King Coal Mines killed 25 Italian miners. Gravestones in the Como cemetery recorded the Italian immigrants who lost their lives. 

The mining camp was transformed when the Denver, South Park & Pacific Railroad reached Como in June of 1879 and built a train depot. Initially, it was only a station stop as the line worked its way toward Buena Vista and its goal of Gunnison in southwest Colorado. But when the South Park, as it became known in 1881, built a new line north from Como over Boreas Pass, the small town became an important division point on the railroad. 

When the Como Roundhouse was built in 1881 by Italian stonemasons, it originally housed six engine bays where the steam engines could be rebuilt locally. The roundhouse was used to store and service railroad locomotives. Its name derived from its shape so it could be arranged around a turntable so that tracks could be placed in a relatively compact space. By the 1890s, thirteen additional stalls were added to the roundhouse. 

A paint store somewhere must be kept busy to supply all the brightly colored homes we saw in the very small town!

The former school which dated from 1883 was now the Como Community Center and Museum that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

I think this was Como's former Catholic church.

Darlene and I wondered how the residents of historic Como eke out a living and where they work as there were no visible shops or businesses and nothing nearby.

Main Street in the town of Fairplay:

Burros played a critical role in the Old West. The Fairplay Chamber of Commerce came up with the idea of a burro race in 1949 to commemorate the early Gold Rush days and the burros that made it possible. The race would run through the mining areas that had been served by the burros, from Leadville to Fairplay over Mosquito Pass past some of the richest mines in the state. When twenty, one-man burro teams took off in July of 1949, it was the world's first official burro race. 

The race is a grueling challenge for both the racer and the burro, starting at an elevation of over 10,000 feet before ascending over rocky and steep terrain to reach an elevation of over 13,000 feet and a distance of over twenty-nine miles. The racers are allowed to walk, run, or even carry their burros but are not allowed to ride them at all. No prods are permitted to increase the burro's progress. Each burro is equipped with a regulation pack saddle with 33-pound weights and old-time prospectors' equipment like a gold pan, pick, and shovel.

Fairplay's Hand Hotel was built in 1931 by Jake and Jessie Hand and was furnished with Western and Indian memorabilia from the South Park area.

Darlene on the right:

Close to the small town of Hartsell, there were some amusing figures atop the entrance to a cement factory.

It was a little concerning seeing several signs warning of falling rocks as we know people die every year on Colorado's highways as a result of rocks falling on their cars. 

How unbelievably gorgeous the mountain views are virtually in our own backyard as we entered Chaffee County. It was a great opportunity to explore 'Colorful Colorado' and not just the great beyond for a change as, in just a couple of weeks, Steven and I would be leaving for an extended trip to Central America.

Colorado's Collegiate Peaks' mountain range: 

Seeing hundreds of American flags lining both sides of the highway near Poncha Springs was a stirring sight. I wondered if the flags were because of the upcoming Labor Day holiday. Poncha Springs is known as the Crossroads of the Rockies because it's where Hwy. 50 and Hwy. 285 intersect.

When Darlene and I drove past Poncha Springs this time, we commented on how the spine of the mountain looked like a dinosaur's back. 

Steven hit the jackpot when he suggested Darlene and I stop by the UFO Watch Tower, an observation platform and campground north of Hooper in San Luis Valley where tales of UFO sightings have been reported. Cattle farmer Judy Messoline converted her barn into a tourist attraction in 2000 when she was facing financial troubles.

Arguably Colorado's most unique roadside attraction, the UFO Watch Tower invites extraterrestrial seekers and curious minds alike to the watch tower for a chance to spot an alien or UFO for themselves! Allegedly, this location has hosted numerous UFO sightings over the years, which could in part be possible thanks to Alamosa's vast and unfiltered view of the night sky. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is right around the corner and has been designated as an International Dark Sky Park, because of the area's exceptional stargazing vantage point.

The UFO Watch Tower began as a joke. After selling her cattle, Judy was working at a gas station in town, and the locals who stopped by mentioned seeing odd things in the cold night skies of the valley. One farmer jokingly suggested that Judy use her rangeland to build an observation tower. She knew that UFO-watchers would sometimes visit her ranch after dark, so she opened a campground, had a small stucco saucer dome built as a gift shop, and surrounded it with a ten-foot-high viewing platform.

The stretch of Colorado Highway 117 has been named Cosmic Highway! 

Photos courtesy of Roadside America.

The Watch Tower was a 10-foot observation deck with a 50-person capacity atop a geodesic dome. I read that some days only a few people stop by for pop and snacks but on other days more than 100 people drop in to take pictures and tell Judy stories about alien sightings and encounters. 

The flat-as-a-pancake desert rangeland halfway between Salida and Alamosa and bounded by the La Garita and Sangre de Cristo mountains may be the perfect location for the world's only UFO Watch Tower according to Christopher O'Brien who has written several books on mysterious phenomena and stated many of the reports he has investigated come from observers in the Hooper area and that sightings of UFOs in the area date to the 1940s. 

A sign in the gift shop said there had been documented UFO sightings in the San Luis Valley since the 1560s and that Spanish explorers had written in their journals about what they'd seen. Since opening the Watch Tower in 2000, Judy reported there have been 286 sightings just from the tower which doesn't include sightings from other spots in the valley. Visitors were encouraged to periodically glance up at the night sky while visiting here or elsewhere as you never know what you might see! 

Judy told us she'd had more than ten thousand visitors last year so was obviously onto something that piqued people's curiosity about the unknown! Even for non-believers, it was a hugely fun and memorable stop!

With a population of about ten thousand, Alamosa is the commercial center of the San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado.

Thanks to Steven's sleuthing a few weeks ago, Darlene and I 'discovered' Old Mose Grizzly in front of the Rex Activity Center at Adams State University in Alamosa. According to the plaque on the base of his life-size statue, the 12-foot-tall "King of the Grizzlies" was the largest and "most dreaded" bear ever shot in Colorado. He garnered the name "Old Mose" because he would "mosey" wherever he pleased. He was both hated and feared for what the plaque vaguely describes as "a myriad of depredations" which included the claimed deaths of over 800 cattle and three bear hunters.

Old Mose weighed over 1,300 pounds when he was shot dead by two bear hunters who used a pack of dogs to corner him on April 30, 1904. His body, they said, had accumulated over 100 bullet wounds. Fast forward a century: With no more grizzly bears in Colorado, it was easy to love Old Mose. He became the mascot of the Adams State Grizzlies sports teams, and in 2006 the college erected this bronze in his honor.

Colorado's San Luis Valley is home to a maelstrom of rather unusual and peculiar things, not just the UFO Watch Tower! After driving 28 miles south of Alamosa along Hwy. 285, we came across the small town of Antonito where rising out of an ordinary neighborhood of homes, was Cano’s Castle. The castle is a set of four gleaming towers, built single-handedly by Dominic “Cano” Espinoza, a Native American Vietnam vet. Don’t let the name fool as it’s not what you might expect as a castle. What some might view as a pile of junk others consider a unique piece of art. Cano began building his castle largely out of beer cans and other metal refuse, over 35 years ago as thanks to God for surviving the Vietnam War. As a never-ending construction project, Cano continues to add to the structure bit by bit.

Scrap aluminum gives the castle its dazzle: wire, hubcaps, grills, screen doors, and window casements. Bicycle reflectors add notes of color. Countless beer cans, carefully cut apart, predominate. The tops and bottoms are nailed to the walls in repeating patterns; the middle parts have been turned inside-out and hammered flat to create aluminum siding.

Another view on 8/15/24: 

Though he may have begun life as Dominic Espinosa, there are reports that Cano invented his name because of all of the beer cans he used to 'adorn' his castle. He calls his creation "Jesus' Castle" and has said that Jesus had been living in it since 1987. 

I felt bad for the horse in the tiny enclosure as it had no room to roam. When Darlene and I returned a couple of weeks ago, the horse was no longer there.

If you’re a movie buff, you’ll remember the Indiana Jones series of films. His childhood home, built in 1888, was also located in Antonito and was featured in the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The house was converted into a bed and breakfast but looked closed when Darlene and I stopped by a few weeks ago. That was a shame as we would have liked to peek in and see the Indiana Jones memorabilia from all over the world. 

I got a much better photo this time of the decorative silos just outside Antonito. The wrap-around mural on the 40-foot-high silos featured depictions of natives, settlers, pioneers, farmers, railroads, and the magnificent San Luis Valley landscape. All are important aspects of the rich history of the region. The murals were created by local artist Fred Haberlein.

I wonder if Haberlein was also responsible for the mural on the town's Main St. that caught my eye when we drove through Antonito just recently. 

Anotonito's Steam Train Hotel looked like it had found a new lease on life.

A few miles later a sign welcomed us to New Mexico.

About 15 miles north of Taos was Earthship Biotecture, a style of architecture developed in the late 20th century to the early 21st century by architect Michael Reynolds in the desert of northern New Mexico, near the Rio Grande River. An earthship was a type of house built with natural and recycled materials with energy conservation in mind. 

Reynolds developed the Earthship design intending them to be "off-the-grid-ready" homes, with minimal reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels. They are constructed to use available natural resources, especially energy from the sun and rainwater. They are designed with thermal mass construction and natural cross-ventilation to regulate indoor temperature, and the designs are intentionally uncomplicated and mainly single-story so that people with little building knowledge can construct them.

The Visitor Center's interior, non-loading walls were constructed using aluminum cans and adobe as cans were a 'natural' resource that could be found almost anywhere and reduced the amount of raw building materials that were needed. The cans, however, didn't serve any insulative or structural purpose. Approximately two inches of adobe was placed around each can.

Some of the walls had been filled with tightly packed, discarded car tires, a resource found virtually everywhere in the world. When the tires were crammed with earth, they created a thermal mass that passively heated and cooled the buildings by absorbing heat when the surroundings were hotter and releasing heat when the surroundings were cooler. 

As there was no school in the far-flung development, children were bused into Taos about 15 minutes away.

There's no denying the jaw-dropping views the residents have of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains from each of their Earthships - yes, that's what each home is called!

Touring the Earthship Visitor Center was certainly great food for thought as to how we can all be more resourceful when building and maintaining homes. However, I'm quite content to stay put where we are.

I'll freely admit I'm not a big fan of heights so walking across each of the 1,257 wooden planks of the Rio Gorge Bridge suspended 956 feet over the Arkansas River gave me a minor case of the heebie jeebies. I guess it was somewhat reassuring to know that 250 planks are replaced every year but I just hoped that had been done before we walked and drove across it!

America’s highest suspension bridge was built in 1929 for visitors to enjoy the natural beauty of this geologic wonder. 

The Arkansas River helped reveal prehistoric rock, giving researchers clues to Colorado’s ancient climate. According to the gorge's website, the Rio Gorge rock walls consist of granite and gneiss of the pre-Cambrian age, which are about four billion years old. Though our palms were sweaty with the bridge’s height, it did reveal a bird’s eye view of breathtaking landscapes.

A few miles to Taos but that will wait until the next post!

Next post: Taos for the night in 2022 but only for a few hours a few weeks ago before heading back north toward Colorado again. 

Posted on September 3rd, 2024 from our home in the suburb of Littleton. Wherever you are, take care of yourself and your loved ones and I hope you enjoy the waning days of summer!