Fun Foraging

November 28, 2021

Hello again,

Well, we had a little walkabout over the weekend this weekend, enjoying the late, late summer that we have suddenly found ourselves in. It has been absolutely beautiful with clear skies and abundant sunshine and warm days and comfortable nights...great early winter weather but probably an indication of future fire weather to come. We've been wanting to check out a cafe on the other side of Las Vegas and finally threw the dogs into the car, hopped in and let the day take us. We were heading to the Watrous Coffee House in the little town of the same name, about 40 miles northeast of us. This tiny little place sits on the Santa Fe Trail at the beautiful, wet and green confluence of multiple rivers and trails. Samuel Watrous founded this settlement in the late 1840s and built a ranch and trading post to supply people on the trail with just about anything that they needed, including his own beef. We found the charming little cafe and I ordered a cortado(espresso cut with milk) and Erin had one of her beloved soy lattes, both accompanied by a breakfast burrito. After driving by Watrous's original store, we kept wandering north in search of Kit Carson's ranch on the east side of the Rockies, in Rayado, close to where the national camp is for the Boy Scouts. Not heading far enough into the mountains to find this, we ended up in Raton to see if the Asian-influenced hot dog restaurant Year of the Dog was open. It wasn't(this has been on Erin's radar for some time now but we keep missing it) so we decided to head up and over Raton Pass to Trinidad, CO to see if a new Denver-based chain of pizza shops was open yet there. I don't know how she finds out all of these things, but when it comes to food, she has a way of sniffing out the best!

So, we made the quick drive over the pass to Trinidad, about twenty miles away, to check out Sexy Pizza(https://sexy.pizza/), only to find it still getting set up for their grand opening. This chain has four restaurants in Denver and are now opening up their first non-Denver location in Trinidad. Everything, of course, is hand-tossed and oven-baked and they're also very big on local philanthropy. So, without a quick go-to otherwise there, and having been in town a few times beforehand, we drove around a little outside of the downtown section to fill in a few of our geographic gaps and found our way eventually to Simpson's Rest, a sandstone bluff overlooking the town from the north that is named after an early frontiersman who settled here after coal was found in the mountains during the Civil War. There is a little cemetery for George Simpson, who died in 1885, up there and an amazing view of Fisher's Peak to the south of town, Trinidad Lake to the west of town(from the Purgatoire River being dammed), the larger, usually snow-capped granite domes of the Colorado Rockies further to the west and the flat, far-out sprawl of the plains to the east. To cap it all off, there's a huge, old-style line of letters that spell out Trinidad up there that can be seen from town, down below, especially when lit up at night. So, to finish our wanderings, we headed back south over the pass to Raton again and pulled up in front of Bruno's Pizza & Wings in the downtown where all the lovely old buildings try to one up each other in their faded glory from the rail and coal days of yore. We were going to order two pies to go and come back and pick them up, but then decided to sit at the bar and each have a draft beer: one from Santa Fe Brewing Company and the other from around the corner, in Raton, at the Colfax Ale Cellar. The beers were great and so was the pizza, which , between us and the dogs, largely didn't make it home to become leftovers. What a fun day, and all so close-by, with Trinidad, our furthest point, only two hours north of us. I know I sound like a broken record, but we just can't get enough of the area east of the Rockies where they slam into the plains...we keep finding the coolest places there!

So, now for some pictures. My camera largely stayed in the car during our trip, but I did get it out to take a bunch of pictures at Simpson's Rest and its lovely perch about 350' above town. First up, Fisher's Peak to the south of town, including the view of Trinidad itself at its feet. Next, two shots looking west towards more mountains, including a nice shot of Erin in one of them. Then, two shots of Simpson's actual grave and cemetery. Next up, two shots to the east, looking out over the plains. Then, two shots of Trinidad Lake to the west of town(a state park, as is the nearby Fisher's Peak). And, then, four different shots of the old Trinidad sign that overlooks the town. And, finally, a shot from street level showing how Simpson's Rest, and the Trinidad sign, loom largely over the town. We just can't seem to get enough of these old Santa Fe Trail/early railroad towns like Las Vegas, Raton and, of course, Trinidad! They're all so interesting and picturesque, tossed up onto the foot of the Rockies from the swollen high plains to the east!

Take care.