Fall Colors

The other day Les and I took a drive on our favorite road.  Highway 12, otherwise knows as "The Highway of Legends," has some very beautiful scenery.  And with fall firmly upon us, the colors were spectacular!

As you start on the drive from Trinidad, you follow the river up the valley.  Farmhouses and small communities dot the bucolic setting -- some nearly new and some well over a century old.  Some of these homes were built in a factory and some were built from Mother Earth with mud and straw and sweat.  Some are loved and cared for -- some have long been forgotten.

As you pass through the small villages of Primero, Segundo, Weston and Stonewall, the homes and farms begin to diminish leaving rich, untouched Colorado scenery to appreciate. 

In Stonewall, there is a stone wall.  (Who would have thought?!)  This wall, built by God from volcanic rock, is one of many that meander across these Southern Colorado mountains.  Rich colors adorn the wall.  In many places, the wall is a sheer drop 100' on both sides.  In other places, the wall has been worn down by wind, rain and by time to just a few feet -- however it is no less magnificent.

One of the legends of this stone wall has to do with the "Devil's Stairs."  It is said that long ago the devil came from Hell and used the stone wall as his stairs.  He sat upon the mountains and surveyed the land.  God learned of this and saw the beauty of the valley and the mountains.  He took it as His own and forbade the devil to ever appear there again.