A Slice of Life
Bill Lites
From there, we made a side trip to Westcliffe, Colorado, located in the Wet Mountain Valley, just east of the San De Cristo Mountains. Westcliffe boomed in the 1880s with Silver mining driving the economy. The Denver & Rio Grande Railroad ran through Westcliffe, at the time, making it the only rail link in the valley. After the mining interests ran out, the Westcliffe portion of the railroad was finally closed in 1937, and the town began to settle into the quiet valley community it now is.
DiVoran’s parents moved to Westcliffe after her father came home from WWII. Then in 1946, DiVoran’s parents opened Min’s Café in downtown Westcliffe and she and her brother David spent many hours working in the family owned restaurant on Main Street.
Later, her parents bought the old 1880’s Westcliffe train station, and converted it into their home, where DiVoran had an unobstructed view of the San De Cristo Mountains from her upstairs bedroom window.
DiVoran remembers Westcliffe as a most wonderful place where she lived, rode horses in the open fields, and went to grades 2 thru 4 in a one-room schoolhouse, and where she made some lifelong friends. By the way, she still corresponds with one of those friends, and that very schoolhouse is still standing, and has been converted into a very interesting museum.
One of our most memorable experiences during that visit was our trip from Westcliffe up the County 160/Hermit Road into the mountains to spend the night at Hermit lake. As DiVoran remembered, the road had been maintained by the county, for the popular summer lake activities. However, we found the road in poor condition as we headed up the mountain toward the lake. The first part of the road wasn’t too bad as we came out of the valley, so we thought we could make the trip without any problems. The picture below shows you how deceiving that road was.
It wasn’t long before we realized we should be driving a 4-wheel drive vehicle like the other people we saw up there, not a Ford LTD station wagon pulling a tent camper. In some places the road was so steep and bolder strewn that I thought, for sure, we were going to tear the oil pan out of the bottom of the car. But, once we started up the mountain, there was no place for us to turn around, so we had to just keep going till we got to the lake. The picture below of Hermit road is no exaggeration, I couldn’t believe we actually made it!
It took us two nerve-wracking hours to travel the approximate five miles to the lake. By the time we got there, it was starting to get dark and we were all hungry, so we leveled and set up the camper, ate dinner and spent a cold night in the lake parking area at near 11,400 feet elevation. The next morning, we waited for it to warm up enough for to have a leisurely breakfast, then we walked up the trail, and took in the beauty of the lake.
When we got ready to begin the trip back down the mountain to Westcliffe, the car wouldn’t start. It seems we had developed tiny cracks in the sparkplug wires. Now, with the air at this high altitude being so thin, the spark was jumping from the sparkplug wires to the block, and not to the plugs. I removed the wire from each plug, cleaned and dried it, wrapped electrical tape around it, and reinstalled it. That coupled with the rising temperature, seemed to do the trick. With the car running, we now embarked on our two-hour adventure back down the mountain to Westcliffe. WOW– What a trip! I sure don’t want to ever have to make a trip like that again.
—-To Be Continued—-
Old Things R New 