I left Albuquerque around 10am this morning and headed up the 25 Fwy through Santa Fe. It’s a pretty drive northwards of Santa Fe, driving through the evergreens, but then you hit the plateau again, and it’s just brown, brown, brown, and flat, flat, flat, with occasional buttes, etc. It almost made driving through the Mojave seem appealing! I stopped to grab some lunch in Las Vegas (no, not sin city – Las Vegas, New Mexico). It’s not a tiny town, but not particularly big either. And to be honest, had I not stopped, I doubt I would have missed it. But I was hungry, and managed to have a semi-decent meal at Arby’s on one of the main drags of town.
I got back on my way, driving through more flat, brown land – snore. It really wasn’t a very memorable drive – I think I zoned out through much of it. Once you get closer to the Colorado border, you go up in elevation again and get some more evergreen. It was a nice breakup to the brown boredom.
Just over the border, in the mountains, you come to the town of Trinity. Its claim to fame (at least in the more modern age) is that until 2010, it was the sex change capital of the U.S. A surgeon based there started doing surgeries back in the late 60s, early 70s. When he retired, he turned the practice over to a transgendered surgeon whom he trained, and she kept it up until 2010, when she moved the practice to the Bay Area. Trinity’s other claim to fame is that it was a coal mining town.
I walked around the old downtown, which has managed to preserve its turn of the century architecture and there are some Victoria homes in the hills. It reminds me a little of the area my cousin Jenny lives in (Nevada City, CA): it sits on a hillside, has preserved many of its old buildings, and has managed to revitalize itself.
I moved on to Pueblo – my dad’s home town. I wanted to stop there while it was still light out and see if I could snap some pictures of the area he lived in. I visited his old high school (the original building – built in 1918 – still stands! It was the town fallout shelter during the Cold War era). I walked around the halls for a little bit and introduced myself to the current principal (didn’t want them wandering who the hell I was and why I was snapping photos of the school). She was happy to meet the son of a former student and hear how his life had turned out (my dad’s, not mine). She, of course, was way too young to have been there when he attended, but she was still interested.
A lot of the old downtown still stands too, which I thought was neat. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get ahold of my dad to find out what his address was until after I was long gone, but I had drove around the neighborhood approximal to where he lived. Much of it was still intact.
It started getting dark (very early here!) so I left and headed towards Colorado Springs where I sit now, drinking a coffee and killing time. Not sure if we’ll go out to dinner tonight or not since Julie won’t be home until after 8. Looking forward to spending some time with a dear, old friend.
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