2/20 Saturday

We had a very nice time at the dinner last night.  We sat at a table with a couple who live off the grid about an hour north of here.  He is a retired cabinet maker and I'm not sure if she ever held a job outside of the home, but she does lots of crafts.  Right now she is into felting and making slippers out of the material.  Another couple were not retired, she is designing a line of women's clothing and he is a home inspector.  There was another gentleman who was a retired professor at the table.  Everyone was very nice and we had some interesting conversations.  The dinner was good and we had some interesting entertainment - a guitarist, a small trio of musicians, and a belly dancer.

Another beautiful day here in Alamosa!  We loaded up the back of the car with cardboard and headed out beyond Monte Vista to go to the dump.  The dump was a trip as it was an old tip one in which people dump their refuse in a large hole which is eventually covered with dirt.  The best part of the dump is that there was a sign with a arrow pointing to a Dead Animal Pit - only in the West!      We then parked and walked the Spanish Trail for about an hour.  This trail went from Santa Fe, NM to Los Angeles, CA.  There were places where you could still see the wagon ruts.  We had a great walk - lots of broken glass and pottery from the mid to late 1800's along one part of the trail, lots of small and big animal burrows, ant hills, sagebrush and Spanish bayonet plants, and animal bones (coyote, deer, elk that we could recognize).  After our walk, we went a bit further up the road to Del Norte and stopped into a small family restaurant for lunch.  We came back into Monte Vista and stopped to visit with Louise's friend, Kyle, who was on his lunch break at the clinic.  We drove a short distance and saw Louise's former house and then came back into downtown and stopped into a Thrift Shop.  Dave made the only purchase - an old wooden rolling pin.  We came back into Alamosa and stopped at the hardware store to buy cement to fix the hole the dogs have dug under the gate in the enclosure.  We put our feet up for a bit and then took a walk around the property with the dogs.  We had leftovers for dinner tonight to try and clean out the fridge.  Tomorrow, Louise has invited some friends for dinner so we will do a bit of cleaning and cooking tomorrow.  We have decided to postpone going to the Sand Dunes for another weekend.