La Veta, Colorado - "The Vein"

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 After doing some shopping during our one-night stop in the Walmart parking lot in Alamosa, Colorado, we headed down the road to conquer another Colorado mountain pass. We went up and over LaVeta Pass on the way to our three-night stay at Sammie's RV Park in the town of LaVeta.

This tiny little town wouldn't usually warrant a three-day stop, but it has interesting scenery and some good hiking nearby. La Veta comes from the spanish word for "the vein" because it was the crossroads for travelers going different directions. Because of this busy vein-like intersection, a fort was built for protection. The one tourist attraction in the town of La Veta is the Francisco Fort Museum. It is closed because of Covid, hoping to re-open in 2021. But a welcome sign out front allows visitors to walk into the plaza area to see the exteriors of the historical buildings.

This is the oldest surviving adobe fort in this state. The museum volunteers are using 2020's closing to do repair work on the stucco buildings.

La Veta is also proud of its most famous daughter--Doris Tracy. She received the highest civilian distinction--the Congressional Gold Medal--for her service in World War II. In an era when women weren't allowed to be combat pilots, she still used her aeronautical skills in the war effort. Because of a shortage of pilots during the war, she flew test flights before planes were deployed, and ferried planes to bases for the male combat pilots.

Even though it was once a vein of activity, today this is a sleepy little town. Besides a couple restaurants and a little grocery store that serves ice cream by the dip, there isn't much to do in La Veta. We continuously found deer wandering through this little town. They seem to be everywhere, and we think they might outnumber the human residents in this little village.

It's getting late in the season for spotting flowers, but in our walk through town we found this unusual bloom that was certainly tasty to the local bees.

The main reason we are staying in La Veta is the mountain view. As we look to the south of town, we can see the Spanish Peaks clearly. This double set of peaks is called Wahtoya--roughly translated from the indian language as "breasts of the earth." We'll let you figure out why they got that name. They are certainly a prominent part of the landscape, as they rise 6,000 feet above the surrounding valley.

Driving out of town towards the Spanish Peaks, we can also see one of the geological features that make this mountain range so unique. Radiating out from the mountain peaks are fins of long, narrow rock walls.

Some of these fins of rock have names. This one is called Devil's Staircase for its stairway-like steps that lead higher and higher from the highway towards the peaks.

These fins are made of hard rock, and the softer stone around them has eroded away to leave these narrow walls that can stretch for miles.

Another nearby fin stretches from the highway towards the west peak. This one is named "Profile Rock." Can you see why?

Some see a likeness of George Washington's profile in a section of the wall.

A close-up picture of another section of profile rock shows that even the hard stone of these narrow fins are weathering away. Some sections have holes where the blue sky can be seen through the rocks. It might not be long before George Washington is no longer a part of profile rock.

The Spanish peaks can be seen from every vantage point around town. Our first evening we drove out to a little lake a few miles outside of La Veta. A tall wall cloud was rising up beside the West Spanish Peak, towering beside its 13,623 feet in elevation.

As we walked the dam trail, Denisa looked down to see a doe grazing right beside her. She was very close to the same color as the dry grass here in southeast Colorado.

Then her two fawns came out of the brush, so we got a family portrait this evening.

We stayed at Wahatoya Lake until the sun dipped below the horizon--lighting up the water and silhouetting the mountains east of town.

But it was the two Spanish peaks south of town that have the grandest silhouette--along with that wall cloud that was now changing colors with the sunset. We have wandered over La Veta pass today, and another bit of God's wonders this evening.