We are currently enjoying a "warm" spell sandwiched between cold spells. The "polar air masses" shown on TV lately have mostly passed to the north of us, dropping snow in the Denver area but not here. In fact, most of our snow here in the valley has melted, although the surrounding "high country" still has a nice coating.
One of the places I go for sunsets is a large adobe mesa on the edge of town, strangely enough known as Sunset Mesa. The mesa is home to about a dozen soccer fields, several baseball fields and basketball courts, hiking trails, communication towers, a cemetery known as Grand View, several businesses and homes, as well as a lot of vacant land. In other words, this is a large piece of land with a good view of town and the nearby mountains. Even when the sunset doesn't cooperate, good scenes can still be found.
More than a week since any day trip, I felt the need to get out, no matter what the conditions, so I jumped in the LRJ and headed south. I drove through Ridgway and on to the tiny village of Placerville. This route skirts around the northern edge of the San Juan range, which was totally covered in clouds, some of them very interesting.
Taking a short side trip on Last Dollar Road, I was seeing the snow up close and personal.
Back on track, I reached Placerville in only a few minutes and pulled onto Front Street. Although I've driven through here many times, this was the first time of actually going into the "main street" of the town. Founded in the late 1800s as a mining camp, the town's buildings reflect that time period. The more modern homes are scattered along the San Miguel River and on the mountainsides that form the valley.
The river has a lot of ice and snow along its banks.
The pond in the county park is also frozen, but the sign declares "Thin Ice". I'm not sure how the ring of snow on the ice got there, since the ice won't support any significant weight yet.
On my way home, I snapped a few more of the San Juans.
Once again, we had one of those incredible sunsets that seem to color the entire sky. Almost every direction had a great view.
OMG . . those sunsets are just fabulous . . .
ReplyDeleteThanks, Judy.
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