Colorado - Days -1 to +3 - Lathrop State Park/Walsenburg

Lathrop State Park, Walsenburg
Monday, 31 August - Thursday, 3 September 2020

I spent most of these 4 days in the campground.  Thanks to having an internet signal, I spent most of the time walking the dogs and working on catching up the blog posts.

I drove into Walsenburg one day for groceries, but the Safeway there, the only grocery store in town, didn't have a lot of what I wanted, so I guess I'll have to wait for La Junta.

While we were in town, I walked the dogs a bit.  It was another hot day, and we'd parked in the shade of the Catholic church, a block off Main Street.  In the next block I saw an abandoned school building - at least I'm pretty sure that's what it was - probably built in the 1930s or 40s, red brick, 2 or 3 stories - you know the type.  All boarded up now, with a construction-type fence around the overgrown lawn.  I wanted to go that way because there's a sidewalk in front of the building, which I figured would keep the dogs out of traffic.

As we got closer, I saw what I assumed was a statue of a deer lying down on the grass in front of the building.  And just as I was concluding it wasn't a statue, the deer turned its head and looked at us.  Above all else I wanted to get us away before the dogs noticed it, which they'd have been bound to do because I could see it was starting to stand up.  I did get us turned around and heading in the other direction without trouble, and when I looked back I saw the adult deer had been joined by a fawn.  For the life of me I can't imagine what they're doing in this fenced off piece of land - how they got there and why they stayed there.  But with the dogs in tow, I sure couldn't check it out.  Very odd.  Even odder because this was 2 blocks off Main St. in the middle of the town, with houses and businesses all around.

Back in the campground, the only wildlife I saw were a multitude of rabbits (early in the morning, flashing their white tails as they ran from us), very pale squirrels, and Magpies.

Magpie: internet photo

Magpie: my photo

I don't remember seeing a Magpie since Alaska, but once seen, never forgotten, as you can probably tell.  They're really big birds, so you can't miss them, let alone mistake them.  There were quite a few in the campground, especially active in the first part of the morning.

That's it for fauna, as far as I saw.  For flora, things were quite different than in Oklahoma.  Almost no stickers, on the plus side.  But plenty of plants that could stick, nonetheless.

a whole field of those little puffy things

these cactus flowers
must have been lovely a few months ago

There were also more flowers than I would have expected in this desert-y environment.

But the dominating features in the environment were the mountains.  That sign back in Walsenburg about it being the Heart of Spanish Peaks country wasn't kidding.

Spanish Peaks from the campground - I can't tell you
which is the east peak and which is the west
because the perspective gets skewed

The Spanish Peaks consist of East Spanish Peak at 12,683' and West Spanish Peak at 13,626'.  They are not part of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which I think are a little bit west of these peaks.

Spanish Peaks, from another angle at another time

mountains to the north or west of the Spanish Peaks -
taken at sunrise from my campsite

again, not the Spanish Peaks, but
next to them from my viewpoint

I assume these other mountains include Blanca Peak at 14,351' - it's farther west (see map below) but, with that height, might look as these do.  If Blanca Peak is one of these, then those are the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which are the southernmost subrange of the Rocky Mountains and run from central Colorado south into northern New Mexico.  I got all that from Wikipedia, of course.  Blanca Peak is the 4th highest summit of the Rockies, so - tall.

this shows that Blanca Peak is
directly west of Walsenburg
and West Spanish Peak is southwest of
town and southeast of Blanca Peak

Although we didn't get the constant wind I experienced most of the month I was in Oklahoma, we certainly had our fair share while we were here and one time got smacked with an exceedingly strong gust.  It actually made a noise, seemed to come out of nowhere, and rocked the RV a bit.  It was so sudden and so strong it startled all of us.

I liked this campground a lot, especially Loop B where we went the first 2 nights and the last night.  On the 1st and 2nd we were in Loop A, which has a lot more trees but is distinctly more popular.  On both those nights Loop A was completely full, while B still had plenty of vacant spaces, and the odd thing about that is those were Tuesday and Wednesday nights which are usually the slowest nights of the week.  It was a relief to me to get back over to Loop B for our last night, even though it started to fill up for the Labor Day weekend.

When I first checked in, the office staff told me I might have had trouble making an online reservation because their system almost crashed: they'd had one cancellation for Friday night - apparently creating the only space available in the campground - and the whole world tried to reserve it at once.  I was really glad I'd made my reservations for the holiday weekend several weeks in advance.  Obviously a lesson I learned well.  Wish I knew which states I'll be in for Thanksgiving and Christmas so I could really plan ahead.

I think I mentioned earlier that CO tacks on a daily fee for anyone entering any state park.  This fee varies from $9-$11, probably depending on how popular the park is.  Here it's a $9 fee, meaning my campground cost would have $9/night added to the price.  Since I knew I'd be staying for 5 nights just at this one campground alone, adding up to $45, I decided to buy the annual pass for $80.  I'm assuming I'll stay enough nights at state parks for the rest of the month to justify the expense - it'll only take 4 more nights to break even, after all.

And I have to say that, if this campground is representative of the rest of their system, the money is being well spent.  The whole place is very clean and well maintained, and I was quite impressed.