Birthday Train Ride 1-31

My (Rebecca's) 28th birthday was yesterday, and Deric surprised me with an all-day adventure that took us from Alamosa to the small town of La Veta and back...aboard a train on the San Luis & Rio Grande Railroad!!  We left at 9am and traveled 3 hours through the majestic Sangre de Cristo mountains.  The weather was perfect--clear, sunny and in the 30's-40's--so we took lots of photos!  We stopped briefly in Fir (La Veta Pass), which is the US's highest railroad point (9,363 feet) before continuing on to La Veta.  We had one hour to explore La Veta (which was about 15 minutes more than we needed.  It's a small town!).  Around 1:45pm, we boarded the train again and headed back to Alamosa, arriving there around 4:30pm (we traveled faster on the way home because we didn't have any freight to haul.  On the way to La Veta, we were pulling several cars filled with soybeans).  It was a wonderful way to celebrate my birthday because it combined several things I love: being with Deric, being surprised, adventure, exploring, and seeing new places.  Plus, we really got a feel for the culture, geography, and history of the San Luis Valley, the place we now call "home." 

About to board, with my coffee and my ticket.

This train station was built in 1907.
A cluster of Fourteeners: Mt. Blanca (14,347 ft.), Mt. Lindsay (14,037 ft.), and Ellingwood Point (14,042 ft.)

The next few are from our brief stop in Fir.

It's not every day that I'm nose-to-nose with a train engine!

It was chilly at that high elevation (over 9,000 ft)!

Our first glimpse of Mt. Mestas.

We had a mile-by-mile guidebook with photos, history, and other information about the sights we were seeing, which made the ride even more interesting.

La Veta's depot.

a crazy sculpture we found.

Main Street.

Random and funny wall mural.

This was our first store to explore.  I took this for you, Gramps and Gram.  Maybe you could move to Alamosa and open up a shop like this.

Our train, minus the freight cars.

That dark mound is what they call a "volcanic plug," whatever that means.

Deric packed a picnic lunch, which we ate on the train.

There's a little deck with open widows on the front of the dining car.  It was chilly, but very neat!

I spent some of the ride talking to family & friends and/or listening to birthday messages. :)

We brought the old camera and had fun with it.

DEER!

Someone's yard, about 15 miles west of Alamosa.

Steeping off in Alamosa.

After our train ride, we headed to Wal-Mart to kill a little time before dinner out at Chili's.  It was a fun birthday!!