Chama was a boomtown in the early 1880's. The town encouraged the industrious and the disreputable alike! The building of the railroad caught the attention of miners, loggers, engineers and contractors. Of course that brought saloons, gambling, moonshine stills and the ladies! There was also cattle and sheep ranching. There is a huge Indian history prior to the 1880's in the Rio Chama Valley to the current day as well!
Thursday evening a group of us headed back to the Cliffview Restaurant for dinner. The food is great with a nice rustic ambiance. The view of the Brazos Cliffs is amazing.
The group that went to dinner from left to right: Irby and Judy, Gail and James, Martha and Bill, Ida and Les, Linda and Polk and Ted and I! Les and I fed the deer again after dinner. This week there were only does around to feed!
Driving home from the restaurant, I happened to catch this sunset picture:
We put up our hummingbird feeder because they are in abundant up here. We have one that is very territorial and keeps the others away. He seems pretty happy with the sugar water! It's fun to watch.
Yesterday Ted and I went in to Pagosa Springs, Colorado (about 45 miles from Chama) for lunch. After lunch we drove west a few more miles to see Chimney Rock, the home of some Puebloan Indians. The clouds had gathered so we did not do the hike out to the rock but did tour the 1/3 mile "Great Kiva" trail. It was built around AD 1084 using sandstone and adobe mud and covered with adobe plaster. It was over 40 feet across and mostly above ground. They would have used a ladder to climb up into the kiva and another ladder back down in it. The Kiva is a structure used for social gatherings, meetings and religious ceremonies. I am pictured in front of the Kiva. In the lower middle picture is the "pit house" or family dwelling. There would have been walls of the same construction supported by four log posts and a ladder entrance. There was also a small ventilation shaft which is almost always on the south side of the building and would have had a vertical "Deflector Stone" to deflect the incoming air around the interior to distribute heat and funnel the smoke up through the ladder hole entrance in the center of the roof!
They would have eaten the pinon tree pine nuts (3,000 calories per pound), maize, beans, berries, roots and seeds, raised turkeys, and hunted big and small game. They don't know why they left but everything was burned purposely. It could have been the hard life here, weather, drought or disease. No way of knowing.
Last night was cards for the ladies and Mexican train for the men. Ted and I both lost, but I was actually very close in "Screwie Lewie" and "Liverpool Rummy"! Lost both in the last hand, and yes I know what close means!
Shopping, history and gatherings (in no particular order!)..."Ain't Life Grand!"
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