Antonito

There is more to see in Antonito than murals. The most interesting to us is the Cumbres and Toltec Railroad which runs between Antonito and Chama, New Mexico.  The train is a joint tourism venture between the states of Colorado and New Mexico. We looked around the rail yards one day.

Much of the work on for this railroad is done by volunteers--train buffs who spend part of their summer improving the facilities and rolling stock.  They restore long-abandoned train cars like the one above so they are solid, good looking and well painted.  Below you see one of the women volunteers stenciling and car number or logo on this restored caboose.

We weren't as impressed by another activity in Antonito. As almost everyone knows, Colorado has legalized recreational marijuana. The population of Antonito was 777 in 2013, but it seemed to have as many marijuana outlets as liquor stores, maybe even more. Since Antonito is only 5 miles from New Mexico, we wondered if many of the customers of these businesses come across the state line to indulge. Since we didn't go inside to check it out, we will never know.

Rain, Drugs and Birds

These three things have nothing in common except that they are part of our experience this week. It has been raining in the Rio Grande Valley--good news because of the recent drought. But it also causes problems. Each day we work as tram tour interpreters, we begin our day driving the tram route on a safety check. Yesterday, this is what we came on less than a mile into our drive.



We called dispatch and within 15 minutes a small fork-lift and a mule had arrived and moved the tree.



The Santa Ana Refuge is located along the Rio Grande, the border between the US and Mexico. You have all read about the illegal immigrants, the drug smuggling, and the drug wars. So it isn't surprising that our RV parking area is protected by a fence. A fairly serious fence with barbed wire on the top.



Obviously, that is a good idea. Tuesday evening we heard a loud pick-up truck drive down the road to the east of our compound at a high rate of speed. Within less than two minutes (I think) a US Border Patrol vehicle sped along the same road--followed by another, and another, and another. Finally there were 10 green and white SUVs parked and driving along the levee.



We don't know if they made any arrests, but we did see them loading bales of plastic-wrapped drugs into one vehicle.



We see so much of the Border Patrol, we feel relatively safe. We just hope neither the drug cartels nor the smugglers and ICE get in a shoot-out near us.

The rain continued today, but it was still necessary to feed the birds on the refuge.
We put out birdseed, oranges and a mixture of corn, sugar and peanut butter to attract all sorts of birds. Here I am, attaching an orange to a tree.



This gives you an idea of the variety of feeders. If you look close, you can see at least five birds in the photo. Click to enlarge and look real close.



This Golden-Fronted Woodpecker is going for the corn and peanut butter mixture.