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EnCompass®
The AAA Companion
March|April 2005
Volume 79 Issue 2
Volume 79 Issue 2
My Colorado
By Linda List
The mining towns and old hotels of Colorado are filled with spirits, left behind from our raucous, rough-and-tumble Western past. I feel their presence whenever I travel around this state. One cold, frosty night, driving from Vail to Durango, we came into the town of Poncha Springs and stopped at an old hotel, a former stagecoach stop that was still operating. There were bathrooms down the hall from our room, one for men and one for women guests. The beds were white iron and there was a nightstand in each room; antiques and relics of the Wild West surrounded us. I didn't need to imagine what it was like back in the stagecoach days: time hadn't changed anything here.
The next morning we explored a bit. In a back room, we came upon a wondrous, glorious old piano. Transported by covered wagon to the hotel long ago, it had been there ever since. I could almost hear the tinkling of the ivory keys, the dance hall girls laughing, a gunfight erupting among gamblers seated in the nearby bar. I didn't see any ghostly shadows, but I felt their presence-and the bullet holes in the old wooden staircase showed that the pictures in my mind were not just flights of fancy. But it was time to continue our journey. As we drove out of town I noticed a hillside ledge following the highway, a little above the paved road. It was the old stagecoach road, clearly outlined by new-fallen snow. As my eye followed the ledge, I could see, for just one quick moment, the stagecoach rolling along, a dog barking as it passed, the horses' hooves pounding the earth.
Ghosts? I don't know, but I can feel spirits of our colorful past whenever I explore the backroads of this exciting state.