and headed in that direction.
I drove west through the Curecanti National Recreation Area which is home to Blue Mesa and
Morrow Point and then through the Black Canyon National Park and seeing towering and
majestic San Juan Mountains to the south, the expansive Uncompahgre Plateau to the west,
and worlds largest flat top mountain, Grand Mesa to the north, Montrose and the valley it
was in caught my attention.
The Uncompghre valley has a moderate climate, rich soils and a good irrigation system that supplies
thousands of acres of irrigated cropland, fruit orchards, vineyards and
ranch land. Past the mesas lie an awesome scenic wonderland abundant with some of
Colorado’s finest hunting, fishing, camping, skiing and snowmobiling. I decided to spend more time here.
I found a job driving a lumber truck to the towns of Crested Butte, Silverton, Telluride, and Ouray. Other locations on the western slope like Hotchkiss, Paonia and Cederedge were also occasionally visited.
The first towns mentioned were old mining towns that in 1973 were being converted to ski resorts. While I was enjoying fishing, hiking and
the scenic vistas Cynde was busy back in Illinois making our August wedding plans.
When I arrived back in Illinois, Cynde had the wedding arrangements all planned out and
all I had to do is show up at the church on time. This was not going to be a problem but my uncle Ed
had a friend that had a used car lot in Gary, Indiana and he had just purchased at the
South Chicago Auto Auction three cars. He needed to get them from the Auto Auction to the
car lot in Gary and my uncle asked if my brother and I with uncle Ed taking the third car
could drive them on the morning of my wedding day to Indiana. Of course it would not be a problem as we had
plenty of time if we left early that morning and then when we arrived in Indiana my uncles friend had
a plane and would fly us back home with plans to do a quick fly-over of the brides home.
We left right on time from the auto auction and headed to Indiana on I-80. Shortly after we
got on the interstate the traffic slowed down to a crawl and then stop and go traffic for at least an hour which
put us way behind schedule. There were no cell phones in 1973 and no way to contact Cynde
and let her know that we would be late.
About this time Cynde was starting to worry. I should have been there or at least called
and no contact from Doug. Did he chicken out and head back to Colorado? Well we finally
arrived at the car lot and quickly drove to the plane and were flown back to home but there was no
time for the fly-over. We were a little late but the wedding went off as planned and then a
really nice reception.
The next morning we headed off to Colorado.
I had some friends at the lumberyard that wanted to
chivalree us but I really worried how Cynde would take to being pushed down Main Street
in Montrose in a wheelbarrow and the other activities they wanted to do so I talked them out of
the chivalree.
We lived in Montrose first but shortly after this we bought a 120 acre ranch
five miles west of Delta, Colorado. The only buildings on the ranch were a log house built
in the 1930's, one enclosed shed and an open shed for livestock.
This log house was built in the 1930's by the original homesteaders bringing down logs from the mountains with a team of horses.
They had used adobe to chink between the logs and I repaired those places where it had fallen out. ....
The ranch would have been desert since the average amount of annual precipitation is only 8.62 inches (219.0 mm)and no doubt was
desert before irrigation water was brought from the mountains. In 1909
a 5.8 mile Gunnison tunnel started sending water from the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River to the Uncompahgre Valley.
Our ranch on the north end of the valley was one of the last to receive irrigation water. .....
Cynde holding onto Misty with the south fields behind her. The ground was desert unless irrigated and it really shows in
this picture. Cricket is the shorter dog here and Dusty I got from the same friend as Misty. The dogs were close friends and would take
off on adventures coming back on time with porcipine quills in Crickets face and another time she had been shot and our neighbor
who was a vet had to patch her broken leg up. ......
Misty was a horse I bought from a friend I worked with at the lumberyard/sawmill in Delta. She was just a young filly which I
trained and she was really a great horse. The hay we raised was sold each year to the Rodeo company that came to Delta annually.....
Crystal Dam is a 323-foot-tall (98 m), double-curvature, concrete,
thin arch dam located in the Curecanti National Recreation Area which is
located in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison River. I worked on the dam
during its construction in 1976 and 1977. It was located at the bottom of
the canyon and we would watch the elk and deer and other wild animals on the other
side of the river while we were at work. .....
When the dam work was too cold for concrete to pour we were laid off and I then looked for other work till it
opened back up in the spring. My neighbor who worked in the sugar beet factory told me I could probably get
hired if I showed up at the side door at the start of the midnight shift. If someone did not show up for work
they would take whoever was waiting at the door and hire them on the spot. If the one that didnt show up for
work took longer than 3 days to come back to work I would have the job. ........
Grand Mesa was a place where we spent alot of the time on weekends. Hunting, fishing, and sightseeing were the activities that we really enjoyed. The
worlds largest flat topped mountain is much like Minnesota or Wisconsin. It has lakes, forests of pine, hemlock, spruce and other trees. Elk, deer, bears and
other wild animals are plentiful......
