My journey begins here in this rugged pristine valley west of Trinidad, Colorado. How beautiful and harsh this homestead must have been. Gone are the hard working people that tried to tame this rocking outcropping into a ranch. Not much left now, only a memory and a few pictures of the past are left behind. The tumbling rock walls of the ranch house, old timber and rubble of out buildings and barns give evidence that there were people and a ranch here. The old windmill is still there moving to and thro. This is May and everything is green, but by June or July most of the fields will be brown. I found a quiet peace here. While looking through the windows of the crumbling ranch house, I tried to imagine Greatgrandma Hagen looking at the men working, and cattle grazing in the green fields. I know that there was hard work and isolation, but there must have been a since of pride in carving out a living with ones own hands.
I can feel my Dads presents here, I know He’s pleased I have come. I can see him as a little boy climbing on these huge brown rocks. Did He try to catch the lizards? What was his favorite game? Was he lonely without a mom or dad? What did this place mean to him? The one thing I do know is that this place, his grandparents, aunts and uncles must have loved him very much, to make him into the wonderful man and father he became.
I wish I had visited here before Dad had died, so that I could have asked him the many questions that I would like to have the answers to now. I feel a connection to him here that I can’t explain. He left here at twenty-two, never to return. Only a visit now and then.