An Unusual Lake, an Ex-President, and an Old Fort
A Saturday Flying Adventure in Colorado

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The aviation chart labled it "P. Lk" ... so it was difficult not to jump to conclusions :-)
 
This was among the sites we saw flying from a crazy-buzy airport West of Denver to a ghost-town-quiet airport about 250 Kilometers to the South-East.
 
We started out at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan airport, near Boulder, and headed to La Junta - a sleepy catle-ranching community in the middle of, well ... nothing.
 
After some spectacular winter-mountain scenery ...
 

 
... we arrived at La Junta (pronounced Lah Hunt Ah), which is a couple of thousand feet lower in elevation than Boulder and much warmer. The old guys sitting in the pilot lounge couldn't help but tease Janine on her bouncy landing ...
 

 
... but they turned out to be pretty friendly, and lent us the airport car (at no charge) and gave us directions to "Bent's Fort", a 10 minute drive further South.
 
Bent's Fort is a historic site from the time when the land just south of Colorado was still a part of Mexico and Colorado was still a part of Texas.
 
We arrived to learn that the folks at Bent's Fort keep a couple of Oxes as "pets". And they've named them after old American Presidents. This is President Coolidge you see below.
 
Notice that President Coolidge is ignoring the "keep pets on leash" sign:
 

 
The fort was a very worthwhile place to visit.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is 3000 words worth:
 



 
The Mexican at the entrance took a real shine to Janine. He didn't let go until well after the photo was over - and I had to give him quite a "nudge" before he did.
 

 
I'll leave you with one final picture - really captures the "feel" of the little community at La Junta:
 

 
For the flight back, we left behind the nice weather in La Junta and climbed back up to higher elevation and much worse weather to land at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan airport around 4 PM.
 
Another Saturday Adventure that would not have been possible without the little Cessna.
 
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