This year's theme was TRAILBLAZERS & STARGAZERS
For 85 years this has been an annual celebration on the last weekend of April in this little town on the Arkansas River in Colorado.
Celebrating the cultures of the area makes for a fun day. Indigenous Folk, Spanish/Mexican, Mestizo, Black, Traders, Homesteaders, Ranchers, Farmers, Town Folk ... and somehow it all just worked.
If you take a drive in this area now, you'll see cattle of all types, goats, sheep, llama, horses, lots of dogs, some cats, hog operations south of town, crops of corn, wheat, oats, sorghum, melons, onions, peppers, alfalfa, beans, and who knows what all else, people who represent all of the above list and some new-comers, plenty of churches, folks who open doors for one another and say "How ya doin'?" to all and sundry ... and watch out for each other.
The emergency response teams are top of the line. We had a fire east of town recently that started in the river bottom of the Purgatoire River (called the Picketwire locally) and burned its way south to the Arkansas River bottom and then east along it. Took about 600 acres and would have been so much worse had it not been for all the area firefighters coming to help, and the National Guard's helicopters dumping water on it in strategic spots. When push comes to shove True Colorado Folk stick together and get the job done.
Our family's ranch was run by my grandparents; before that our great-grandparents homesteaded down south of town too, east of where Grandma and Grandad ranched. Before that, there were a couple of generations in west Kansas. Our lineage came to America in the 1600s (Quakers) and followed what has come to be known as the Traditional American Westward Trek. We had to stop going west when we got to Alaska and Hawaii.
Las Animas has been 'home' to us for six generations now. Most of us have gone in all the directions of the compass from here - but we know our way home.
Here are a few photos of the parade - there were many many horses and riders, too!
For a Small Town USA event, it was mighty fine!
"We have seen His Star and come to worship Him"
A homestead couple
This group later danced in the intersection
Bent's Old Fort was first a trading post
A man and his horse
Just a few of the MANY riders in this parade
Gotta love the Hereford cattle !!
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