Somerset, Paonia, Hotchkiss and Crawford

Early out this morning to make one of our long drives, about 7.5 hours. I know, sounds like an all day behind the wheel and no time to experience what we see but that’s not entirely the case. This trip has more scenery than historical sites so we should have plenty of time to enjoy the drive. Besides, if we don’t do this, it’s researching our 50 states in 50 weeks trip, and honestly, I need the break.

So on with the show. We decided to start with the small town of Somerset, just a bit farther south from Redstone and Marble (see earlier post for those towns) on highway 133. The road follows along the North Fork Gunnison River through some really nice canyons. We’re a bit late for most of the fall leaves but there are still lots of trees with beautiful colors. Two weeks ago, this would have been primo for viewing the changing of the leaves, if you could get through the tourists.

Valley on Highway 133

Somerset is a really small town, not much in the way of tourist attractions or restaurants for that matter, so we spent a little time just cruising through the streets to see what’s there. Surprise! There are a couple of buildings housing art co-ops that looked pretty interesting. The first had there sculptures out front with some bizarre advertisements. Collette took a couple of pictures of the co-ops and their sculptures then we realized, one of these looks familiar. The chrome sculpture called, “Extreme makeover gone extremely bad” was a sculpture we saw in Crested Butte about a month ago. We believe this is the work of Sean Guerrero, the artist that creates his works in discarded chrome parts from automobiles and airplanes, but we’re having a hard time confirming that. Anyway, this sculpture was in Crested Butte so check out the other sculptures there. (see earlier post)

Extreme makeover that went extremely bad

Looks Russian to me.

The next town on our drive is Paonia. Way back in 1853, Captain John Gunnison was cruising through the area trying to locate a usable pass through the mountains when he came upon what’s known today as Paonia. Now this area, like most, was originally occupied by the Ute tribe. But all that changed in 1879 when the Utes decided to kill Nathan Meeker, an Indian agent, and the 10 amigos he had working for him. The women and children were taken captive. The alarm went out and the US Army sent troops to the area to set things right. Troops from Wyoming’s Fort Steele saddled up and headed for Paonia. (It wasn’t called Paonia then, I’ll get to it in a minute)

Seems the Utes were still itching for a fight so when Thomas Thornburgh arrived with his 153 troops at Mill Creek, pow, game over, the Utes massacred the major and 13 troops, wounded 28 and killed almost all of their horses. Relief troops, Buffalo soldiers from Fort Lewis Colorado, arrived and more pow until the smoke cleared. Once the fighting ended, the Utes were gathered up and moved out of Colorado.

Now, about Paonia. Seems that a man named Sam Wade helped found the town. Sam was something of a horticulturalist and happened to have a few peony roots in his pocket that he’d been carrying around. He thought that the Latin version of the flower’s name would make a cool name for the town, Paeonia, but the post office had other ideas. The post office, for some unknown reason, limited the number of vowels in a towns name so the “e” was removed????? No joke, they just picked a vowel and took it out. And that’s how Paonia got its name.

The original bank building est. 1903

Main street – Paonia

Coal and orchards were the thing here. Coal mines were scattered throughout the area as were orchards with peaches, apples, pears, plums. Now Paonia has a few wineries but unfortunately, we missed them on this drive.

Another key industry here is renewable energy. Paonia is home to the Solar Energy International (SEI) training facility that sees about 500 student visitors each year.

Moving right along, our next town is Hotchkiss, founded in 1882 by Enos Hotchkiss, pioneer extraordinaire. The town is spread out over less than 1 square mile so not a lot to see here. Of the 940 residents (2010 census), most are female so if you’re looking for a woman, might have good luck in Hotchkiss. (For every 100 females there are 88 males)

The sign was about all there was….

From here we jump off to highway 92 and head south towards Crawford, Colorado and Crawford reservoir. We’ll get here just in time for our picnic lunch so maybe the reservoir will be a good place to take a break. Founded in 1882 and named after George A. Crawford, governor-elect of Kansas. Not sure how George got into the picture but he founded the town of Grand Junction, Colorado, and Fort Scott, Kansas. Now there’s a job I think I could handle, founding towns.

Hardware – Hotel, right across the street from Mad Dog restaurant (closed)

Crawford scenery

Our reason for stopping here is for a more recent event, the death of Joe Cocker.  John Robert “Joe” Cocker, born in Sheffield, England 20 May 1944, was best known for his rough voice and spastic movements while performing. He did awesome renditions of songs by the Beatles, had numerous hits while in the Grease Band, and as everyone knows, was instrumental in the band Mad Dogs and Englishmen while still pursuing a solo career. The man could sing, and perform.

Joe Cocker died 22 December 2014 at his home in Crawford, the Mad Dog Ranch. He died of lung cancer brought on by smoking two packs of cigarettes a day until 1991, when he quit smoking. His wife, Pam, sold the property in 2017, all 243 acres with a 16,000 sq.ft home, for the mere sum of $3.875M.

Although he was nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Billy Joel in 2014, Joe Cocker has not been inducted.

Just a few bucks

As always in Colorado, roadwork (that doesn’t show up on CDOT’s webpage)

Time for us to start the journey home. The drive on highway 92 is really awesome, it parallels the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and has some of Colorado’s most incredible vistas. A bit of a windy road but paved and with a few guardrails, but could use a few more! Pictures just don’t do it justice.

Awesome views along Highway 92

At Blue Mesa reservoir, we turn onto highway 50 for the final leg home. In case no one has told you, Colorado is in a drought. When we stopped at Crawford reservoir for lunch, the lake was so far down, there was hardly any water. At Blue Mesa, the lake is also very low. Water from here is used to help fill Lake Powell, which is 105 feet below full! Gonna need a lot of rain and snow this year!

Next trip is a short one, a cruise over Boreas Pass to Breckenridge. Later, gator!