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Daily Archives: October 6, 2018

The Daily Mile, The Flying Scotsman and Treasures

We were waiting to see The Flying Scotsman going by outside our local Infant School when I noticed this plaque and the track. Brilliant stuff!

The Daily Mile

This is the first time that The Flying Scotsman has come into Cornwall and people turned out all along the track, despite the wind and the rain, to catch a glimpse. Click on any photo for a bigger version and the captions.

The viaduct and the Town Clock

Starting over the viaduct

Nearly gone by……….

After seeing the train go by, I went to our Monthly Market where I found some real treasures, listened to a local choir The Red River Singers (and joined in!) and learned a song from Zimbabwe with a local music teacher and therapist.

Dalla’s stall with books and cds

Soap in felted wool

New wool to knit gloves with

Mermaid

Beautiful mohair

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 6, 2018 in Beauty, Cornwall, felting, Photography, Postaday2018

Tags: Dalla, felted wool, mermaid, Red River Singers, steam trains

Road Trip Day 12 – Ghost Town at Animas Forks

06 Oct

Saturday 15th September 2018

Having looped all around, we drove back to Durango today and met our dear friends from Flagstaff with whom we are to share a few days of our trip. They have a 4×4 in which they have offered to drive us into the back country on the road known as the Alpine Loop to visit a Ghost Town, left abandoned by the gold and silver miners in the early 1900s and which by 1920 was a Ghost Town. First a gallery to show some of the sights on today’s drive of 186 miles.

Barn

Water tower

Ramp for runaway trucks travelling on this very steep, switchback road

A bend in the road

Colour beginning to glow

Ranch entrance

Lone Elk Ranch

Chimney Rock National Monument

Crossing the road in Pagosa Springs

A pond with reflections

From Durango off we went to find Animas Forks, a little town which I found very moving indeed.
Some of my readers may remember the research I did in 2016 into a Cornish tin miner who emigrated to Colorado, taking his sought after hard rock mining skills. This was the kind of place he may have come to. For those new to my work – his fiancée, Mary, followed him, travelling alone across the seas from Cornwall then across the USA to be with her John. They married and had a child, Foster, whose war grave is in St Euny Graveyard, just down the road from us. John died when Foster was very young and Mary returned to Redruth, with her little boy, to be with her family – another challenging and amazing journey for a young woman in the late 1800s. Foster died in 1916, while in training to join WW1 and his mother died just 6 months later. They are buried in the same grave in St Euny.
I walked around this remote town in the mountains imagining Mary, fresh from Cornwall, in this bleak environment.

The drive was another challenging one but this time we weren’t driving! The Quaking Aspens were becoming more beautiful by the day, the road rougher and the destination more remote. What must Mary, coming to meet her much loved man, have been thinking as she made this journey at only 21 years old?