After leaving Boulder/Denver, we knew we were going to spend some time in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We also knew it was too far for us to drive in one day. My Uncle, who we had just seen in Boulder, invited us to visit his property in Crestone, Colorado. It was only 20 minutes out of our way and he offered to let us park there for free, so we decided to see the place and save a night’s worth of money.
He and his wife had first learned of the place when their daughter wanted to learn to ride horses. They sent her to a camp in Crestone where she rode horses and slept in the barn! Anyhow, somewhere along the way, pieces of property in the area were being sold for $500 due to the prior developer going bust. They bought two 1/2 acre lots. A few years later, they bought another few lots for less than a few thousand dollars each. My uncle built a small house on their property. Just a “haystack”, which means a garage with a studio on top. A builder had laid a foundation for a house on the lot just up the mountain from their lots and then quit as money ran dry. Well, not wanting “some family with three cars, barking dogs, and screaming kids”, my aunt and uncle bought that lot too. They re-used the foundation and are in the process of building a second, larger home there.
Seeing my Uncle’s hand-built houses was pretty cool. We’re glad we made the time to get there. It’s up in the mountains, with a small town nearby. The views are crazy wonderful. Even though it took us over an hour to get our RV turned around and ready to leave, it was absolutely worth seeing.
