855. Salida, Chaffee County (CO41)

The courthouse in Salida is a lovely piece of art deco, but it was hard to photograph backlit by the rising Colorado sun. However, somehow I managed to find something that worked. Fun fact: Salida was the first county seat, but it was moved to the town of Buena Vista, which built a courthouse in 1882. Later, the seat was moved back to Salida and has remained there ever since. This courthouse was built in 1929, obviously after the return. The town itself was quaint as all get out. It’s the kind of place where people meet accidentally while biking and just stand in the middle of streets talking (I watched three people conflue exactly that way), or a street’s worth of friends will go on walks around the neighborhood in gangs of 10 or more (saw two of those). The houses were quaint. The people were quaint. Even the pets seemed quaint. Heck, the entire town seemed almost suspiciously quaint. But the thing that caught my attention more than anything was when I stopped at a local grocery store for something and I turned a corner and almost ran into an older man. He was friendly, but his eyes widened when he looked at me, as if he hadn’t seen a Black person in years. Checking the county demographics, statistically there should be three Black people in Salida, a town of just over 5500, so it might actually be true.

One of Salida’s many mini-parks (where I saw the biking confluence, actually) hosted an LPC. It was a little annoying to take to my knees on the dewy ground, both because I had just done a lot of driving and was still a little stiff; and because I could feel the cold dew soaking into my pants and knew I would be mildly discomforted until it dried normally. Yes folks, sometimes I am a delicate flower. But I had a cache in the county and that’s all I needed. I could imagine coming back to visit Salida one day to see if my impression of it was correct, but not anytime soon. I had too much to do to lollygag there. I ran through a fast food joint for breakfast (where, coincidentally, I saw two of Salida’s three Black people working) and ate it in the car on the way to…