Hi all -

Many years ago, in the mid-1950s, I was with a group driving through the San Luis Valley in Colorado.

I have a memory of a well-maintained highway entering a town there, with very beautiful mature trees lining both sides for a fairly considerable distance. At least half a mile?

Can anyone tell me which town that might have been?

If so, please write me at:

ewraven1@sympatico.ca

Many thanks,

Eleanor White
Elliot Lake, Ontario
Canada

Highway 160 passes through town reducing your speed from 65 to 25 MPH. The highway is tree-lined with quaint homes on side streets for a short distance. Seems a bit surreal to be on a highway in Monte Vista, after traveling though treeless plains and long vistas.

Many thanks for the tip, Dave!

Monte Vista could have been it, since half a century has elapsed. What I remember is the exquisite, beautiful cool, shady double row of trees on either side of the highway, but without homes. Cultivated fields on either side beyond the trees.

As you say, it was an impressive sight after driving through the treeless plain in summer.

I did find a tree lined image in google images, without homes at one time but can't get back to that image to research it further.

I also did a mapquest look at Monte Vista, but couldn't quite find the shady tree lined portion of the highway there. Good clear image, though, probably from an aircraft as opposed to satellite.

Interesting how memories sometimes gently prod you for years, until you just have to see if you can verify them, eh?

Cheers,

Eleanor White

Lovely memory, Eleanor. Let's see, I have driven through most of the towns in the San Luis Valley (except Center), and the ones that impress me as being the most tree filled are those towns along Hwy. 160 (runs west-east), as Dave said Monte Vista is, and also Saguache, located way up at the NW corner of the valley. Highway 17 has Mosca, Hooper and Moffat, but that stretch of road doesn't impress me with the memory of trees much. Just a few in each town.

Monte Vista does seem to have a row of double trees on its eastern side along Hwy 160, and although there are homes around currently, 50 years ago this area may have been fields.

Try Google Maps for some good, detailed, close-up satellite shots:
http://maps.google.com/maps


^..^ Julie