Ruby Creek Press
RCP is a landing place for pictures taken in an array of ever-changing neighborhoods. For most of 11 years, I’ve lived in Salida, Colorado (in the Rockies, about 3 hours south of Denver). But home has been other places, as well. Many of the photos were taken in Colorado, both north & south. But you’ll find a few from Indiana, Idaho, New Mexico, & Washington state. There’s no real theme to these pages. RCP is a visual diary of the things, people, & places that I’ve seen and liked. Scattered pictures & scattered thoughts.
There’s no real order.
My apologies ~ I know jumping around in time & place can be disorienting.
But this is, to some extent, how these experiences live in my head.
Many of the pictures on this page were taken in Salida, or nearby. Like many mountain towns in Colorado, Salida is busy growing & changing. But there’s still some left of the early times. The alleys aren’t paved yet, just dirt. There’s a lot going on. ADU’s are built in the alleys, but people live in the old structures there too.
A note about the combined photos ~ a friend pointed out the lack of people in my pictures. Its true. Usually I’m not brave enough to take an impromptu shot of a stranger. I don’t want to intrude. And my math isn’t good enough to set my camera for moving objects. So, for this site, I pulled family members from old albums (pictures taken by me or someone else), and added them to some of my landscapes. I don’t know that it works, but it was fun trying.
I’ve always wanted to do something with this photo of nighttime Saguache. There wasn’t much in the picture. So, I added my grandparents. I don’t know that they ever made it to Saguache on their own. Below is a picture of my sisters (twins) taken by my father in Denver. I added them to a photo of an old gate in downtown Saguache.
This house is no longer standing. There had been just a shell left anyway ~ Salida
When i first got to Salida 11 years ago, I rode everywhere & was excited when i found this in Smeltertown
It was seasonal ~ the neighbor’s elm branches crashed into our yard. The wind can be fierce in salida.
The branches made a mess, but still beautiful, like lace
This is a river town. This kayak is now gone but the stucco house still stands & is occupied. People want to live here, wherever they can, because of the river, the weather being somewhat calm, and because Salida is in a valley surrounded by more 14,000’ peaks than anywhere in Colorado. It’s a beautiful place & community & friendly, though somewhat conservative. Without a car, the mountains do become wallpaper, & people are wedded to their cars.
Cloud, my niece’s rescue cat. She stayed with me for a month, Yakima, WA. There was something so vulnerable & intimate about the exposed pads on the under side of her paws
The antique store, seen from my apartment on the main street in Lafayette, Indiana. Purdue University is across the Wabash River in West LafayetteThe Silver City recycling yard where Jamie’s youth bike mentoring program met to build double decker bikes. We also paraded through town and went cross country every Saturday, regardless of weather or attendanceI loved the shadow. The sun is a gift here. A friend gave me the candleabra One of the donkeys I met on a bike ride outside Saguache, in the San Luis Valley, COMy younger sister in Denver years ago, added to a rotated shot of S Hill balls left on the Box of Bubbles roof, Salida
On a 6am bike ride in Salida during a hoar frost
The Botanical Garden, DenverI stayed in Saguache for two weeks testing the cold, wondering if I could manage living there through a winter & beyond. It wasn’t a problem. What used to be one of the coldest towns in Colorado, in the high desert (San Luis Valley), has grown warmer with climate change
Downtown Salida next to the liquor store. It’s looked like this for the 11 years I’ve been here. That’s unusual, for something so colorful to stay so vibrant and unchanged
Pogo, BD’s dog, Indiana
The dead tree next to my first apartment in Salida, next to the evangelical & Latter Day Saints churches. The tree is now gone
In the Salida cemetery. It’s still a beautiful, old place in the midst of disheartening development
Hikers on the Green’s Creek Trail (I think that’s where this was)Half-a-cow. This one begs for a family member, though I kind of like the unpopulated distance between plow & end-of-cow
Dean’s back yard in downtown Saguache
The path around Frantz Lake, Salida
On the way to the Climax Mine near Leadville, Colorado
From my Denver hotel windowBD at Independence Pass on the way to Aspen
Downtown Denver. In my unquenchable thirst to live everywhere in & outside of town, I have a romance (in my head) about old city apartment buildings. My grandparents owned & lived in one right above downtown, in an old, & beautiful flat. The elevator was ancient, with an accordian cage door
A visit to the rescue shelter
One of the alley buildings in Salida & a rare cloudy day
An alley in downtown Salida
My bike at the crest of HWY 285 going south out of Saguache in the San Luis Valley
The Smeltertown smokestack in Salida. Once a smelter, then a super fund site, now a landmark
Our G Street house in Salida, the backyard. Ed & Anna did an incredible landscaping job
The Saguache Diner, currently closed, but there is hope for a buyer, someone who will keep the place a Saguache hubI sent these folks downriver from FibArk (Salida) to populate this shot of the Snake River in Idaho (as BD & I Iook on)
My mother superimposed on one of my shots of the San Luis Valley. My dad took her picture in the 1950s in Denver. I don’t know if they ever got to the Valley. Mom was from rural Texas
Salida, but I think of those condos in the distance, having a New Mexico flavor
San Luis Valley outside Saguache. I thought of planting a relative here, but the expanse is enough as is. Looks best if you click on it to see it large
My great aunt & uncle in Texas, superimposed over my favorite door in Saguache
Salida’s gun shop, now gone or re-imagined
The linotype at the Crescent newspaper in Saguache, one of the few active lintotypes in the country
Downtown Lafayette, Indiana as seen from my Main Street apartment
Self portrait taken in Rick’s Antiques, Etc. in Saguache. Lots of treasures there, including Rick, and the old building
My neighbor in full regalia, SaguacheMy neighbor’s mixed media piecesMy sisters, “the twins,” in Denver (my dad’s shot), superimposed by me on a photo of an old gate in SaguacheMy bed, Salida
BD’s dog, Pogo. He had the best temperament
Cloud, Yakima. She lived inside when she was with me, which was good for the birds, but not so much for her. My niece found her a better place
One of several hiking groups, walking near town, SalidaBack of our Denver house, me with my sister. My father had just returned from Alaska.My windchimes out back on E Street, Salida. It was a funky backyard. I rarely went this far backThis is up S Hill. I liked the flow of hilltop & rocksThe road down to the HWY 291, near the Salida hospital, Chalk Cliffs in the distanceI think this is the Green’s Creek trail, near SalidaOne of my favorite shots of the San Luis valley. I always wanted to live out there somewhere, but only got as far as downtown SaguacheDean’s window, downtown Saguache, Magpie GalleryOne of two cemeteries outside SaguacheOn a walk, a crossroads outside SaguacheSaguache Creek, near downtownMy grandparents superimposed on downtown Saguache on a very cold nightHomestead outside SaguacheOld radiators, Saguache Hotel before renovationsBD in Texas Big Bend, I think.I ran across this envelope while cleaning out my father’s
files (I blacked out the names). My dad collected stamps in his travels. This reminded me of something he’d told me about trips to the Soviet Union. He said it was frustrating meeting researchers there, behind the Iron Curtain, because they didn’t want to talk, wouldn’t share. I’m assuming the person who wrote this letter did want to share. Look closer at the stamps ~ oppression and secrecy/fear, a sign of the times (1960s), but familiar now too.