Ajo With Dad

I took the kids to Ajo to visit Dad for Labor Day. We couldn't go down on Sunday because of my calling at church, but we got to go for the day on Monday.

I had called Dad a few days before and made sure he was okay with us coming and crashing at his house. He told me Labor Day was actually going to be his moving day. He moved into the house he and Mom are in the process of buying.


This picture is a bit deceiving as to the size of this house. You can kind of tell it's long, but it's very deep. Check out that window on the left of the house. That's going to be the office. It opens into another room that will be the workout room. You could easily use both of those rooms as decent sized bedrooms. The workout room opens into a full bath. The bath opens into a large laundry room which then opens into a big walk-in food storage room. Those are the rooms just along that east wall of the house.

I think Dad's favorite part is the swimming pool. We got into town in just enough time to miss the major moving of the furniture, but we still were able to talk Dad into letting us swim. Like he needed any prompting. I think he's really excited about this pool.

We also went to help him feed the horses. Here's Takela.

And this horse is Dad's new one. Houdini. He's starting to get used to Dad. He was mistreated at one point in his life, so he's a little skittish. He didn't approach us at the fence. But he does seem to like Takela. Dad said that Houdini will bang on the shed that separates the two of them to get her attention. It seems to be a bit of a typical relationship. He's hot for her and she's pretty oblivious. Hee hee.

This car is practically buried right across the street from the horses in an arroyo (intermittently dry creek). I thought it was kind of cool.

Ajo itself is an interesting place. It's a died down mining town. The mine didn't shut down because it dried out. It shut down because of labor union disputes. (I think it's kind of ironic that we were there on Labor Day.)

I think I've thought of a good way to describe Ajo. Think of Alamosa and what it would be like if the college closed -- how many businesses would close (and take away the Walmart). Then take away all the neighboring towns so it's the only town in a 40 mile radius. Some parts of town are a lot older. Remember driving through La Jara, where Josh was working? Or the other side of Alamosa with the tired, worn out houses? There is plenty of that through the town.

It's about 2 1/2 hours from Dad's house to ours. About the same drive as going from Alamosa to Pueblo.

But, I met a few of the ward members and they all were very nice. When the Elders Quorum showed up to help Dad move his stuff, a sister from the ward brought her two teen daughters and they cleaned the house for him. Good people.

The house will be a wonderful place for us to all gather. Especially after it's gotten a bit of a facelift.

And the pool is super fun.