I had wanted to go to the Yellowstone river region--wanted specially to
see the National Park, and the geysers and the "hoodoo" or goblin land
of that country; indeed, hesitated a little at Pueblo, the turning
point--wanted to thread the Veta pass--wanted to go over the Santa
Fe trail away southwestward to New Mexico--but turn'd and set my face
eastward--leaving behind me whetting glimpse-tastes of southeastern
Colorado, Pueblo, Bald mountain, the Spanish peaks, Sangre de Christos,
Mile-Shoe-curve (which my veteran friend on the locomotive told me was
"the boss railroad curve of the universe,") fort Garland on the plains,
Veta, and the three great peaks of the Sierra Blancas. The Arkansas
river plays quite a part in the whole of this region--I see it, or
its high-cut rocky northern shore, for miles, and cross and recross it
frequently, as it winds and squirms like a snake. The plains vary here
even more than usual--sometimes a long sterile stretch of scores of
miles--then green, fertile and grassy, an equal length. Some very large
herds of sheep. (One wants new words in writing about these plains, and
all the inland American West--the terms, _far, large, vast_, &c., are
insufficient.)