Learn to paint, learn to see--it will change your life. On Sabbatical, Janice carries her art pack and folding stool into one of the most incredible landscapes on the planet: the canyons, deserts, mountains, and river valleys of the greater Southwest. Awed, amazed, inspired, and humbled by what she finds there, she sketches and paints en plein air. The family fishes, hikes, catches bugs, chases lizards, digs fossils, photographs, and studies plants. The year-long campout in National Parks and Forest Service sites becomes a journey of the heart. The family grows to love the way the great outdoors is put together. Part travelogue, part natural history, part field course in art appreciation, the author records her development as an artist as she learns to paint and learns to see. To her surprise, a spiritual awakening sneaks up on her, and the journey turns into something more--a pilgrimage.

When the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad laid narrow-gauge tracks into La Veta in southern Colorado in July 1876, it preceded Colorado statehood on August 1 by about one month. The southern Colorado frontier from Walsenburg west to Wolf Creek Pass had only a few scattered villages at this time, but silver mines in southwestern Colorado lured the railroad ever westward to haul out the riches. On the scene to photograph these developments was Iowan Ory Thomas (O.T.) Davis, who moved to Colorado in 1885 to work in the copper mines northwest of La Veta. Davis, backed by corporate sponsors from the mines and railroads, opened a commercial photography business in the WalsenburgLa Veta area in 1888 and, later, in Alamosa in 1906. The photographs of O.T. Davis collected in this book vividly capture a bygone era, documenting the frontier history of southern Colorado in the early years of statehood.

Throughout Teller County, history lovers can find abandoned towns and forgotten main streets that once bustled with life and commerce. Even before Teller was carved from surrounding counties, the scenic mountains and lucrative mines of the gold rush era brought thousands of settlers and attracted resort owners and tycoons eager to exploit the rich setting. Seemingly overnight, towns in the Cripple Creek District and other places popped up, flush with gold and people looking for opportunity. As the ore disappeared, the miners moved on in search of the next big lode. One by one, the towns were all but forgotten. Join Jan MacKell Collins and discover the booming history, lost towns and hardy settlers of Teller County.