The Beginnings of the Property

I had always fantasized about having a waterfront property be it the ocean, a lake or a river. I have something of an obsession with water. When I bought the small acreage in Ft. Lyon, Colorado, the selling point was it's proximity to public river access. Nearby public access was the best that I could hope for as private riverfront property was way out of my price range. Nonetheless, in the countless hours I poured over realtor.com and local realty websites, I came across a property that seemed too good to be true. It was located in a "subdivision" known as the Rio Grande Ranchos. 99% of the lots on the Rio Grande Ranchos looked like something out of West Texas. Rocky, flat, 5 acre tracts of virtually worthless desert land. To cover over this fact, sellers often included pictures of the Rio Grande river as if to intimate that the lot was on the river. Anyone who spent any time looking at the seemingly endless number of RGR lots on the market became inured to these false allurements of river frontage and looked for the featureless straw colored rectangle that betrayed the true property in question. One day as I was looking through the RGR lots, a rather dull activity, I came across a "river" picture that caught my eye. In the fine print it stated "river frontage". After scrutinizing the out of focus photo, I became convinced that this lot actually was located on the river. The price had recently been reduced from $10,000 to $6500, still several thousand more than the other lots. I called the realtor based out of Ft. Garland. She confirmed the property was still for sale but seemed rather reluctant to make the hour drive to get there. Instead, she gave us directions and invited us to go out and take a look ourselves. Always up for a roadtrip I loaded up the kids and headed out. It was February and on the chilly side when we stepped out of the car and into the middle of the San Luis Valley. The lot looked as featureless and dull as the hundreds of other lots in the RGR. I told the kids, "Check this out", and we proceeded to walk across the long 5 acre lot to the very back. The grass gave way to larger volcanic rocks, sage and cactus. Suddenly a vista appeared of a river snaking through a volcanic gorge far below. The kids were duly impressed. The next question was "Was there a way to get down into the gorge on the property?" We started exploring and were sobered by the steepness and height of the cliff walls beneath our feet. Although the view was pretty, I saw no point in pursuing the property if we had no way of reaching the water. After a few abortive attempts to descend on various ledges we found that by some rather haphazard climbing at the termination of a ledge upstream we could make our way down to the bottom. Upon reaching the bottom we found ourselves in a willow thicket that gave way to a section of grass. Upstream from us, a horse looked on intently. I guessed that it was one of the areas wild horses that had somehow found its way down into the gorge and had been unable to find its way out. The kids began climbing the tumbled down boulders along the partially frozen river. I warned them not to venture out onto the ice, not knowing how the deep the river might be. I wanted to be sure that we could create an access within the bounds of the lot before we committed but my heart nonetheless thrilled at the prospect of owning this beautiful place. On the way home we stopped in the delightful little village of San Luis and bought some homemade tortillas sold at the gas station. The kids unanimously gave the riverfront property a thumbs up. Now I had to convince the wife.