by Joe Heard

The San Luis Valley in south-central Colorado is a huge, high-altitude valley extending north to south for over 100 miles on into New Mexico. It is primarily rural farmland mostly irrigated by an aquifer under the valley floor. It is bordered on the east by the Sangre de Cristo mountain range and on the west by the much older San Juan mountain range. The Great Sand Dunes National Park is located there, along with several natural hot springs.

Valley View Hot Springs is one of the hot springs there and is located near the northern end of the valley and sits up on the west side of he Sangre de Cristos. It is part of a non-profit land trust that also includes the Everson Ranch on the valley floor below the hot springs and a defunct iron mine that closed in many years ago. In the summer time, half a million Mexican free-tailed bats migrate up from Mexico and inhabit the mine. They come out every evening at dusk and eat millions of mosquitos and other harmful insects, keeping those populations under control.

Valley View had been Germaine Fraley's favorite place to go since the 1980's, and I began to join her in the early 2000's. Sadly, Germaine passed away in September, 2020. Her ashes were spread, according to her wishes, below the mine and overlooking the valley. It's difficult to explain to someone who hasn't been there what a beautiful, quiet, peaceful place Valley View is, but it has become my favorite place, also. Germaine took her parents, George and Robbie (actually Roberta, but most people called her Robbie), to Valley View years ago and they enjoyed it. I first met Robbie when she was probably in her early 50's, but I thought she was one of the most beautiful women I had seen. She was very pleasant with a great sense of humor, and I loved talking to her. She was also well-loved by her children and grand children.

So, it wasn't surprising to me that Germaine decided to take Robbie back there after George passed away and she was living in an assisted living facility. Robbie was in her 80's at the time and wore an oxygen tube because she was suffering from lung disease. She was also becoming more frail. Taking her there was a logistical problem because of the oxygen issue along with the rustic nature of the hot springs, which is not very handicap-accessible. Germaine arranged to use a house owned by one of her cousins in the nearby town of Saguache (a Ute Indian name pronounced sa-WATCH), where she arranged to have a large oxygen tank provided while we were there in order to refill Robbie's portable tank when needed.

The hot springs has several natural pools scattered up the side of the mountain and one large man-made concrete pool at the base nearest the parking area. The plan was to get Robbie to the concrete pool, but we needed to figure out how to put her in the pool with her oxygen. Germaine found a pool chair made from floating pool noodles in a U-shape as arms and strung with mesh material to form a chair. She also found a small inner tube with mesh in the middle to hold the oxygen tank. I had a small cooler that we put into the inner tube to hold the oxygen tank so it wouldn't get wet.

When pool day came, we transported Robbie, oxygen tank, pool chair and inner tube up to the concrete pool. It has a small shallow end, but most of the pool is about 9 feet deep. We got Robbie into the shallow end, put her in the chair, put the oxygen tank in the cooler and placed it in the inner tube. Then, we set her adrift. She floated peacefully around the pool and was simply in heaven! Many of the people around the pool came up to us and said what a great idea that was, and that they knew someone who was disabled and would love to experience that. Robbie floated around the pool for quite some time visiting with the people at the pool and just enjoying the experience of floating freely in the water.

It took quite a bit of effort, particularly by Germaine, to make this work out, but it was a great success and it was an experience that Robbie never forgot.