I was making my way back to Aspen one January day after picking up a stranded friend in Moab, Utah and returning him to Alamosa- what he adoringly refers to as ‘the dirty mo’ . When he called for help, I gladly accepted the task at hand; knowing the drive would be upwards of 16 hours round-trip. I needed to get out of my own valley, and see something different.
After a night eating oven pizza and drinking craft beer, I set out for Highway 285 the next morning - A long, straight stretch of road that would take me out of the expansive San Luis Valley. Agriculture industry dominated the land, and I found myself zoning out as I passed field after field of different crops. Gliding down the empty highway, the scenery- or lack thereof, started to blend together until a large white structure projecting out of the benign fields of weeds and grass caught my eye. A double-take rendered other derelict structures and old mobile-homes scattered about, with the imposing Sangre de Cristo mountains towering off in the distance.
Without a second thought, I applied the brakes and came to a stop in the middle of 285. Turn left, reverse right, U-turn. I headed back to the strange plot of land which I’d passed, and found a dirt driveway off the highway to park as I pondered local trespassing laws. I grabbed my camera (which always rides shotgun), looked both ways, and began slowly walking towards an old bus left to rot. The property was still; quiet. Passing cars on the highway seemed to not make a sound; their noise and energy consumed by the emptiness and despair of the abandoned lot. Remnants of a drive-in movie theater were scattered about, windows were boarded up and screwed shut.
The lot had an erie presence. As I stepped into an old tour bus that was losing its battle against the elements and time, I imagined what took place on this bus years before. Who were the passengers? Where are they now? I could almost envision the old bus rolling down the road, full of people, windows open and radio playing a song from the 60′s. I left the bus and walked towards the monumental white movie screen, which casted a dark shadow on old RV’s and trailers that had been vacant for years. Walking around the campers with rotting interiors and dilapidated exteriors, I could see memories fading away at the same rate as the rotting wood and rusting iron. A place that had once been the source for entertainment and socializing; assumably buzzing with activity on weekends after everyone had finished the work and school week, was now sitting quiet in the middle of the large valley floor. The movie-theater may have once been the place to be, but now most people speed by on the highway without giving thought to once it once was.
I think of all the things myself and others are fascinated with today... theme parks, shopping centers, large luxurious homes - any form of human infrastructure constructed on the land. It will all meet the same fate as the Frontier Drive-In Movie Theater. The nicest mansions and grandest works of architecture will too someday be left and forgotten, slowly falling back towards the earth and wasting away. Why then, do we put so much attention and resources into this lifestyle? Could we be just as easily allured by ‘shiny things’ as crows?
I see the decaying of an old drive-in as a metaphor for civilization, in a way. What is once the center of attention can easily be neglected and forgotten, and left to rot. All of our building, developing, and modernizing may be impressive and attractive at the moment, but years down the road, there may be someone else wandering through ruins of a generation past pondering the same thing.