DEL NORTE – The annual Covered Wagon Day festivities kicked off on Thursday, Aug. 2, with the opening of Kathy’s Fabric Trunk quilt show and a rocking good Grateful Dead cover band called Easy Jim that played the night away at the Del Norte Town Park.
The next day featured a wonderful community dinner at the High Valley Community Center to raise funding for local Veteran services including a portion that goes to the Homelake Veteran’s Center in Monte Vista.
Saturday bloomed warm and sunny as guests wandered into town in the early morning to catch the start of the Bees Knees 5K walk and run. About 50 participants gathered outside the High Valley Community Center to begin the race which took participants around the Lookout Mountain loop, down through town and back to the center.
For those up early to cheer on the runners, Val Alto held its annual pancake breakfast beginning at 7 a.m. and running through the morning until there was nothing left. This event has been a staple of Del Norte since the inception of Covered Wagon Days in 1972 and is one that people look forward to every year. Proceeds from this event go towards funding other local events and other community projects.
The fun did not stop there as more people ventured into town for the start of the Del Norte Public Library Book Sale. The event is the only fundraiser that the library hosts each year and helps bring in much needed funding that is used to enhance services at the library for the community. This year the event was moved across the street from the library to the Rio Grande County Museum because of the sidewalk work that is being completed throughout town.
Though the lack of sidewalks was a hinderance for the northern side of the street, it did not stop hundreds of people from flocking to town to catch the annual Covered Wagon Days parade. Grande Avenue was lined with people of all ages in preparation for the coming festivities and the start of the parade featured this year’s Parade Marshal – Rio Grande County Clerk Cindy Hill.
Hill and her husband were the head of the Covered Wagon Days committee for several years and the community cheered as she drove by sitting in a covered wagon that was being pulled by Rio Grande County Sheriff Anne Robinson and Rio Grande County Commissioner Gene Glover. Rio Grande County is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.
The rest of the parade featured local organizations such as the local Pee Wee Cheer Squad who won the Best Kid parade entry, a group of calvary soldiers with Rio Grande County who won the Best Animal Entry and local resident Loni Fuch who won the Best Motorized Entry. The Best Theme award went to Fuller Electric for their float that featured Wanted posters for the entire team, perfectly capturing this year’s theme of “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.”
The weekend was a great success with the annual car show and festivities down at Del Norte Town Park, Rhythms on the Rio rocking the Rio Grande just outside of town and the annual Kent Rominger Fly-in breakfast that was followed by church services and a barbecue lunch at the park on Sunday.
