Guido, the gnome who owned Guido’s Italian Ristorante in downtown Trinidad, parked his food truck at the street corner at the south end of Starkville, Colorado. He was happy to be in this former mining community, the sort of place where he had lived most of his life. His friend, Chesterfield Chipmunk, parked his Picketwire Café truck a block away, at the north end of town. Chet was excited to be near the north end of Raton Pass (which had been named for small rodents like himself),where the historic Santa Fe Trail had crossed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

This should be one great block party, with a catering truck on every corner! It’ll shut down the entire town!

A great party needs music! A local band, The Picketwire Picaroons, played popular Western tunes, including “On the Road Again” and “Boot Scootin’ Boogie”; the partiers really enjoyed “José Cuervo, You Are a Friend of Mine.” Recorded music was played between sets –high-energy songs such as Reba singing “Me and Bobby McGee” and Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman”. Some jokester slipped in “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady; that CD was promptly ripped from the deck and laid on the railroad tracks.

Two bobcats, a coyote, and several other party animals came up from Frisco Canyon to listen to the music. They settled down among the piñon trees on the outskirts of town, about fifty yards from Ed’s Tavern; from there, they had a great view of the silly humans.

Now, what about party food? The owner of Ed’s Tavern decided to go full cowboy, so he hired some local ranch hands to work his grill, cooking up a ‘Chuckwagon Supper’ of beans, biscuits, and beef. Several independent vendors set up their mobile propane grills where they offered hot dogs, hamburgers, and grilled chicken. Guido was quite busy; the local gnomes who lived in the abandoned mine had discovered that calzones looked a lot like Cornish pasties, even though the fillings were completely different. He also served hearty Italian Beef sandwiches, sausage-and-peppers panini, and pizza by the slice, along with vino rosso and birra Pironi.

Chesterfield decided to offer antojitos, or the street food served in Mexico City. The gorditas and tortas containing carne asada were especially popular, as was the elote. The crew of his little food truck could barely keep up with the demand for nachos, tacos, and quesadillas. There were also Sonoran hotdogs, even though they were not traditional street food. No alcohol; instead, there were cups of famous, popular, and icy Wooly Bully Root Beer.

Visitors came to the party from nearby Trinidad. The students from the junior college were especially boisterous. “Hey, don’t let the theater students near the kettles of chili and menudo! They’ll probably try to perform the ‘toil and trouble’ scene from Act V of Macbeth!”

The party began to break up when the evening chill set in. The people jumped to their feet for the sounds of Charlie Daniels playing ‘Orange Blossom Special’. The last song of the day was Johnny Cash singing ‘The Wabash Cannonball’, perfectly timed to end just as a long freight rumbled through town on the AT&SF tracks.