“This five-mile-wide, 25-mile-long valley on Colorado’s western edge arrived at its unique name – Paradox – thanks to an idiosyncratic Dolores River that meanders across the valley instead of through it, punching into towering walls at both ends. In a sense, the Dolores is a metaphor for the breed of quixotic and stubborn soul that has chosen to call the Paradox Valley home over the last century. Many barriers stand in the way of making a home here, but residents persevere.
There exists the path of least resistance; and then, there is the road to Paradox.”

—excerpted from “Paradox Valley, Colorado: The Half-Life of Belonging,” Inside/Outside Southwest, Nov.-Dec. 2009—