A Drive in the Country (Part 2)

Having explored (all we dared to) Ramah, Colorado we headed west towards Colorado Springs. I'm now in the "searching for weird" mode. Ramah has turned loose the weirdness and I'm on the hunt. The rest of the day was not to disappoint! After about a half hour of driving, my weird radar starts pinging and as I slow down to figure out what's going on, I see an amazing sight....

You know, when you're investigating weird, you run into a lot of collectors. People don't have just one thing, they have a collection of them. It must be something in the nature of man to collect stuff. I'm guilty myself. I collect old mining company stock certificates. I collect old bottle openers and a certain type of book. I have a small collection of antique radios and a half dozen or so old cameras.

All of my collections are small potatoes compared to what I had just discovered. This discovery wiped away any possibility of recrimination from the bride for any and all collections I have now or might undertake in the future.

I had run smack dab into a collection of.................................windmills........................yes, windmills!



This is serious collecting, folks. This is not something you just happen into. Not something you see at the flea market and think will look cute in the flower bed. This is premeditated, over the top collecting!

In the picture to the left, you can see ten full size, working, antique windmills. This is only about half the collection. I didn't have a wide angle lens wide enough to get them all in one picture.

I can imagine this person's spouse just shuddering every time they hear the car pull up to the house, wondering if there's a new addition.

Snug in my new sense of security from snide remarks and rolling eyes regarding any "questionable" conglomeration of things I might desire to accumulate in the future we pushed on to Colorado Springs and our planned highlight of the day.

If you will remember, in February I was in Colorado Springs and found a great old sign for the Navajo Hogan road house. I said at the time I wanted to come back and eat there. Well this was the planned highlight of our drive in the country.

As we got closer I could just feel the history, the kitsch, the ambiance waiting for us! This weird hunting was hungry business and in addition to a craving for kitsch, I was craving food.

Pulling into the parking lot, I could tell that this was not going to be quite what I thought! The parking lot was full of motorcycles and they weren't Honda's. They were Harleys. With my best nonchalant look I turned to the bride and said, "Stick with me, hon, and I'll take you to all the finest places".

When we got inside most of the bikers were wearing jackets that said "Sons of Silence" on the back.....Did they know I just came from Ramah? Were they tailing me? I tried to look innocent but I really wanted to take a picture of them too. The bride said I was crazy. If they saw me taking their picture they'd probably kill me, she said....."What are you gonna do then?" she said. I said I'd tell them I'd trade my woman for a picture! That seemed to calm her right down.

Using all the cunning and stealth I learned as an Intelligence Officer 30 years ago, I pretended to be taking a picture of the unusual ceiling and surreptitiously recorded them in full color!

My day was complete. We ate a mediocre hamburger, watched the bikers parade in and out and then left to return to the world of normal. The world of bland. The world of ho hum. My weekly fix of weird had been fulfilled. This would have to do until next weekend.

As we got to the parking lot, I saw one more bit of weird. I can't explain this and don't know which one of the bikers arrived on which. This is a bit of an Alice in Wonderland finish for a great weekend!


Thanks for visiting.

Natalie & A Drive in the Country

This was a weekend of contrasts. I like it that way. Different experiences to scratch the different corners of my psyche. To start the weekend off, the full power circle had tickets to see Natalie Cole in concert at a local venue.

As a group we have gone to a number of concerts and always enjoyed ourselves in spite of the fact that individually we have different preferences in music. I think this is because we are all broad enough musically (Let's not talk about physically!) to enjoy a lot of different types of music.

I have been a fan of Natalie Cole's for a number of years and have seen her twice before in concert so when I saw she was going to be in the area I suggest to the circle that we go. Of the group I would say that my taste in music tends to be a bit more sedate...Heck, I still listen to Glen Miller and The Andrew Sisters although I also listen to smooth jazz, beach music (another post), zydeco, country, classical and rock. What I'm trying to get at is that this concert was my idea and more suited to my tastes but I was hoping the whole circle would enjoy it.

Without going into great detail let me just say that for the first 1/4 of the concert I was really beginning to feel uncomfortable. Things weren't going right and Natalie didn't seem to be "hitting the mark". I'm thinking to myself that I'm gonna' have a lot of explaining to do to the circle....and...if I survive the initial harassment, they will NEVER let me forget this night. When we're sitting around the nurses station at "the home" they'll still be saying "Remember that terrible concert that "his-self" made us go to?"

Well, about a quarter of the way through, the switch flipped. You could see it. You could feel it. The woman was totally in control not only of herself but the audience as well. She was "rockin", "gettin down"....whatever words you want to use, she was doing it. A fabulous voice, great presence, great tunes. If Aretha is the "Queen of Soul", Natalie is surely in the entourage.

Most of the songs she sang were from her latest CD pictured above. Almost all are covers of songs by different artists like Sting, The Alman Brothers, Neil Young and others. The album has gotten very good reviews. If you like, read about it here.

So Friday night was a success. Saturday was devoted to "life support". That's a fancy way to say routine chores around the house.

Sunday the bride and I had planned to take a drive in the country. This day I wanted to explore some areas of Eastern Colorado I had not previously been to. If you've spent any time on this blog you've read my comments about the history of Eastern Colorado. It's totally different than that of the mountains but fascinating in it's own way.

Talk about scratching the corners of my psyche!...First stop was Ramah, Colorado, a small town with a population of about 120, 50 miles east of Colorado Springs. Ramah appears to have been a rail stop at one time and was probably an agricultural center. It now is...? I'm not sure exactly what it is now but if you're into old cars, you need to come see this place. I'm thinkin that the old cars out number the people here. A lot of these are not your run of the mill junk cars. These are gems just waiting for a restoration...

As I was taking a picture of this great old Nash, a beat up, almost junk car pulled up and stopped. Keep in mind that this is about 10 am on Sunday morning....The driver gets out of the car with a beer in his hand. If they had a pool room in Ramah, I'll bet that's where he came from. He says, "Wanna buy that one?"

After some real intellectual conversation I elicited the fact that the town was indeed jam packed with old cars...most of which belonged to this guy's friend who went unnamed. Un-named but identified as a one time president of "Sons of Silence" motorcycle gang. The guy is really very nice and says that this friend collected these cars at one time and old cars would just "show up" in town periodically with no real explanation from his friend.

After spending the better part of an hour nosing around we headed west towards Colorado Springs. On the way out of town we saw what at first, looked like a small prison, with high fences and spotlights all around. After looking a bit closer it looked to be a "private residence"????

The bride and I speculated that perhaps that's where "the friend", the president of "Sons of Silence" lived?

Do you want to read about the rest of the trip? I promise it won't bore you. I'm gonna break this down into two posts because I'm looking out for my readers well being. Don't want to put you in psyche overload. Take a break and come back for part two...


Thanks for visiting.