Indian Market & Powwow

  Yesterday was the day that Guitar and I volunteered to work at the Tesoro Foundation Indian Market & Powwow. This will be the third year that I have volunteered for this event and I enjoyed myself more this time than at any of the other times.

My assignment for this event was “Artist Ambassador” which as I mentioned in a previous post is a fancy name for a “gofer”. It was however, a blast. I spent four hours walking among the artist booths, talking with the artists and helping them in any way I could. This is a juried show and the artists represented all sorts of talents. Jewelry was probably the most prominent talent but there was also pottery, painting, leather work and a lot more. The picture to the left is the artist Pahponee and her first place winning vase/urn. She really had some nice ceramic ware and seemed to be selling quite a number of items.

Another artist, Venus Brightstar was selling her leather creations which the ladies seemed to love. She had a second place ribbon for the item you see in the picture. I asked her if she did “guy” stuff and she said she did but had sold everything at her last show. When I told her I might be interested in a vest, she took my name and address and promised to send me some pictures of what she could do. That should be interesting. I told her not garish but a bit understated….? We’ll see.

At 1 pm they had the opening ceremony for the powwow portion of the event. There were about 75 Native American dancers and  they all made a grand entrance which was pretty impressive. I’m sure Native Americans of 100 years ago did not have costumes with all the brilliant colors I saw yesterday but I guess even Native American costumes have to keep up with “fashion”. Here are some pictures of the dancers…young and old.

I brought the RV to the house this morning and am beginning to pack it for our trip to Moab. I have got the proverbial “hitch itch” and the sooner I can get on the road, the better. It seems the weather will be pretty warm there, high 80’s with a chance of thunder showers every day but I’m oh, so ready regardless of what the weather is.

In just a little while we’ll be leaving for the airport to pick up Ladder Lady. I know The Bride is anxious to see her Mom. She’s excited that she will be able to show her a part of the country she has never seen before.

This will probably be my last post for a number of days. Thursday I’ll be in a campground with WiFi but I’m guessing I won’t get a chance to do a post until I get back.

Thanks for visiting.

Missing Moab and The Spanish Market

Too Tall- Two Timing and K. are still waiting to become grandparents. The scheduled date is tomorrow but that is not certain as all of us with children know all too well. Too Tall has opted to stay in town where he can monitor the situation a lot better and not go to Moab as was planned. Since we were going to share the ride and the hotel room, I am canceling out of the trip as well. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for a healthy, sorta on-time grandchild for the both of them.

I forgot to report that on the Saturday before Guitar and I left on our Passport In Time project, I went to the Spanish Market and Mountain Man Rendezvous with The Bride, Guitar and Pic-E. It was a spectacular day weather-wise and the event was a lot of fun.

In one area there were people dressed in the frontier garb of the 1830's and 1840's selling wares that were sold at the time to the frontiersmen and Indians. Things like spices, clothing, trinkets, knives and other implements and so on.

In another area Mountain Man re-enactors had set up camp tents and were giving demonstrations on almost lost arts such as fire starting, blacksmithing and even hatchet throwing.

A third area was for the artists displays. Most of the art was religious folk art known as "santos". I'm not much of an aficionado of this type of art but it is very colorful.

Finally, there was a burro race. In this type of event each contestant (human) has a team-mate (burro). The human does not ride the burro but rather runs alongside the burro. In a lot of cases it the human trying to get the burro to run by coaxing, pleading, swearing or whatever.

The race this day was a very small race by comparison. Pack burro racing is a pretty big sport in Colorado with the largest race being the "Get Your Ass Across The Pass" race held annually between the towns of Leadville and Fairplay.

It was a fun time and we even had a chance to buy some roasted hatch chilies which The Bride has already turned into pork green chili.

Thanks for visiting.

Time for Adventure Time

There hasn't been a whole lot of blogging interest going on this past week. I have been preparing my gear for next weeks trip to Picture Canyon. The picture at the top of this post is a Google Earth snapshot of the area from 18,000 feet.

Now at 18,000 feet you can see a lot of country. Look at this picture and note the lack of...of...of anything. Only one structure is visible. That looks like a ranch barn in the upper left hand corner of the picture. The few roads/trails you can see are all dirt. Not a paved road to be seen. The thin yellow line at the very bottom of the picture is the Oklahoma panhandle border. Readers, this is the definition of, the representation of, "the sticks".

This afternoon Guitar and I will probably go get his camper from the storage lot and begin to load the gear. Tomorrow morning The Bride and I are going to spend a little time at the Tesoro Foundation's, Spanish Market and Mountain Man Rendezvous. This is a fun event with a lot of Spanish folk dancing, mountain man exhibits and contests and a juried show of Spanish Colonial artists.

After a couple of hours at this event I'll probably link up with Guitar again to finish preparations for Sundays trip down to Picture Canyon.

Last night The Bride and I were able to get together with Too Tall - Two Timing and K and a local restaurant called Rodney's. We all had a good time trading news and enjoying the food. Several of us chose the lobster enchiladas. They were very good and very spicy.

While we were dining K mentioned that in my last post, I was very general about where I learned about the Passport in Time program and it was actually she, that brought it to my attention. That is very true and I want everyone to know the truth. I took it from the way she reminded me of this that she would like a little "publicity" on this blog. Being the very good friend that I am I think I will oblige her. It will have to wait however until after my adventure next week.

Thanks for visiting.

Magic Carpet Ride and Powwow

Two intense days of moving everything I own from room to room, breaking down furniture and putting it back together again, sweating and straining, but it's done. We now have new carpeting in the entire house. You'll have to take my word for it because there are no pictures.

In a way this was more work than moving. We did just about everything you do when you move....except end up in a new city or a new home. All the work but not the payoff of having a new house.

The only real problem was that I had a weight machine in one room that I thought could slide through a doorway into another room while they re-carpeted the exercise room. Wrong. Panic time. I've got to get it out of the room so they can work there and in a hurry. This is one of those weight machines that has a jillion pulleys and cables. There was no easy way to take any major piece off so I just had to start removing bolts and nuts and collapse the thing in one big pile of metal, cables and pulleys. It's gonna take me a month to get the thing back together (if I'm lucky).

The Bride was a trooperette but paid the price. This morning she was pretty sore and stiff.

This morning was my morning to volunteer at the Indian Powwow sponsored by the Tesoro Foundation. It was held on the grounds of The Fort Restaurant. I've posted about The Fort before but it's a replica of an old fur trading post that is located in eastern Colorado. A great venue for this type of event because they have a large outdoor area that overlooks the plains to the east and has views of the red rock formations of the foothills.

My duties this year was to be a "gopher" in the participant area. That meant I was along the side where most of the Indian dancers were set up and right behind (and I mean only 2 feet behind) one group of Indian "singers". A ring side seat!

I had been to one other Powwow at The Fort, last fall. That one was piggy backed on to the Spanish Market, also held there. It was not nearly as well attended as this one was. Today the crowds were thick and there were many, many more Indian Dancers present. Dancers included both men and women.

The costumes were fantastic with lots of color, beads and feathers. Sometimes when two or three participants were dancing close together it was difficult to separate the individuals. All the colors and texture just blended everything together into one colorful mass. Both the picture to the right and the picture at the top of the post illustrate this pretty well.

So, I worked from 10 am till 1 pm. Had a ring side seat for the festivities. Got a free t-shirt. Got a free lunch. It was a beautiful Colorado spring day. Cobalt blue skies with a light breeze and temps in the 70's. Life is very good!!!

Thanks for visiting.

Over On Our Own...

Well, The Bride returned on Wednesday night from her trip to see CaJenn and to do "wedding stuff". It sounds like she had a wonderful time and is getting into the swing of this wedding thing. I've got to be real careful about getting information from her as I may not really want to hear all of the $pecifics! All I really know is that three DEADLY serious, giggly women spent a number of days in California depleting the wine supply...and my dollar supply.

Tuesday night I attended the appreciation dinner for Tesoro Foundation volunteers at the Fort Restaurant. It was a very nice affair with buffalo enchiladas for the main course. There were about 20 volunteers present. Holly Arnold Kinney, daughter of the late Sam Arnold and Executive Director of the foundation gave us an update of the Foundations activities in promoting Southwestern culture, art and history. The evening ended with participants giving the Mountain Man Toast....

Here's to the childs what's come afore
And here's to the pilgrims what come arter
May your trails be free of grizz
Yer packs filled with plew
And fat buffler in yer pot!
Waugh!

Thanks for visiting.