Bats, Bears And Burgers, Oh My

The post title is a take off on the famous line by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. Hard to believe that this classic 1939 movie is still entertaining and being quoted some seventy years after it was released. I wonder how many of today’s crop of movies will have a similar stature in 2080?

Enough of that. On Saturday The Bride and I left early and headed to the Colorado Division of Wildlife Volunteer orientation. The orientation was in Colorado Springs about an hour drive from our home. About 15 people attended to find out what types of opportunities are available for volunteers.

It turns out that there are a lot of varied projects available to interested volunteers. I’ve mentioned previously that I participated in a waterfowl count last week and that it tame compared to some of the projects. One that interested me is the Bats/Inactive Mines Project. In this project, volunteers survey inactive mines to see if bats have taken up residence in them. First of all there a literally thousands of inactive mines in Colorado and they are extremely dangerous. These mines make perfect habitats for a number of species of bats and bats are of terrific importance to man. The dilemma is to allow the bats a place to live and to keep humans from entering these dangerous sites.

Volunteers go to the mines but not in them. They use electronic “bat detectors” to detect the ultra sonic signals the bats use. If bats are found the mine entrance can be closed with a grate that will allow access by the bats but prevent humans from entering. How cool is that??

Other projects range from helping clean up State Wildlife Areas to helping at fish hatcheries to collecting animal heads for chronic wasting disease testing. The collecting heads project gets the heads from hunter harvested animals. There is also a State Wildlife Area Host program where volunteers camp at the Wildlife Areas and help educate visitors about the area. Between volunteering for the Division of Wildlife and the Forest Service methinks that I’ll be pretty busy this year.

All of that information about opportunities made The Bride and I hungry and fortunately the DOW orientation broke up at noon. We had previously made arrangements with The Circle to meet them at Conway’s Red Top burger joint. I learned about this place from a Christmas present book given to me by Cajenn and Cajon and my curiosity took over.

As you can see by the picture above, the restaurant is a non-descript little place but it serves decidedly non-non-descript burgers. These behemoths are eighteen inches in diameter! Now they are not your typical two or three inch thick gourmet burgers but are relatively thin allowing that artery clogging grease to really flavor the burger. The burger is a bit thinner on the edges and their frying technique renders them crispy at the very edge. A great taste.

As hungry as I was I was not foolish enough to order a whole burger but settled for a half burger which was more than sufficient. I had mine without cheese most of the rest of The Circle ordered theirs with cheese. Guitar and Pic-E also sampled the chili while K had a hot dog and a bowl of bean soup. All pronounced their meals worthy of the trip.

After a leisurely lunch we all headed back towards the Denver area. On the way back we stopped at the little town of Monument, Colorado. Monument sit astride Interstate 25 and I’ve passed by it hundreds of times without taking the time to look past the ever present gas stations and fast food joints. It turns out that there is a quaint little historic town a few blocks off the Interstate. We did a little looking and following the ladies of The Circle and then Too Tall-Two Timing, Guitar and I retired to the local cantina to have a cold one and watch football while the ladies completed their exploration.

We were back in the Denver metro are by late afternoon. It was a great day. I had learned a lot and had an adventure or two. Life is good.

Thanks for visiting. 

Molly Dog, Mammoths, Hot Dogs & B-17s

Well there’s an intriguing title? That’s a lot of seemingly disconnected stuff but it is all connected in my weekend. First of all Molly Dog is on the mend. That’s her in the picture above with the cast on her right front leg. She’s learning to hobble around on it and thankfully hasn’t bitten at the cast. The vet said it would cost $69 to replace the cast if she tried to chew through it. I really didn’t want to put a cone on her head to stop her from doing that. That seemed like “piling on” in her current condition. The cast is about an inch or two longer than her other legs so she has learned to trail that leg behind her and hop on the other three legs to get around. The cast is mainly to hold her paw in a position so that the tendon will heal properly. She will be in the cast for about 10 more days.

As for the mammoths, yesterday The Circle attended a lecture about the Lamb Springs Mammoth Archaeological Site, which is about 10 miles from my home. After the lecture which was held at a local library we visited the site.

Readers know that archaeology interests me and this was an exceptional experience because I hadn’t a clue that this site was right in my back yard. The site is extremely important to understanding not only the extinct animals whose bones were found here but also in learning more about the ancient Clovis people that once lived in this area.

Amongst the bones found here were also artifacts used by Clovis man which proved that these ancient hunters killed animals here as long as 11,000 years ago. That’s the earliest evidence of Clovis man ever discovered and even that record could be broken. 13,000 year old mammoth bones were found at the site that appear to have been broken unnaturally….or very much like ancient humans processed bones. The problem for archaeologists is that no Clovis artifacts were found at the same level of the dig so there was no “smoking gun” to tie one to the other……except for one item. A 33 pound rock was found among the bones. What’s the big deal about that you say? Well, the rock didn’t belong there. The area of the dig was clay with only a few small stones in the area. About a mile away however is the bed of the South Platte River and there are plenty of similar stones there. The stone found at the site had marks on one point that looked like it had been repeatedly dropped on something hard and the marks matched up with the marks on the mammoth bone. Anyhow the archaeology community is split over whether the evidence is strong enough to declare that Clovis Man was present in North America 2,000 years earlier than previously thought. Fascinating.

There really wasn’t much to see at the actual site. All the working pits had been backfilled after the dig in the 1980’s to preserve the area. It was easy however to see the way the land sloped down to the spring, now dry, and imagine animals coming here for water…..Another interesting fact. Archaeologists can tell that the spring was a reliable year round source of water for over 13,000 years. About twenty five years ago however, about the time that this area started to develop, the spring went dry. Modern humans have lowered the water table enough to dry out the spring.

The weather was a perfect as you could ask for and we had a very enjoyable time. After the tour The Circle went to a local hot dog joint called Bernie’s for lunch. I’m not normally a hot dog guy. I prefer hamburgers but I enjoyed the Colfax Dog with a side of onion rings.

Finally, there has been a WW II B-17 bomber flying around this area all weekend. It is a magnificent piece of history and seeing it fly only about 1000 feet over my house on D-Day really gave me the willies….in a good way. You could hear the deep throated roar of the four engines about 30 seconds before you could see the plane itself and I tried hard to get a picture for several days but I was only able to get the one you see here. Even though I had my camera at the ready in the house it always seemed to surprise me by approaching from a different direction each time or catching me too far from the camera to get a shot before it disappeared. I would have loved to take a ride in it but at $400 for a 30 minute ride, it’s a little rich for my budget.

All in all just a great weekend……..

Thanks for visiting.

Hot Dog, I'm Home!

Business road trip is over. I've gotta tell you, without my GPS I would have been toast more than once. Technology is amazing and it's also amazing how quickly you become used to...no, dependent upon some of these new gadgets.

I left Chicagoland yesterday, late afternoon on another packed 777. It was an oversold flight so loading took longer than usual and after they had filled every seat it was discovered that someone in business class had a "broken" seat. The captain came on the intercom and advised that we would have to delay departure until they could either..(1) get someone to say the seat was airworthy. (2) fix it if they couldn't get someone to give it a pass. (3) empty the seat...which meant the guy that paid more to sit in business class would have to leave the aircraft since all the other seats had already been filled.

Put yourself in the seat....ha! that's a play on words...of the guy in the business class seat that was thinking that he was going to have a nice flight home to Denver on a Friday evening and then was faced with being "Bumped", thrown off the flight because his seat was broken!

The good ending was that they fixed the seat and we took off...an hour late but as the saying goes, "Better late than never."

Business-wise the trip was a success. I bombed on my first attempt to find a Muffler Man, but I did manage to get a glimpse of the Joliet "Jackhammer" Muffler Man. Not only did I have to contend with cold windy weather but downtown Joliet made me a bit nervous. The ballpark was closed, the neighborhood was...a "hood", I walked fast, took pictures fast and exited as quickly as possible.

The picture at the top of the post was one of the few signs that I happened upon during the week. I was really hoping for more classic signs but for whatever reason I didn't seem to find the groove this week for sniffing out signs.

This coming week is Thanksgiving week and it's been decided that the first annual Turkey Trot Trip will be to Taos, NM. Unfortunately, The Bride will not be with us so I'll be batching it. I am enchanted with the NM area so I'm really looking forward to this trip. I would have a lot more fun if The Bride were along too, but she's got some serious stuff to attend to in North Carolina. I'll be with her in spirit.......

Thanks for visiting.

Day #6 For #4

Well, I guess the party is over for this trip. Time to pack up and head on home. Before we do however there are several more things I want to do. First, I have been meaning for years to take a picture of the drive-in theater sign in Buena Vista. This one isn't as fancy as the Movie Manor I visited the other day but it's still a neat thing to see an operating drive-in. Since it was on our way through Buena Vista it only took a couple of minutes to get the picture.

Next stop was Fairplay and the Colorado Mountain Hat Company to get a tune up for my hat. We got there just as Smitty was opening up and #4 was amazed. Being from a large city in the Southeast "cowboy" hats were not his thing, but a custom Fedora? Smitty just happened to have a couple of styles on display and before you could say Fedora, #4 was under the conforminator to get fitted. He's gonna look sharp in the city when he gets his custom hat in about 12 weeks!

I got my hat tuned up while all this was going on and it was time to head on down the road.

One more stop before we got home...Coney Island Hot Dog stand in Bailey, CO. I've described this place to you in earlier posts and #4 wanted to stop there for lunch. I didn't have a problem with that at all so it was hot dogs and onion rings for lunch. We got there a little before noon but there was already a line outside. That doesn't necessarily mean a long wait however because the inside is so small not many people can fit in at one time.

#4 sprung for lunch and I grabbed one of the two tables inside. Even though it was a gorgeous day outside, I had to let #4 soak up the ambiance of eating inside.

After lunch we couldn't postpone the goin' home part any more and were back at the house by 2pm. We spent the rest of the day relaxing and looking at pictures from the trip.

First thing Saturday morning, I drove #4 to the airport and we said our good-byes. I had a blast on the trip and I'm pretty sure he did too. The both of us got to act like brothers again and I'm thankful for that.

Who knows, maybe we'll do a repeat next year?

Thanks for visiting.

The Wurst of Times

Some time back I related the story of the hot dog shaped building and it's move to Bailey, Colorado. The Coney Island Hot Dog stand has been a Colorado fixture for going on fifty years now. It closed last year but I'm pleased to be able to report that it has reopened....hopefully even better than it was.

If I plan this right I just might be able to give #4 a real special treat on the way home next week. Him being a gourmet cook and all, he should really appreciate this American haute cuisine.

Thanks for visiting.

Coney Island in Colorado

One more tidbit from my trip this weekend. On the way to Leadville and on the way back we passed through the little town of Bailey, Colorado which now is the home of the Coney Island Hot Dog Stand, possibly the best piece of roadside kitsch in Colorado.

The Coney Island Hot Dog Stand was born in 1966 and resided in Denver until 1970 when it was moved to the small town of Aspen Park. It stood in Aspen Park gathering "kitsch" status...and national fame until last year when the land it sat on was sold to a bank.

Imagine wanting to replace something as cool as this with ANOTHER bank? It seems like between Walmarts, Walgreens and banks the United States if becoming one giant homogenized, cookie cutter place. But you've heard that rant plenty of places before.

Anyway, with no land to sit on the Coney Island needed a new home. It found one just up the road a bit in Bailey. Now looking at the picture on the top of this post can you imagine moving this structure 20 miles up the road? It was quite an event and was covered by the national media.

The bride and I had some of their hot dogs some years ago while it was still in Aspen Park. I had driven by it numerous times and always said, "next time I'm going to stop" but never did. This one particular weekend however, I told the bride to hop in the car I was going to treat her to lunch but wouldn't tell her where. When I started up to the mountains she really got curious about where lunch was going to be. She was probably thinking I had a bottle of champagne and picnic lunch in the trunk and we were going to some idyllic mountain meadow to partake of the natural beauty of Colorado. When we arrived at "The Dog" I don't think she could figure out what to say....one of the few times in the 30 some years we've known each other! I know that's gonna cost me but as Oscar Mayer is my witness it's true.

After lunch, on the way home, I turned to her and said "Stick with me hon, and you'll see all the finest places!" That has become an inside joke with us whenever things are not exactly the way we expect them to be.

I'm thinking that when they open back up "The Circle" will have to make an outing to there to welcome it to it's new location because we make it a point to visit all the finest places!

Thanks for visiting.