My skeletal souvenir takes a tour of Steamboat

Look who we found while shopping in Colorado! This cute little frog happens to be something I'd wanted last year but they sold out around here. These frogs are my favorite skeleton animals.

So he was a neat surprise and the perfect souvenir. Come to think of it, it's good that the animal skeleton I was in love with was not one of the larger ones! There wasn't a lot of leftover room in my suitcase.

So, here's his little spine and ribcage from above:

And one of his little fins:

I thought that a neat way to help capture the area we were staying in would be to photograph this little cutie along with it. So the frog got a tour of the Steamboat Springs area and the beautiful nature included.

Here he is posing on, what for him, is a giant Adirondack chair. Actually, it was a pretty big chair for a human.

Aww...

Mom and the frog

I thought these red chairs looked so pretty with all the blue and green around.

I carefully stepped onto the rocks to pose the frog on one.

These are photos of what I'd call the "natural environment" for a frog.

This one might be my favorite photo of him:

Here he is with a mountain lion sculpture. I sat next to that sculpture too and that metal was very hot in the sun!

Do you think a real frog would be in trouble sitting on a real mountain lion's paw?

This photo gives an idea of a lot of the action going on at this time. There's the gondola going up the mountain, a chair lift, a new ride that was just opening, hikers, bikers, runners (there appeared to be a few races going), and some activities for kids. It was incredibly hot too! I felt hot just walking at a normal pace, so it had to be hot for those runners.

Me with a Steamboat Coca-Cola Bear. I'm reminded of those cute old Christmas ads. 🙂

Here's something you'll see a lot of in Colorado: Magpies. Looks like this one got a cracker or a cookie.

What's funny is that the last time we were in Colorado, I couldn't get a picture of one of these birds to save my life! Those pics are a bunch of blurs. It got to the point where I thought the birds were playing tricks on me. This time they were coming out of the woodwork to be photographed! I have many more pics than these two.

I just noticed the brains squirting out on this ad! I guess this is for a clothing company? It's just something I saw hanging next to some shops and happened to like. I just googled this saying and found the shirt. For those interested: skull shirt

As the sun was going down, the water lit up in a soft way.

There was some incredible wind, as you can see here. It was hard for me to gauge the weather in Steamboat. At home, I can tell when it's going to rain and I can guess how long it will last. In Steamboat, I kept thinking it was going to rain and it wouldn't.

These are the gondolas we rode up the mountain to my cousin's wedding. I'll probably write another blog post about that night, so you'll see more gondola action.

And here's a picture of the gondolas the day we arrived. It was incredibly hazy because of the fires. That building at the top of the mountain is where my cousin was married.

Before we left for Colorado, I checked the weather there and saw that there were fires in Steamboat. The fires started right before our trip and we were concerned. It took a good week to get them under control from what I heard. They were still raging 13 miles from where we were on the night of the wedding.

I never saw any fire, just the haze. What's funny is that before the fire worries, I was worried about being snowed on! Yes, snow can arrive in September up there. Actually, it has snowed by now. We were lucky enough to be there a week before the snow fell.

I couldn't pass up one last frog shot, when I saw a nice potted plant by the shops.

The little froggy traveled home in my suitcase and I'm pretty sure I saw the TSA guy take a second look as my suitcase went under the scanner or x-ray or whatever they're looking at. 😉 Now he's a happy Wisconsin frog. After all, there was a friend waiting for him here!

I'm thinking this little guy might end up in the center of this year's bowl of trick-or-treat candy. See, he's already getting into the candy!

The Ghosts of Golden

Hey Everyone! We're back from our trip to Colorado and I think you'll be seeing about four blog posts from it! It was an action-packed, emotional trip and I'm really glad we made it.

The first night my mom and I were in Colorado, we stayed in a town called Golden. Golden is really old, and at one point (1861-1867) it was the capital of Colorado Territory! Golden was founded during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1859. When I imagine downtown Golden in its prime mining town days, I imagine it being much busier than it is today. At least on the night we went it was quiet. I liked the vibe in the old section of town. We were clearly looking at buildings from the 1800s and it was night, but it didn't feel at all creepy there.

That's not to say that there aren't some ghosts. I did some research on Golden before going on this trip, because I figured with a place this old, there ought to be some ghost hanging around. The main haunted place I found people talking about was "The Buffalo Rose" which is a saloon and restaurant. I watched a video from a local Colorado news station about the place before going and it looked promising.

So, with the Buffalo Rose in mind, we headed out. Driving through the mountains in the dark was spooky in its way. It was definitely a different kind of view of nature at night for me.

We passed the Coors Brewery, which is interesting to me as a Milwaukeean. (Since Miller has merged with Coors). For my Mom who came from Colorado, it must seem like the perfect business partnership.

I took a number of blurry shots of the Coors Brewery. It was that twilight time when it's so hard to get a photo to turn out. Plus, I was in a moving car. But a few came out well enough.

Into town, I kept taking photos, in part because I wanted to get that 'M' on the mountain for the Colorado School of Mines. Also because I just take a lot of photos of random stuff. This turned out to be very helpful later on!

So, once in town we set out to find the Buffalo Rose. This is one of the first buildings we passed. It's like a cartoon building with eyes, hey?

Then we walked up to this one and BAM! It hit me with a ton of energy.

It's one of those buildings with a presence. It was a hotel, later a boarding and rooming house, and now serves as the town's Astor House Museum. It dates from 1867! Can you believe some dingbat wanted to tear this down to put up a parking lot? Come on. Luckily, the town rallied around it and then other buildings to make sure they were registered as historic places.

Do you feel like the building is looking back at you? If you do, I'd be curious to hear which window you feel that coming from.

Onto the Buffalo Rose...

Pretty cool building, hey? And there's something fitting about that red light. 😉 I'm pretty sure those ladies pictured in the windows up there symbolize what I think they're supposed to symbolize. This was a mining town after all.

So we walked out front and saw a big statue of a buffalo. This kid kept hopping around it as I took a pic. He'd jump behind it and make coughing (buffalo?) noises and then leap out after I took my photo. Turns out I wanted to keep the one he was in!

I took a few photos through the windows. I don't know if that kid playing around was what took down the spook factor, but I didn't feel much here. However, mom said she thought this room wasn't as empty as it looked.

We have a disagreement going, but I think that dark form in the back looks like a person sitting. He'd be sitting with one leg down and one crossed over it. Mom thinks it's a reflection of something. I did look up a picture of the pool room online and saw that there is seating in that area. So...

A little closer with the contrast bumped up:

Now, here's a building I felt something from! It's a theater now, but I'm not sure what it's original purpose was.

It's called the Miner's Alley Theater. There was something about this entire street.

I felt a strong presence walking down to that red neon sign and then around the corner to this place, The Ace-Hi Tavern.

This place has something shaking. I felt like someone was lounging against the wall of the doorway. I bumped up the contrast big time to see if I could find anything unusual. What do you think?

A little orby-orb up there?

I wrote an email to the owner of the Ace-Hi last night asking if he had any ghosts. I've never written an email like that before! I told him basically what I just told you, about what I felt walking by. To my pleasant surprise, he wrote me back later that evening! And what's more, he has ghost stories.

I'll just paste what he wrote here, because it's cool the way he said it:

Justine,
Thank you for sharing your experience with me.
Yes, we have had ghosts for many years. Never anything scary but have had customers and staff witness bottles, glasses a pitchers fly off the bar or shelves. I myself have been putting liquor bottles away in my back room and then turn to get more bottles to add and look on the shelf and see that the bottles have moved about 6 inches just in the time I turned my head. This happens on a regular basis. I hear them sliding against the shelf and have always been a little freaked out but never scared. It's a building that had been around since the late 1800s and has quite a colorful history. If your ever back in town you'll have to stop by!

As I responded to him, I love how we're living at a time when I can reach out and openly ask about the ghost I sensed and get a nice, honest answer like this! I hope to be in Golden again and if I am, I'll go in the Ace-Hi and say hello.

The street the Ace-Hi is on, just had a vibe in general.

It wasn't at all scary around here. When I say "vibe" I mean it felt inhabited, but not in any kind of bad way. You could just feel the history and a few old inhabitants. But you know how you get a sense of how dangerous a place is at night? This old downtown area felt totally safe.

I love this little building. It looks like it should be an ice cream parlor or a barber shop, but it appears to be a law office. I don't have any ghost stories to offer here, it's just a building I wanted to share. I like those glazed bricks a lot. There's a building around here made of those too and they give a neat reflection. I found a masonry web site that will tell you everything you'd want to know about the bricks: Masonry of Denver - Brick at the Quaintance Block

So, about what I said earlier about it being helpful to take lots of random photos... We got lost on the way back and had to trace my photos in reverse order like Hansel and Gretel to find our way around! This one with the neon liquor store sign saved the day because it had both a landmark and a street sign in it.

Yeah, this obviously took some detective work. Luckily, I can really close in on the pictures I've taken.

So I had to get a photo of the lifesaving neon sign on the way back. Plus, I like colorful neon. And it has the added bonus of including the words "Golden" and "Coors". I wonder how old that Coors sign is?

Have any of your traveled through Golden? If so, I'd love to compare notes! 👻