Bent’s Old Fort, La Junta, Colorado, September 7, 2011

Bent’s Old Fort (Exit78, November 8, 2011)

William Bent, Charles Bent and Ceran St. Vrain were among the earliest western fur traders and, in the 1820’s, began to engage in the Mexican and Indian trade.  There were five Bent brothers. For thirty years their name was almost synonymous with the fur trade of Colorado.

In 1831 or 1832 Charles Bent and St. Vrain formed a partnership, which in time became Bent, St. Vrain, and Co., and entered the Santa Fe trade. In the late 1820’s or early 1830’sWilliam Bent, who had apparently been trading independently, erected a large adobe fort on the north bank of the Arkansas River, 12 miles west of the mouth of the Purgatoire. At first named Fort William, it was also known as Bent’s Fort and finally as Bent’s Old Fort after it was partially destroyed and a new fort was built elsewhere. Elaborately constructed, it was eventually a massive adobe structure of quadrangular shape having 24 rooms lining the walls, supported by poles. Two 30-foot cylindrical bastions, equipped with cannon, flanked the southwest and northeast corners. The walls were 15 feet high and 2 feet thick and extended 4 feet above the building roofs to serve as a banquette and were pierced with loopholes. On the south side was a cattle yard, enclosed by a high wall. A self-sufficient institution, the fort was operated by about 60 persons of many nationalities and vocations, including blacksmiths, trappers and traders, carpenters, mechanics, wheelwrights, gunsmiths, cooks, cattle herders, hunters, clerks, teamsters, and laborers. (read more…)

Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG), Silverton, Colorado, September 8, 2009

Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (Wikipedia)

The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad (D&SNG) is a 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge heritage railroad that operates 45.2 miles (72.7 km) of track between Durango and Silverton, in the U.S. state of Colorado. The railway is a federally designated National Historic Landmark and is also designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

The route was originally opened in 1882 by the Denver & Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) to transport silver and gold ore mined from the San Juan Mountains. The line was an extension of the D&RG 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge line from Antonito, Colorado, to Durango. The last train to operate into Durango from the east was on December 6, 1968. The states of New Mexico and Colorado purchased 64 miles between Antonito and Chama, New Mexico, in 1970 and operates today as the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad. Trackage between Chama and Durango was removed by 1971.

The line from Durango to Silverton has run continuously since 1881, although it is now a tourist and heritage line hauling passengers, and is one of the few places in the U.S. which has seen continuous use of steam locomotives. In March 1981, the Denver & Rio Grande Western sold the line and the D&SNG was formed.

Some rolling stock dates back to the 1880s. Trains operate from Durango to the Cascade Wye in the winter months and Durango-Silverton during the summer months. Durango depot was built in January 1882 and has been preserved in original form.

image – Some rights reserved

Quote is from Scott Adams’ Blog.  Adams is the Dilbert cartoonist.

Image is creative commons licensed from DonkeyHotey on Flickr.

“Fort Cody Trading Post” – North Platte, Nebraska, August 18, 2007

Growing up in North Platte, Nebraska in the 50s and 60s, images of Buffalo Bill Cody were a familiar sight for me as the city claimed to be “Home of Buffalo Bill,” which it was, for a time.  William F. Cody, had a long association with the town. In 1870, he was initiated into Freemasonry in Platte Valley Lodge No.32, in North Platte.  Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show was founded in the area in 1883 and, from the profits, he purchased a 4000 acre ranch in the area a few years later.

In the 1960s, Fort Cody Trading Post was on US Highway 30 on the north side of town, along the route I took most of the time to Madison Junior High in the 7th grade.  Highway 30 was the early and mid 20th century incarnation of the Great Platte River Road, roughly followed in the past by the Trapper’s Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express, and the military road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Laramie across Nebraska.

Today’s Fort Cody is on the south side of town, south of the South Platte River and near Interstate 80, the modern incarnation of the Great Platte River Road.  In the 80s and early 90s, the trading post was one of our family’s favorite stops when visiting North Platte.

Fort Cody Trading Post (RoadsideAmerica.com)

On a cross-country trip, Fort Cody is a reassuring sight, with its log stockade walls and towers, looming 2-dimensional Buffalo Bill sign, and promise of “Western Gifts.”

The 30-foot tall sign resembling Buffalo Bill isn’t an arbitrarily exploited Old West figure; Buffalo Bill Cody (called Buffalo Bill after killing 4,280 buffalo in one 18 month period) lived in North Platte for many years.

The Fort Cody Trading Post has remained true to its original vision — a replica frontier redoubt of the 1860-to-1875 era that claims to be “Nebraska’s Largest Souvenir and Western Gift Store.” While many gift shops in the West attempt to look like frontier stockades, this is probably the largest, maybe even larger than life. Soldier dummies man the stockade battlements and towers; one has an arrow sticking out of his butt.

(read more about Fort Cody at RoadsideAmerica.com)

Tulsa Garden Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 26, 2013

Gull with its catch, Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, June 14, 2012 – trip out to Fort Sumter and back

Manitou Avenue street  scene, Manitou Springs, Colorado, September 10, 2011

We were camped just a a ways down the road at Garden of the Gods RV Resort.

Manitou Springs, Colorado (Wikipedia)

The City of Manitou Springs is a Home Rule Municipality located in El Paso County, Colorado, United States. The town was founded for its scenic setting and natural mineral springs. The downtown area continues to be of interest to travelers, particularly in the summer, as the downtown area consists of many one-story, adjoining, small shops, restaurants, and pubs, as well as a creekside city park with a children’s playground made from unusual materials. Among other services, shops cater to tourist interests such as clothing, candy, souvenirs, and outdoor recreation. The main road through the center of town was one of the direct paths to the base of Pikes Peak. Barr Trail, which winds its way up Pikes Peak, is easily accessible from town.

(Read more about Manitou Springs, Colorado on Wikipedia)

On September 7, 2011, we explored a bit of downtown Grand Junction Colorado, including the outdoor “Art on the Corner” sculptures.  One of the sculptures is of a 62-year-old naked man – James Dalton Trumbo –  sitting in an old fashioned claw-foot bathtub, with pen and cigarette in hand, coffee at the ready  and a bathtub adapted portable writing desk stretching across the width of the tub.  Dalton was a screen writer and novelist.

Art on the Corner (Downtown Grand Junction)

Art on the Corner (AOTC) is a year-round outdoor sculpture exhibit displayed in Downtown Grand Junction and is one of the first of its kind in the country. The display is free to the public and includes more than 100 sculptures in a variety of mediums and styles. Established in 1984 by local sculptor, Dave Davis, Art on the Corner has become a cultural icon in Downtown Grand Junction. The program has been recognized and mimicked in communities across the world and is currently celebrating its thirty-first year. Three-quarters of the collection consists of permanent sculpture and the remainder is part of the annual temporary show. Temporary pieces are for sale to the public

Dalton Trumbo (Wikipedia)

James Dalton Trumbo (December 9, 1905 – September 10, 1976) was an American screenwriter and novelist. As one of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee’s investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry. Trumbo won two Academy Awards while blacklisted; one was originally given to a front writer, and one was awarded to “Robert Rich”, Trumbo’s pseudonym.

Blacklisting effectively ended in 1960 when it lost credibility. Trumbo was publicly given credit for two blockbuster films: Otto Preminger made public that Trumbo wrote the screenplay for the smash hit, Exodus, and Kirk Douglas publicly announced that Trumbo was the screenwriter of Spartacus.[4] Further, President John F. Kennedy crossed American Legion picket lines to see the film.

On December 19, 2011, the Writers Guild of America announced that Trumbo was given full credit for his work on the screenplay of the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday, sixty years after the fact.

The Man in the Bathtub in Downtown Grand Junction (Undercover Colorado)

But the most unique tribute to Colorado’s screenwriting native son appeared on the streets of Grand Junction on October 13, 2007. It is a bronze antique bathtub with a naked 62-year old man lounging with coffee at the ready and cigarette in hand while working on a script. The eccentric Trumbo was known to do his best work writing in the bathtub. He also consumed six packs of unfiltered cigarettes a day, which ultimately killed him.

On October 8, 2011, we stopped at Petrified Forest National Park on the homeward leg of our multi-week trip out west.  We had left Williams, Arizona, earlier that morning and would be camping overnight at Lyman Lake State Park. It was a pleasant day for taking walks through the sparse, desert terrain.

The petrified logs that liter the park lived in the Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago.

Petrified Wood (Wikipedia)

Petrified wood (from the Greek root petro meaning “rock” or “stone”; literally “wood turned into stone”) is the name given to a special type of fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation. It is the result of a tree or tree-like plants having completely transitioned to stone by the process of permineralization. All the organic materials have been replaced with minerals (mostly a silicate, such as quartz), while retaining the original structure of the stem tissue. Unlike other types of fossils which are typically impressions or compressions, petrified wood is a three-dimensional representation of the original organic material. The petrifaction process occurs underground, when wood becomes buried under sediment and is initially preserved due to a lack of oxygen which inhibits aerobic decomposition. Mineral-laden water flowing through the sediment deposits minerals in the plant’s cells; as the plant’s lignin and cellulose decay, a stone mould forms in its place. The organic matter needs to become petrified before it decomposes completely. A forest where such material has petrified becomes known as a petrified forest.

Petrified Forest National Park (National Geographic)

A sun-swept corner of the Painted Desert draws more than 600,000 visitors each year. While most come to see one of the world’s largest concentrations of brilliantly colored petrified wood, many leave having glimpsed something more. The current 346 square miles of Petrified Forest open a window on an environment more than 200 million years old, one radically different from today’s grassland.

Colors in the Petrified Wood (Wikipedia)

Elements such as manganese, iron, and copper in the water/mud during the petrification process give petrified wood a variety of color ranges. Pure quartz crystals are colorless, but when contaminants are added to the process the crystals take on a yellow, red, or other tint.

Following is a list of contaminating elements and related color hues:

• carbon – black
• cobalt – green/blue
• chromium – green/blue
• copper – green/blue
• iron oxides – red, brown, and yellow
• manganese – pink/orange
• manganese oxides – blackish/yellow

Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona (Wikipedia)

Petrified Forest National Park is a United States national park in Navajo and Apache counties in northeastern Arizona. Named for its large deposits of petrified wood, the park covers about 146 square miles (380 km²), encompassing semi-desert shrub steppe as well as highly eroded and colorful badlands. The park’s headquarters is about 26 miles (42 km) east of Holbrook along Interstate 40 (I-40), which parallels the BNSF Railway’s Southern Transcon, the Puerco River, and historic U.S. Route 66, all crossing the park roughly east–west. The site, the northern part of which extends into the Painted Desert, was declared a national monument in 1906 and a national park in 1962. About 600,000 people visit the park each year and take part in activities including sightseeing, photography, hiking, and backpacking.

Averaging about 5,400 feet (1,600 m) in elevation, the park has a dry windy climate with temperatures that vary from summer highs of about 100 °F (38 °C) to winter lows well below freezing. More than 400 species of plants, dominated by grasses such as bunchgrass, blue grama, and sacaton, are found in the park. Fauna include larger animals such as pronghorns, coyotes, and bobcats; many smaller animals, such as deer mice; snakes; lizards; seven kinds of amphibians, and more than 200 species of birds, some of which are permanent residents and many of which are migratory. About half of the park is designated wilderness.

The Petrified Forest is known for its fossils, especially fallen trees that lived in the Late Triassic, about 225 million years ago. The sediments containing the fossil logs are part of the widespread and colorful Chinle Formation, from which the Painted Desert gets its name. Beginning about 60 million years ago, the Colorado Plateau, of which the park is part, was pushed upward by tectonic forces and exposed to increased erosion. All of the park’s rock layers above the Chinle, except geologically recent ones found in parts of the park, have been removed by wind and water. In addition to petrified logs, fossils found in the park have included Late Triassic ferns, cycads, ginkgoes, and many other plants as well as fauna including giant reptiles called phytosaurs, large amphibians, and early dinosaurs. Paleontologists have been unearthing and studying the park’s fossils since the early 20th century.