Growing up wild in Colorado

[Mike from back east]

Originally Posted by beezle1

I had no idea we had horned toads here!

Mostly now we just have horny old toads....

I could write in the MD forums of sail powered oyster skipjacks working the Chesapeake Bay's icy winter waters....way back when I was a wee lad...

Great posting....maybe some of today's kids will go 'sploring their back yards and find brittle bleached bones....old forgotten places where Alferd Packer once trod...

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

and we know what else was going on out in Pawnee Grasslands (and other Prairie sites) in the 1960's and 70's.
I had a truck break down east of Briggsdale, CO and got picked up @3AM by 2 couples who were out chasing UFO's, I wasn't sure where I would end up .... but I was COLD and no-one else was out there! (or maybe there was?)

Colorado cow mutilations baffle ranchers, cops, UFO believer – The Denver Post
Cattle Mutilations
excerpts...

"So, in the morning, Dad goes out to check the cattle and finds a dead 500-pound Charolais steer with the characteristic mutilations of fine surgical cuts in the genital area with no blood. No footprints. No nothing. Nothing but a healthy, 500-pound steer that was now dead."

“I found no evidence of human, and I have found no evidence of alien intervention,” he said, later adding, “we’ve had 10,000 cases (in the nation) since 1967. All 10,000 cases that law enforcement investigated, not once have they been able to find human intervention. They never caught anyone doing it.”


What exactly happened on the prairie so long ago remains unsolved

Not quite as exciting as the night they ambushed, roadblocked, and shot up a robbery car in Stoneham, CO.

(not every night was such an adventure, but EVERY night I THOUGHT about those adventures as I drove solo across hours of endless prairie (often in a blinding blizzard))

How lucky I was to live in Colorado in that time with the precious moments running out, and I so young and unaware.

Ah, Mr. Rabbit, why is it no surprise that you would remember growing up driving alone through blizzards across endless prairie while I remember warm summer days. laying on my tummy watching horned toads. It's all about point of view, isn't it? I love to read input from others who grew up in Colorado and what it felt like to them. It's intriguing to look at things from different angles and your sly comments are always interesting.

Originally Posted by NW Crow

CR, write more if you enjoy it. I'd suggest that you break it into one vignette at a time and look to add a picture to them. Visuals draw people in and can increase impact.


SR, you have lots of stories too. This thread could be trading back n forth between a few or many or just CR's if she wants. Easy enough to have more than one ongoing thread of memories. Maintaining voice and theme has some appeal but I can bounce around too. I think it is an OP call.

Thank you, NW. I think it would be wonderful to have others chime in and fill out this thread with stories of their own about adventures in Colorado back in the day - and now, as well. A writer exists only to resonate with her audience. Alone, I have nothing to say, but with companions all of our words and stories can come together to weave a fascinating conversation. Please join in - you and anyone else who might wish to!

Originally Posted by SkyDog77

Rambler is my hero. She's 25 years my senior, but I got to experience growing up next to a horse field 20 minutes from downtown Denver. It has, of course, been developed now. I like the city Denver has become, but do miss the areas of my youth too.

I feel lucky to have spent weeks of my formative years stomping around in the San Juans. I spent summers at Camp Chief Ouray near Granby before the beetle kill devastated that area. I also remember skipping high school every Wednesday of my senior year to ski at Mary Jane. We would bring microwave pizzas with and bury them in the snow, only to uncover on the way down for lunch. Mary Jane let us use their microwave for free to heat them up. I looked forward to skiing down under the lift carrying a pizza and getting the "do you deliver here?" Shouts from above.

I found Ed Abbey in my 20s while kayaking the Colorado through the desert canyons in eastern Utah. Changed my life forever.

Thanks for writing!

Ah, SkyDog, weren't our San Juan Mountains so amazing back then? I love the image of you on your skis, carrying a pizza. It's like my memories of spending every possible moment with my BF in high school whose father ran the now defunct Broadmoor Ski Resort. We didn't have to pay for lift tickets and we'd skip school, too. My friend would tell her Dad that we had just opted out of study hall when the truth was that we were fleeing from the tedium of geometry class. We'd ski in blue jeans and gaiters and our ski's were mountaineering ones made of real wood and we waxed them with real wax. You could switch the bindings back and forth from cross country to downhill, depending.

You'll never see a kid on skis with a pizza at Vail these days, nor a couple of sly high school girls wearing blue jeans and gaiters, skipping school to hit the slopes on old wooden skis. Please share more of your stories!

PS Once I had read Ed Abbey, I had to come out and see Arches and Canyonlands for myself. The moment I crested the top of Wolf Creek for the very first time I fell hopelessly in love with the Four Corners and I never looked back.

Originally Posted by beezle1

I had no idea we had horned toads here!

Horned toads are masters of disguise. The color and texture of their skin allows them to blend in with their surroundings and become as invisible as Stealth Rabbit. It takes the huge round eyes of an amazed child to find one.

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

Mostly now we just have horny old toads....

I could write in the MD forums of sail powered oyster skipjacks working the Chesapeake Bay's icy winter waters....way back when I was a wee lad...

Great posting....maybe some of today's kids will go 'sploring their back yards and find brittle bleached bones....old forgotten places where Alferd Packer once trod...

You SHOULD post some memories in the MD forums, Mike. I bet they love to read sail powered skipjacks!

[otowi]

I love horned toads! I have seen them at the Paint Mines in recent years, fyi.

[TCHP]

We would find them, along with regular toads, out on the fringe of Black Forest in what is now known as the Pine Creek area. I also remember some commercial construction out there in the 70s and 80s that was delayed by the Prebles Meadow Mouse, yet somehow it was never an issue when they built a new high school and thousands of houses over the last 25 years. Of course, we also had a huge swimming hole a ways off Old Ranch and Howells Rd where dozens of kids would swim in the grey, muddy waters during the heat of the summer. Someone's dad brought out a back hoe to deepened one end enough for us to jump in. There were skinned knees and an occasional bonked head, but we were none the worse for wear. The constant activity there meant it never had much wildlife in the water. For that, we would hit the cattails ponds off Highway 83 (Voyager) near Kettle Creek where we could catch small blue gills and bait trap crawdads.

[StealthRabbit]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

... It's all about point of view, isn't it? I love to read input from others who grew up in Colorado and what it felt like to them. It's intriguing to look at things from different angles .....

Yup, VERY different P.O.V. for "Horned Toads" to be associated with "Growing up wild in Colorado", Things have certainly changed

I will treasure my yrs growing up on a CO ranch and in 4-H and other exciting activities, and keep the 'wild side' and crazy Colorado moments more subdued!

[suzco]

Wild, crazy? I have fond memories of jumping off cliffs into the South Platte near Deckers

[Colorado Rambler]

Originally Posted by suzco

Wild, crazy? I have fond memories of jumping off cliffs into the South Platte near Deckers

Ha-ha! Do you remember all the cars around there with bumper stickers reading "Stop Two Forks Dam - Denver's Big Enough!"? All the fly fishermen who used to go there were pretty po'ed. Denver must be 3 times the size now than it was back then. We did stop them from building that dam, though. I've heard some recent rumblings that they may try again to dam the South Platte near Deckers. Much good it will do them unless we start getting a lot more snow pack in the mountains every winter which is extremely unlikely.

Originally Posted by StealthRabbit

Yup, VERY different P.O.V. for "Horned Toads" to be associated with "Growing up wild in Colorado", Things have certainly changed.

LOL! The thing is that those horned toads were what enticed me to go scrambling off alone to explore the prairie - the 4 year-old's equivalent to your relentless drives across the prairie in endless blizzards!

[suzco]

Originally Posted by Colorado Rambler

Ha-ha! Do you remember all the cars around there with bumper stickers reading "Stop Two Forks Dam - Denver's Big Enough!"? All the fly fishermen who used to go there were pretty po'ed. Denver must be 3 times the size now than it was back then. We did stop them from building that dam, though. . .

My favorite bumper sticker of the times was "Frankly my dear, we don't need a dam."

Of course we oldsters were adults by the time of the Two Forks Dam brouhaha, not young children. I think Denver's population hit the 1 million mark in our teen years, sometime between 1960 and 1970.