The Cog

The Cog Railway is another Colorado Springs area institution. It's also the highest railway in the nation. From its station in Manitou it crawls all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. That's a pretty cool way to summit a fourteener! I've never taken the cog, isn't that terrible? It's been on my list forever. There's no excuse!

The cog was built in 1889 and has operated pretty much continuously since then, but it's been out of commission for the last year or two. The Broadmoor bought it fairly recently (of course, they buy everything good about this city 😒) and are doing some extensive repairs and upgrades. I've heard it's going to reopen next year. Maybe I'll finally mark taking the cog off my list then. Meanwhile, you can find one of the train cars in Woodland Park, next to the rest stop on the main drag, right across the street from the Cowhand western store in yesterday's post. Here's a photo of the logo on the side of the train car. More tomorrow.

A helluva hailstorm (again)

I had been planning on sharing some of the sights we saw on Phantom Canyon Road a couple of weekends ago, but yesterday we got hammered by a hailstorm so violent, it made the national news. So I decided to blog about that today instead. The photo above was taken by my good friend Rhonda, who's not only one of my favorite people, she's also a talented wedding florist (I have to brag on my friends every chance I get, so check her out HERE!). Rhonda's part of town got hit hard, but my neck of the woods only got an extremely heavy rainstorm that kept circling back around and dumping on us again and again, late into the night. The worst part of the storm unfortunately centered on our world famous zoo. As you can imagine, the aerial assault of baseball- to softball-sized hail sent thousands of zoo goers scurrying for cover; meanwhile, some of the animals didn't fare so well. Several were injured, and sadly, two birds were were killed:  a four year-old Muscovy duck named Daisy and a 13 year-old Cape vulture named Motswari. Even sadder, Cape vultures are endangered, and Motswari was sent to Cheyenne Mountain Zoo from South Africa several years ago to help save her species. It's a huge loss on far more than a local level.

As for the people who happened to be at the zoo when disaster struck, fourteen were injured, with about seven hospitalized (imagine being brained by a giant ball of ice hurtling out of the sky -- ouch). And every single car in the zoo's two parking lots was pulverized. It's hard to describe the destruction. It looked like an army of gorillas descended on the parking lots and smashed each and every vehicle to bits with baseball bats. Not a single one was spared; they were all rendered undriveable and every zoo goer had to be bused to Cheyenne Mountain High School. It amounted to three or four hundred cars. Just mind blowing. I'll post a video below showing the destruction of the cars, and an aerial video showing exactly how devastating this storm was to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and surrounding neighborhood.

We often get extreme weather here in the summer, and my own neighborhood has been mostly spared from every bad storm that's hit Colorado Springs this year -- this is the second baseball-sized hailstorm of the season (!!!), and there have been several smaller ones, plus a tornado warning/severe thunderstorm that scared the crap out of me, all in the last few weeks -- but in past years we haven't been so lucky. It's part of living here. But darn it, I hated hearing about the poor animals at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. My former assistant, Allison, is a dedicated zookeeper there and she's understandably very upset about this turn of events. The zoo was closed today to assess the damage, and all of its employees are mourning the loss of Daisy and Motswari.

The storm was covered on Good Morning America this morning. This video shows the hundreds of cars that were destroyed in the zoo's parking lots, plus a clip of the grizzly bears desperately trying to dodge giant hailstones.

Drone footage of the ruined cars in the parking lot this morning, as well as devastating damage to the zoo's buildings and habitats. The video also shows destruction to the houses in the surrounding neighborhood. The roofs look like they've been hit by meteors.

The Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun

I have lived here practically my entire life, and I've never been to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. This is a disgrace. Thankfully I had a chance to remedy that situation on Saturday, when some clients asked me to do engagement portraits there. I was very excited about this! Unfortunately, when we got to the Shrine, there was an attendant on hand who forbade me from taking any kind of portraits or professional photos, so my clients and I had to put our heads together and come up with another location -- but not before I grabbed a few snapshots for the blog!

Five stories high and completed in 1937, the Will Rogers Shrine was built by Spencer Penrose. Not only did he build it, he's actually entombed there with his wife Julie, along with two other close friends. So it's not just a shrine, it's a mausoleum. I didn't know that. I also didn't know that it contains a chapel, several pieces of renaissance art and furnishings, and a handful of historic murals depicting the history of the city and region. And of course a large part of the Shrine is dedicated to the life history of Will Rogers, who died during the construction of it. His sudden demise inspired Penrose, a close friend, to christen the tower in his memory.

Anyway, since I was on duty and had important pictures to take elsewhere, I couldn't hang around and check it out; we were only there for a few minutes. I'll have to go back to the Will Rogers Shrine another day and take my time exploring it. Meanwhile, you can find more history about it on the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo website HERE.

Mr. Penrose himself. He's the man who built the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Broadmoor, among other notable things in our city.

Here's a look at it from the zoo parking lot. By the way, the view of the city from the Shrine is stupendous.

Bent's Old Fort (Part 3)

The last couple of days I've been posting pictures that I took at Bent's Old Fort Historic Site on Sunday. As you can see, it's been completely restored back to the way it would have looked in its 1830s heyday. That's pretty remarkable, considering the fact that Bent himself purposely burned the place to the ground in 1852! In fact, the fort was only in service for about 16 years, from 1833 to 1849, when a cholera outbreak forced Bent to abandon the place. He came back a couple of years later to salvage what he could and burn the fort down (though I don't know if it was completely destroyed). He soon built a new place, Bent's New Fort, to the east of his old one.

Bent's Old Fort was reconstructed in 1976 and is quite an interesting and fun day trip. It's definitely an intriguing look into Colorado's history.

The logs that protrude from adobe buildings like this are called vigas.

Although it was not a military installation, Bent's Old Fort was prepared to defend itself if need be.

Bent's Old Fort (Part 2)

Yesterday I posted the first several of a series of pictures I took at Bent's Old Fort, outside of La Junta, on Sunday. Here are a few more. We found it to be a very interesting and educational experience, and we also enjoyed the drive! Instead of our usual mountain view, the drive to La Junta is miles of flat farm and ranchland, punctuated by bright blue skies and fluffy white clouds.

A park employee, dressed in period garb to match the 1830s surroundings.

Bent's Old Fort was a trading post, but not just for buffalo hides. Any kind of frontier staple, and maybe a few little luxuries like candy, could be found there.

One of the small bedrooms. Most of them are dark and cozy, with thick timbers (called vigas) overhead.

This guy was lucky enough to have an actual bed! It seems that most of the fort's residents slept on buffalo robes. That doesn't sound so comfortable to me. But then again this bed doesn't look so comfortable either. 😏

The bright blue skies were chased away by ominous mammatus clouds briefly, and we were even splashed by a few raindrops, but in no time the dark clouds disappeared.

Along with the peacock and peahen (see yesterday's post), there were a couple of resident cats. This one was a beauty.

Your favorite blogger, posing next to a cannon. Yes it was a windy day! Tomorrow I'll post the last of my pictures of Bent's Old Fort.

Bent's Old Fort (Part 1)

Yesterday Pat and I drove to the State Fairgrounds in Pueblo to go to a hot rod show, but we got there too late -- the show had ended! Since it was still early in the afternoon, we decided to go have an adventure. Bent's Old Fort National Historic Site is located outside of La Junta, about an hour or so east of Pueblo, and I've always wanted to go there, so off we went. Despite the word "fort" in its name, Bent's Old Fort was not a military outpost; it was built for and centered around the buffalo robe trade with American Indians, and it was a major stop on the historic Santa Fe Trail. It turned out to be a really cool place and a great history lesson to boot! I'm a sucker for any kind of local history, so this was right up my alley.

I took a lot of pictures, so I'll spread them out over three days here on the blog. If you live in the area and you're looking for a good day trip, I highly recommend visiting Bent's Old Fort. You'll enjoy it and you'll learn a lot!

These dried chili strings are called ristras.

The fort was built by William and Charles Bent and their business partner, Ceran St. Vrain, in 1833. The park's guides and docents dress in period garb and stay in character as much as possible.

I was a little startled to come across a peacock and peahen wandering around!

In fact there were lots of birds, actually.

There were also lots of authentic props and artifacts from the era. It's a very well restored site.

I'll post more pictures tomorrow!

Here be dinosaurs

I took this picture on my jaunt to Golden a couple of weeks ago (HERE and HERE), and completely forgot to blog it! This is at a place called Dinosaur Ridge, where you can see actual fossilized dinosaur footprints, among other fascinating prehistoric things. Pretty cool! I stopped there because I've always been curious about the place, but realized that a bit of walking was involved and it would be a lot more fun to explore with a friend, so after a few minutes (and a few snapshots) I got back in my car and kept on driving. By now I've forgotten what kind of dinosaur this is. Something-or-other-osaurus? I'll have to go back with a friend -- preferably my brother, who has a degree in geology and a lifelong fascination with paleontology, or my friend Russell, who is an honest-to-gosh paleo artist. Either of them would be excellent companions at a place like this!

Buffalo Bill's gravesite

On Saturday I blogged about the Buffalo Bill Museum in Golden, and promised to show you pictures of his grave today. Well here it is! It's far different from the image I had in my mind's eye. You can see that it's carefully maintained and surrounded by an iron fence. The epitaph reads, "At rest here by his request." Though he lived in Wyoming (I believe), Buffalo Bill died of kidney failure in Denver while staying with his sister in 1917. His wife Louisa, who died in 1921, is buried with him.

If you'd like to see my pictures of the museum, check out Saturday's post HERE.

The back of the grave also has a couple of plaques on it.

The historic Manitou Springs Penny Arcade

The old-fashioned Penny Arcade in Manitou Springs is a local institution going back for generations. If you grew up here, you have fond memories of this place, no matter how old you are! When I was in college my best friend Janet worked at the Arcade, and most nights I'd hang out there and wait for her shift to end so we could go out afterward.

The Arcade has games and rides dating way back to the 1920s, if not older. But they also have cool pinball machines from all eras, classic '80s video games like PacMan and Centipede, and current games of all types as well. They even have pool tables and and old photo booth (remember those?). It's a blast to hang out there. I am forever doing engagement portraits or wedding portraits at the Arcade, but it's been ages since I went there just for fun. An opportunity arose last week when some friends visited from out of town with their nine year-old daughter. Of course the Arcade sprang to mind, what a great place for a kid to spend a rainy afternoon! There were plenty of families there with children of all ages, but I was surprised at how many adults were there just to play games. We had a great time. I even played Skeeball (I assure you I'm consistently dreadful at it but I always have fun trying). I wandered around and took a bunch of pictures while my friends tried out all the games.

The other side of the castle

Hopefully you enjoyed my post about Bishop Castle yesterday! Many people around here consider its creator, Jim Bishop, to be a bit of a folk hero. Everyone knows that he's a little eccentric. You'd have to be eccentric to spend decades of your life building an entire castle by hand, unassisted! I actually met Mr. Bishop and his wife Phoebe quite a few years ago when I shot a wedding at Bishop Castle. He was hard at work mixing concrete on that day. I remember him being extremely muscular and strong as an ox. The next day, there was a wedding after-party in Colorado Springs, and he and Phoebe attended, all dressed up and ready to dance. They were very nice and clearly had a fun time. Last month, I (and many other locals) were saddened to hear that Mr. Bishop is now very ill with cancer. I hope all his years of being in such peak physical condition are a help to him now, as he faces the fight of his life. His family has been posting updates to the castle's Facebook page HERE, if you'd like to know the latest.

As much as it can be argued that the castle itself is a work of Outsider Art (and I do consider it to be that), I think all the hand painted signs around the property are too. It's clear that Mr. Bishop has, over the years, harbored a deeply seated loathing for any form of government, and he has not been shy about making his feelings known all over the castle grounds. Not surprisingly, as he constructed his magnum opus, various zoning laws and ordinances were brought to his attention by the authorities. Many a pitched battle ensued, and undoubtedly this was the root of and the fuel for his anti-government position. The signs around the property are generally rants expressing his feelings with the occasional request for donations thrown in. I thought they deserved a post unto themselves, so here you go.

The log cabin next to the castle, also built by Mr. Bishop (I believe his father helped construct it).