South Park City Museum - A real hidden treasure in South Park. Historic buildings, brought into the museum beginning in the 1960s, when people with foresight realized the history of South Park would be lost. It is all real stuff - that's the best part of the museum.

Road Trip

On a road trip to Colorado. Some who know me, know that I was the reporter based in Fairplay, Colo. about 20 years ago, so this was sort-of "old home week" except I discovered the people I knew were either dead (!) or no one knew what happened to them. Now, granted, I didn't do an extensive search, but really ... Well, South Park is a hard place to live. To my eye, Fairplay was and remains a rather shabby little town, if I may be honest, but my attitude may be influenced by how hard it was for me then, and how hard it is to live at 10,000 feet where the wind blows all the time and it can snow at any moment.

In any event, we spent a night at the Hand Hotel, which I can recommend highly as a bed and breakfast. It is on Front Street in Fairplay, and a convenient two doors down from the Park Bar. I was disappointed to discover that the Historic Fairplay Hotel is closed and for sale, as I had wanted to show Paul where my old newspaper office was, since the newspaper rented a room at the hotel. I was also shocked to discover a stop light in Fairplay, as one of the charms of Park County was that it was a county the size of Deleware and had no stoplights. Oh well, in 20 years, something was bound to change.

The previous day, we stopped in Divide, so I could show Paul the house where he was born. The town is really built up, and the new owners of the house have it compeletely fenced in, due to their dogs, but it basically remains the same.

Then, we motored down to Denver, where we went to the Denver Botanic Gardens, totally by accident, catching it on the one free day! Down at the 16th Street Mall next, where visited Karl at the Starbucks where he is a shift supervisor, and went and saw the new Harry Potter movie. I liked it, but wish there could have been more about the interesting secondary characters. I guess there's only so much you can fit into one movie. Also, they assume you're familiar with lots of aspects of the characters and the backgrounds of various situations. I wouldn't want this movie to be my first intro to the series.

Found a bed and breakfast and we're off to check in. Thanks to Karl for helping me get on the internet ...