South Park City

We took a little drive up into the higher mountains to visit South Park (yes, that South Park.) The townspeople have made a museum city with original old buildings and artifacts from the early days of the town. It's fun and interesting and it always makes me grateful to see how those folks lived. I'm happy to have my machines and luxuries which make my day to day living a life of ease.

The entrance to the museum town

Some building facades

 Our first stop was the little church building.

 Nicco played an opening hymn

 then he shared the Good Word.

 After church, we went to the saloon for a little gambling and booze.

Perhaps we should have reversed the order of those two stops!

Then we checked out the mining operation. Nicco climbed in the ore cart that dumped into the waiting train cars below. He said, "I'm climbing in there. My Grandpa promised me I could climb in trains."

He's a miner, forty-niner

This is my just-shy-of-four-feet-tall boy sleeping in the sheepherders' wagon. It had the bed at one end and a little kettle in a sink sort of thing on the left and something else on the right side, with a very small stove in the front. What a way to live!

Nicco also tested out the bunks in the caboose.

And here he thought he could hide from his grandmother. No such luck, buddy!

Walking toward the big locomotive, Nicco pretended that he was going to get run over by the train. When he climbed up on the engine, someone somewhere turned on a very realistic and loud train engine sound. It scared the living daylights out of my boy. He stood still as could be, thinking the train would start moving any second. It was funny. To me.

His favorite thing was anything he could climb on. He almost went into the coal bin. I didn't think that was a very good idea.

In the captain's chair

My dad told Nicco to stick his finger in this vise. Totally trusting his grandfather, he complied. Dad squeezed and squeezed gently until Nicco got a little worried about his digits.

Then my boy turned the crank and said, "I really would have got my finger smashed! Hey, Grandpa, now YOU stick your finger in there!" Wisely, my dad said no way.

These miners' tools were very heavy.

I liked all the old tools and other items of daily life. Here are some eyeglasses. Nicco likes his better.

A pump at the sink.

An old stove.

An elk head and an old phone.

An old cash register.


An old sewing machine

Bath time!

Nicco has been playing with my parents' bellows so he was interested in the blacksmith's pedal bellows.

Our final stop was the drugstore. Nicco was waiting at the counter for a soda from the fountain.

Even back in the day they knew the value of chocolate.

When our tour was over, we went to lunch at the bowling alley. Apparently, it is the second best place in town!

Our Fourth of July Celebration

Like a good little Madsen, Nicco is always on the lookout for a holiday parade. He was lucky that we only had to drive about 30 minutes to Indian Hills rather than an hour or so to Georgetown or Como to find one.

We got to the turnoff and saw parade watchers set up along the road for about 5 miles until we reached the fire station where parade was to begin. The sign said the road was closed from 11-1 for the parade. I'm pretty sure it took the paraders the full two hours to get to the bottom of the mountain!

Prior to the start of the parade we got to climb inside an honest to goodness real life helicopter. We missed its landing, but it took off and circled around a couple of times while we were there.

Then Nicco bounced in the bounce house for a little while and he only got his face smashed under one pair of feet.

We saw a bunch of people along the side of the road with water guns and water balloons and thought there must be a local water gun tradition for this particular parade. Sure enough, along with the traditional veterans carrying our national colors (thanks, vets!) and fancy old cars and fire trucks, the paraders and spectators alike shot each other with various water weapons. It was a very wet parade. There was a distinct absence of parade princesses and high school marching bands. The water fight made up for it, I suppose.

We were in a primo spot...right at the beginning of the parade with no other kids around. Nicco hauled in enough candy to last him AND his cousins for the whole visit!

Later we went down to some long time friends' house and had a delicious barbecue dinner and patriotic blueberry and strawberry dessert. It was sad not to have any fireworks, but not as sad as burning down the whole state. Besides, being among family, friends, and the small town community is the highlight of any celebration.

Rainbows and Doe-Eyed-Deer

Nicco is pretty much unplugged at Grandma and Grandpa's house. There is the t.v. and I have let him hop on the computer a little bit, but pretty much he's left to his creative devices. Sometimes he asks me what he should do and today I suggested we play marbles again. We started sorting by colors.

There are a lot of marbles to sort, so we took a few breaks. He took more breaks than I did, and eventually Grandma joined us. Once all the marbles were sorted, we made a rainbow:



 Kind of awesome, I think.

Then we came upstairs and looked out the window and what did we see, a doe-eyed-deer looking back at me!

How Does THAT Feel?

We had lunch at the hot dog today. Nicco always looks forward to hot dogs at the hot dog when we visit Grandma and Grandpa. This morning Grandma asked him if he would like to go to the hot dog for lunch today and he said, "I've only been asking since I got here." We took that as a yes.

Anyway, while the grandparents went to get our ice cream after lunch, Nicco told me that Isabel never listens and always tells the teacher "no." I said that is not very polite or respectful and I hope that he follows all his teacher's instructions.

He went on. He told me to give him an instruction. I told him to put the trash in the garbage can, please. He said, "No!" then, "how did that make you feel?" I told him it made me feel sad and mad. He said, "I'm sure that is how Madame feels." I agreed and said that I hoped he was polite to his teacher. He said, "Have you ever seen me do anything bad?" I said no, understanding that he meant at school, not at home. Ahem.

Happy Independence Day

After long debates and deliberations, our founders finally declared independence and revised and approved a final declaration on July 4th, 1776. A couple days before, John Adams wrote to his wife:

"The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more."

Happy birthday America, Sweet Land of Liberty. Many happy returns. PleasohpleasedearLordabove.

To Grandmother's House We Go

Grandma always has some fun surprises for her grandchildren. She let Nicco reach his hand into a bag o'treats and he pulled out this dino mosaic.

He worked and worked and went back to it several times to add new details.
He's very serious.

 She also baked fresh bread. Mmmm...can't resist!

Grandpa pulled out his gigantic bucket of marbles. Nicco sorted them. His categories were hollows, pretties, and cat's eyes. I think he confused "hollow" for "solid." I don't know how he distinguished the "pretties" in the pile.

After we pulled out all the hollows, pretties, and cat's eyes Nicco wanted to mix the separated marbles together to see how pretty they would be. The smaller pile is the pretty pile, can't you see.

And that's what we do at Grandma's house!

Rocky Mountain High

We arrived at my parents' house late Sunday morning and this is what we saw on the deck:

That's a nice reprieve from the triple digits we've had in Tucson lately. The 80s don't last through the night, however. This morning when Nicco got up I asked him if he wanted to eat his breakfast out on the patio with his grandparents and he looked out at the thermometer and said, "It's 60 degrees out there! I'll freeze!" Then he went and found his soft blanket, wrapped himself up, and ate at the dining room table instead.

Sunday evening we went up, up, up to have dinner with some friends in Evergreen. When we drove up, their cat walked proudly up from the field with a mouse in her mouth, meowed for acknowledgement when she strutted past us up to the front step, then dropped her catch of the day in front of the door. She meowed again then walked off. That made me giggle. Mountain cat.

This is their view. I inhaled the freshy fresh pine and vanilla scented air (and Sascha kindly brought me a jacket when the temperature dropped below 72 degrees.)

 I took my boy out to my childhood playground. He kept asking me if I did this when I was little. Well yes, little buddy, I did. I lived here, and this is what we did! He is a little more bold and adventuresome climbing on those rocks than I think he is capable of being. I think he overestimates his agility. I may underestimate his ability, but considering the height and the terrain, underestimating Mama wins. I told him that my mom was much nicer than his mom when he assured me he was fine. He huffed a little when my mom said that she just sent me out to play. Then she saved the day by reminding him that I never went out alone, I always had my sisters with me.

 I took him to the cave where he found a scattering of bones. Dad thinks this looks like it could be an elk bone. There was another one I suspect came from the butcher and the neighbor's dog dragged it up to the cave. I don't know if butchers sell femurs to pet owners.

 Nicco didn't venture up onto these big rocks so much the last time we were here. He's so happy in my playground!

Grandpa thought it would be a great idea to let his grandchildren help him clear up some of the fire dangers that dropped from the pine trees. He said he would pay the kids a dollar per bucket of pine cones they pick up. Nicco is the only grandkid here now to help out. He gave me some attitude about working. I told him he has two choices: he can be a happy helper and get paid, or he can be a grumpy worker and not get paid.

 He did not get paid.

We spotted this red foxy-loxy on one of our ambles through the property. It made us happy. I also spotted two little mama deer on my run this morning. (My run this morning was painful...hills and altitude after 4 days without a workout just about done me in.) On Sunday night coming home from Evergreen, we saw a mama and an itty bitty wobbly legged spotted fawn. So cute!

I love it here. L-O-V-E it. I can't wait for my sissy to arrive!