Our Colorado adventure

We got home last night from a week in Colorado, visiting family and seeing sites. The more we visit, the more we find to see. We always go to the Rocky Mountain Quilt Museum in Golden where we saw an exhibit of small pieces with a water theme. Each quilter also included a self-portrait, and some of these were more interesting than the quilts. The second gallery featured quilts from the museum's collection, and each represented a decade. There were a few antique quilts in amazing condition.

Thursday, we headed south on I-25 through Walsenburg, where we visited a mining museum, to the monument commemorating the Ludlow massacre of April, 1914. Striking coal miners and their families lived in a tent village which was beseiged by the state militia and private detectives hired by mine owner John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The militia and detectives shot a number of miners and set fire to the tents, killing the families inside. Mother Jones, "Molly" Brown, and others marched in local communities in support of the miners. This important event in history is commemorated by a monument carved in Barre and forlornly sitting in the prairie surrounded by a red-white-and-blue iron fence and a few informational placards by the United Mine Workers.


After our trip to the Ludlow monument, we continued south to Trinidad, a charming little town with a sweet downtown area, brick-paved streets, and a small historical complex. We toured the Santa Fe Trail Museum and the Baca House and the Bloom Mansion, two Victorian houses built at around the same time as Maplecroft. We recognized the extreme home maintenance both of these houses require! The Baca House is adobe which was very interesting, and gardens around the two houses are planted with historic vegetables. We were impressed that each year the community selects a different ethnic group for various community activities and events. This year's focus is on the Italians who settled the area.


On our way home on Friday, we stopped for a tour of a recreation of a Native American cliff dwelling in Manitou Springs. Leaving Colorado Springs, we drove through the Garden of the Gods and stopped at Boonzaijer's Dutch Bakery for lunch and dessert to go. Saturday, we spent roaming around downtown Denver, visiting the "Molly" Brown House (we learned that she never went by that name but was called "Margaret" or "Maggie" instead) and the Denver Art Museum's special exhibit of psychedelic posters from San Francisco in the 1960's.


Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day a week early with a cookout at Jenny's in Longmont. She is doing pretty well, and we walked around the block, albeit slowly. We made it home right before the usual afternoon thunderstorm. Colorado has had a rainy spring, so the mountains were unusually green and the flowers lush. It was a great time to be there!