Visiting the place of my youth.

  We have been off , aloft and away from the Hollow...

I have missed you. I have missed my farm and my critters.

BUT we were busy,

  Viewing Mummies...

 with incredible  hieroglyphic painting and designs adorning the sarcophagus, inside and out.

 

 Even the cats were mummified and wrapped  in cloth with quilt -like patterns.

Notice how the design on the cloth looks so much like a log cabin quilt block!

 

Seeing these gave me an urge to hug my pussycats, and reassure them that they would live very long lives and NEVER, EVER become mummies.

 

We visited Indian Villages of  the past..

 

  and studied the bizarre artwork on TOTEM POLES.



Being a little creepy, these  really spooked and fascinated me as a child. I gazed up at them in consternation while tightly clutching mothers hand.

Everything was a work of art, no matter how

strange or unusual.

 All through the ages, humans have had a need to create art, on nearly any surface, and for any reason.Think of how much art (in all it's varied forms) has contributed to our understanding of history . Isn't that wonderful??!

  Even  the horses were bedecked in beaded finery,

and simple deer skins were adorned with a woman's artistic touch.

 

 

 This is the Museum of Natural History in Denver, Colorado. It really is one of the BEST museums in the country. I spent many 

hours here, transfixed, as a child. We lived only blocks away and the Museum was FREE back in those days.

 

 Our family took countless pictures standing in front of this bear throughout the years,

but this is the most recent.

 

 

James and  I came to this state to visit my mother, who is 86 years old. I had  not visited the state in 15 years. Usually, we send my mom a plane ticket to visit us.

 I was born in upstate New York. My family came from a long line of Yankees dating back over 350 years in New York and Connecticut. Before WWII, my dad joined the Air force and took his training In Colorado Springs. Twelve years after the war, he moved his family"OUT WEST", where we 4 children became little pioneers.

 

I first saw this rock formation when I was around 6 yrs. old. Rocks don't change much in the course of ones life. This place is just as I remember it.

It is named " The Garden of the Gods"

 

 

As a young girl with a vivid imagination, I could "see" the buffalo grazing here, and the Indians padding in soft moccasins over sandstone paths with their  babies trundled upon their backs.

 

    We visited an old mountain town where gold was discovered in the 1850's, and fortunes came and went, and where,even now, you can almost hear the faint tinkle and splash of the miner with his little tin "plate" of water and sand, patiently or foolishly, panning for HIS fortune.

 

The name of this town is CENTRAL CITY,

built by GOLD.... and then Silver.

 

Still as charming a mountain town as you will ever experience.

 with some of the most fabulous stone walls I have ever seen,

(and you KNOW how I feel about stone walls.)

These walls are everywhere, of course, stone is easy to come by in the Rocky Mountains.

 

The Opera still comes to town several times a year, as it has for over a century.

Look at the gorgeous stairway and balusters surrounding  the Opera House.

 

 Notice the dead tree trunk being put to use as a planter. Some of you know that I have  the remains of a 200 yr old maple, still lying beside my drive way. You can just guess what that will become next Spring!

 

 This is a courtyard outside the Opera House. I am enamoured with the stairway and walked all the way to the top with my bad knee.

 

 

Here, I found Hardy Geraniums growing with gusto and Russian sage that was full and wide, and I realized why I can't seem to grow them in Tennessee. Apparently, they like the dry climate and high altitude of this PIONEER land.



 

 

 

  This old Hotel has been meticulously restored to it's original beauty and Victorian abundance.

 

 

 

Not exactly my taste in furnishings... I am just a simple gal.

  President Grant slept in this room... and he must have been very short, for the bed certainly was.

 

 And you can still see the beautiful, mysterious face which was painted on the Bar Room floor.

  Do you see her? Isn't she just lovely?!

 

 Of course, all gold rush towns had  bawdy houses, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TRACKS.

 

and Central City was no exception.

 

 

On the outskirts of town...

 where Aspens quiver and shake...

 

are scattered, hither and yon, in a rather haphazard manner, countless gravestones.

It is as if the bereaved were looking for just the right spot, under just the right tree or patch of sage,  to rest the young child who's brief life ended  so suddenly.

 

 

 

Or the widow of a Cornish Miner who imagined a bit of England in the rocky mountain earth just beneath a Cedar tree.  (Many of the miners in this cemetery came from Cornwall England after working the Tin mines)

.Whatever the reasons, the graves are dispersed unevenly neath the wide western sky, and have become a part of this towns history....

 along with the abandoned mines.

Sometimes, you experience a place where time seems to have stood still, this is just such a place.

 

It makes me want to watch "Lonesome Dove" again. 

 

 I walked  these paths of my childhood with James, my sister and My sweet mother, who was so happy to have us with her for a short time. It is from my mom that I acquired my love of history and antiques. She was the lady who's brakes screeched to a halt at any sign reading "ANTIQUES".

Her house is a treasure trove of books and antiques,

  from years of collecting.

 

I knew she would insist on sending me home with a part of her vast collection and I was able to fit some small items in the suitcase,

such as this  dolls picnic tea set, sweet!

 

And this simple doll house. 

 I always loved this cardboard doll house. It isn't terribly old, maybe the 1930's or so. It looks good atop my little green cupboard. 

   She also gave me this collection of Edgar Allen Poe, circa 1903. The books are the size of my hand, and fit neatly in my suitcase. 

 It was so good to see my sister, niece and great nieces...

and my brother, (who is camera shy).

 

I moved away from Colorado 22 years ago, when I discovered the beauty of East Tennessee. Now, I am not a Yankee, or a Pioneer, I am a Southerner... (although my neighbors STILL call me a Yankee). Actually, I am, simply, an American.

 

 Every place has it's own unique beauty, and I am glad I grew up amidst the majestic Rockies in a land of wide, blue sky, but now, I love the lush and quiet green of the Tennessee hillsides and Hollows and will never leave my Southern home-sweet-home. That is, unless someone bequeaths to me a castle in Scotland or a thatched cottage in England.

 

It was nice to revisit my childhood home, but... 

I am glad to be back. 

MY animal friends missed me!

    And they all got animals crackers and pears as soon as we got home!