mistressofmuses

(It's not just the "Denver Zoo" anymore, ha.)

The Monday before my birthday, Alex and I went to the zoo. :)

It was a really pleasantly warm day, so it was great for walking around!

Less great for walking around was how much pain Alex was in. He was unfortunately hurting pretty badly, but we made it through most of the zoo, and did stay until closing! Just sucky that it did make parts of the day a bit less enjoyable for him.

One thing we hadn't done before was ride the train, ha. It's a mini railroad that takes you on about a five-minute loop around a bit of the zoo. It was just a few dollars to ride, so we decided to do it, haha. It was fun!

As always, took too many pictures, so I'll split it into three posts. This one for the birds and mammals, and probably one for fish and frogs, and one for the reptiles.


Both tigers were out. This is the bigger, male tiger. He was enjoying his pool!

Eleven more:

Flamingos! They're fun to watch. The one running through the water was chasing others around for a bit.


The tiger was rubbing his face on the edge of the pool and looked just like a housecat. But big.


Lookit the kitty!


We wandered by at the right time for one of the elephant demonstrations.


Will lay down for some veggies.


While the event hadn't officially opened yet, they had set up most of the lanterns for their "Glowing Wild" event. There were several really neat displays! This was clearly one of the most dramatic.

(The lanterns are clearly by the same company that did the ones we saw at the lantern festival at Four Mile park last year. Very cool! I bet they're really neat after dark.)


Lemur! :D


Closeup lemur! :D Mmm, broccoli.


Fancy crane in the aviary.


This little duck apparently wanted to come fight lots of peoples' legs. Including mine.


Sleepy flying foxes!

We did hang out all the way until closing time (4:00, which felt very early, especially post-time-change.) We did skip a few areas, or kind of had to breeze through them, but we saw most of what we hoped to.

As we were heading toward the exit, we both got free pretzels, since they'd be thrown out at the end of the day. Score!

As we left the elephant passage area, Alex remarked that he wanted to see an elephant actually use the bridge. You always walk under it, but we haven't ever seen any of the elephants using it.

And immediately...


Alex summoned him!

For Alex's birthday, we went to the aquarium! It had been a few years since we went, so it was exciting to get to go back, as always.

Splitting the pictures into two posts, so there aren't too too many in one post. No theme to which pictures are in which post, just a chronological trip through the aquarium.


I love these guys. You walk underneath them and look up at them schooling.

Fourteen more pictures below the cut:

This face made me laugh.


Very atypically-colored trout! It seemed to love showing off, coming right up to the glass, ha.


Posing so perfectly!


Across from the sturgeons (big), there's a reconstruction of a mosasaur (Very Big.)


Little shark and rays!


Smiling ravioli photobomb!


Multi-colored seahorses! I love them.


Seahorse!


The sea is full of bizarre creatures. (YOU CAN SEE THROUGH ITS FACE.)


A little flight of rays.


These guys were cool.


Sharks and flounder!


Little urchin and fashionable shell hat!


Impressive orange lipstick.

Such a lovely tank! So many sea stars.

(And now I am starting to really feel that "spring forward" thing, so I'm going to take a nap, haha.)

With everything that's been going on this year so far, we haven't had many chances to get out and do much.

One of the things that we'd wanted to do was visit one of the temporary exhibits at the Denver Botanic Gardens: their orchid showcase. Then my appendix tried to kill me, and we both pretty much entirely forgot about it. At some point in the second week of February Alex remembered and suggested we try to go sometime, so I looked it up to check how long the exhibit was running... to discover it was only going through Monday the 16th. That narrowed down our options a bit, but luckily we were both feeling well enough to go, and the decidedly un-winter-like weather continued to cooperate with us.

And it was lovely! The orchids were mostly in the "orangery," a stretch of semi-indoor/semi-open space that looks in on the greenhouses and has some citrus trees and such year-round. We spent most of our time there and in the big conservatory, though we did take a walk around the rest of the gardens as well.

The pictures in this post are primarily not of the orchids, and the orchids will get their own post.


We did get to see the koi, which are always a favorite!


The view when you walk in to the main building.

Here you obviously can see a lot of orchids on display around the water feature. (I'm fond of the ones in the tentacle-y hanging pots.)

Nineteen more pictures from the gardens:

There was also some decoration for Lunar New Year.

We went into the conservatory, which I always love walking around. Give me all the indoor rainforest.


So many pods on the cocoa tree!


A cute hidden spray of flowers.


I am very charmed by these leaves that all but vacuum seal themselves to the tree they're growing on. They look like little scales.


Dart frog!


These little flowers were pretty and cute, and on closer inspection, each little flower had a teeny tiny ant on it! The image does not really convey how TINY these little ants were. Smaller than typical little black sugar ants. TINY. Getting little nectar drinks.


I think insects are cute, so this ant taking a step from one flower to another was extremely adorable, imo.


An interesting flower.

After this, it was down to the orangery.

The Denver Botanic Gardens has a very extensive bonsai collection, which is very cool. Most of them are off-display for the season (and will be outside for the summer.)


This one is on display inside, so it can be seen blooming. A bougainvillea! (Been in training as a bonsai for over 25 years, now!)


Carnivorous plant terrariums, my beloved. A Venus flytrap.


A random non-orchid. Look at this furry cactus flower!

The main feature of the orangery was the orchids, so most of those will be in the next post. After this, we headed outside to do a quick wander around the rest of the gardens.


It felt a little too soon for the hyacinths to be pushing their way up. Usually we don't see those until March...

The fish weren't too sad about the warm weather!


One of my favorite koi in the pond: this white-gold one with the extra fancy fins.


The fancy yellow-gold one is Alex's favorite. But so many cool and pretty koi!


This one makes me laugh. The yellow one was so excited at the potential for food that it lifted that little orange one out of the water on its head entirely!


They're so pretty.

I really like the extra-fancy finned fish, though there are fairly few of them in the pond. It's often just been the silvery white one and the bright yellow one. This year, we were excited to see a few younger ones with the same extra-long fins:


This one is very cute already, and will be lovely when it grows up more.


Snowdrops!


Too early for peonies to be trying to get in on anything!

It was a really beautiful day to be out! I'm glad we had the chance to go before the exhibit shut down. The orchids themselves were gorgeous, and pics of them will be in a different post!

I've been trying to take my medically prescribed walks. We've been luckily aided by our weather, which has been so bizarrely warm this season. (It's low-key terrifying, how little snow we've had.)

I didn't end up doing anything this most recent "weekend," as Alex was super sick and didn't want to go anywhere, but on the last bit of time before I returned to work we did at least a few good walks.


Bella got to meet a horse!

Bella loves horses. I tease her that she's a weird horse girl. (I was a weird horse girl.) But she's very enthusiastic every time we drive past horses. She's gotten to see them on trails before, and is always very excited. (I loved one day on a trail where we pulled her to the side to let some horses pass, where we were talking to Bella saying "Oh, do you see the horses?" and as the riders passed, one of them was saying "Oh, do you see the puppy?" Lol.) But while Cy got to be around horses pretty often, back when Alex was riding, Bella hasn't ever gotten to directly meet one.

Until now!

We saw this horse coming up the trail, and then horse and rider went through the Starbucks drive through, haha. Then they came back around and passed us on the trail. The rider said hi to us and to Bella, and Alex said hi and that Bella loves horses. The rider pulled his horse back around and asked if she wanted to say hi.

Bella was utterly starstruck, haha.


And a pair of bald eagles!

We first spotted one out on the ice of the pond, then heard a huge murder of crows throwing an absolute fit over in the trees at the far side. As we continued around, we realized there was a second eagle already in the trees over where the crows were upset.

Eventually the one on the ice flew back up to join the one in the tree, though then made another trip out onto the ice.

By the time we got back around to the tree they'd been in, that one came back, and they both sat there for quite a while! It was very cool.

I am still delighted every time we see an eagle, and especially to see two! But it also makes me happy that it no longer feels like a "once in a lifetime" sighting. While I don't think I'll ever be blase about seeing them (I mean, I get excited every time I see a chickadee, so) but I am glad that it's something that happens multiple times a year, now.

Nine more pictures:

Friday, January 30, a quick walk in a city park:


There were SO MANY geese on the pond, ha. But I liked the ones toward the front there, who were nibbling at the sort of soft, delicate ice at the edge of the pond. It was a very funny noise to hear them nibbling at it. Bella was very interested.

Sunday, February 01, a longer walk at Belmar Lake:


A pair of mallards waddling across the ice. I love the male's bright green head, but am also always amused by their bright orange feet.


This little bird's nest was very cute.


Also a big fallen wasp nest.


Excuse me! What do you think you're doing?? It is February 1st, it is too early for you, little green leaf!


More ducks! Some mallards in front on shore, and northern shovelers in the water.

Thursday, February 05, at Pelican Pond:

The two above-cut pictures are from this day as well, but a few more.


Denver in the distance, but also a sort of fun phenomenon: the angle of the sun meant that the contrail over on the right actually cast a shadow across the sky, which is pretty cool looking.


Eagle! :D


Again with the greenery! It's too soon!

It's harder to take my walks while working, but I've tried to take at least two quick walks each day. It does seem to have helped the bloating a bit. Still not all the way there, but it's improved!

In less good news, I do seem to be getting sick, probably with what Alex has. Terrible! He's been so sick for days! But I had a very slight sore throat this morning, and then around lunch time it started ramping up. Runny nose, lots of that lovely post-nasal drip that is making my throat want to die.
If it follows the same trajectory as Alex's, then I can look forward to hideously awful coughing, moderate fever, and sinus and chest congestion in my near future. (And because I had originally requested this weekend off, but my time off request was denied, I absolutely can't call out; there's no one to cover, and calling out on the same day as a denied leave request is an automatic HR write-up.) Hopefully I end up with a milder version!

It snowed!

This year has been bizarrely light on snow for our area. The weather stayed warm well into November, and our first snow only came last Saturday, as barely a dusting. I'm not complaining - I've joked that I find snow acceptable between Thanksgiving and New Year's only - but as usual ~we need the moisture~. I don't think I ever expected our snow to *actually* hold off until after Thanksgiving, and it's true that I also don't want things to be on fire all next year. (That can and does coexist with the fact that I would be happy to literally never see another snowflake.)

But at least if it is going to snow, this particular storm was very aesthetic!

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Yesterday, Alex and I went over to my mom's house for a while to help her sort through some old stuff of hers. A while back, she expressed to me the desire to try and sell off a lot of the "stuff" she has accumulated. I think a combination of her mom passing away, and then trying to help her sister with her hoarded house in preparation for moving, and her own 70th birthday, made her really want to make sure that she doesn't wind up with a lot of junk. A lot of what she has isn't really junk: she has antique tools of her grandfather's, some china, some other genuinely antique things. But she'd rather get rid of it now - and maybe get some money for it - rather than leave it to be dealt with after she's gone.

We did look at a lot of the tools, so many of which are really cool! It's amazing how well some of them were made. Nicely carved hardwood handles, a few with carved decoration, things like that. A few it makes me sad to think of getting rid of, because they are such an example of "they don't make 'em like they used to!" but I also understand my mom's desire to part with things that she doesn't actually use.

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Bella and Jaspurr had an accidental face-to-face meeting. I went to the bathroom, and came back to Jaspurr hiding under a chair, and Bella sniffing him. Alex and my mom thought he was upstairs and that Bella was just sniffing around more generally, or they would have intervened. While Jaspurr wasn't loving it, the meeting actually went really well! He didn't hiss or swipe at her, and she was just happily interested. She was easy to call away (though then wanted to go back) and was just mildly excited. He did growl at her the second time she returned, and she left him alone. They later also had a quick meeting in my mom's room, while he was up on a table and Bella was on the floor.

Jaspurr didn't love Bella being there, and ended up spending the whole night in my mom's room after, but it really did go about as well as I could have hoped! We've never gotten to truly test Bella around cats (beyond seeing them at more of a distance), and Jaspurr hasn't gotten to interact with other animals since being with my mom and Taylor. I'm actually quite pleased.

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I had a dentist appointment this morning, and since my dentist is only about five minutes from my mom's house, in light of the forecast snow overnight, I spent the night at my mom's.


The birds were happy to have the feeders today in the snow. A towhee and several house finches!

These couple pictures are a little blurry, but of my favorite random bird at my mom's:


This little girl on the right does not have snow on her head - she has a white patch on the top of her head! She's also not a white-crowned sparrow or anything like that, she's just a house finch with a leucistic patch.


You can see more of the patch here, though it blends in a bit with the snow. She's been coming to my mom's feeders for about three years now, she thinks. I'm always happy to see her. :)

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My dentist appointment went well! I'd been dreading it a little bit, because I had to have *such* extensive dental work done back around 2020-2021. A decade+ of no dental care, and many years of really precarious living situations, plus probably some general mental health garbage really took their toll.

I missed my last cleaning over the summer because of my grandmother's memorial, and so it'd been closer to a year than six months, and while I hadn't noticed any issues, I was very afraid it'd be worse than expected.

It wasn't! No cavities, which always feels like a big win, haha.

The weird hole in my jaw (where I had an extra baby tooth removed when I was young) has not gotten any worse. It's always exciting when every dentist and hygienist that sees my x-rays has an instinctive, horrified gasp. They assumed this was a crisis that would require bone and tissue grafts... and somehow, it's all very stable. The teeth around the gap aren't unstable or in pain, the jaw itself is not deteriorating. This was my five-year x-ray appointment, and my hygienist was delighted when she said that it looks the same as it did five years ago. "Science would disagree with me, but it really does look like it's just... not causing problems." I love that science can't explain my jaw.

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Jaspurr, having returned to the main floor this morning, ha. So regal.

Kind of a catch-all post!

Alex had an MRI last week. This was to try and find out exactly what's going on in his neck, causing a lot of pain and occasional numbness. The results came in quite quickly. Basically they all validate "yup, this shit is fucked." I think that's the official medical terminology. Pretty much every individual vertebra has problems of some kind, though some are only "mild," though most are "moderate" with a few "severe." Pretty much what Alex was expecting, but it is a bit vindicating to have the thing that says "yes, medically, this stuff is just so fucked up."

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Greenbean II (one of the katydids) passed away yesterday. She made it quite a bit longer than either of our katydids from last year did, and longer than Three. She also left behind many eggs, so we'll see if we can get another generation.

Clickbait is still going pretty strong. I'm impressed! Fingers crossed that he keeps wanting to eat his beans and make noise at every crinkling package in the kitchen.

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I am still struggling post time-change. I don't know why I've had such a bad time adjusting this year! I'm still getting tired an hour "early" at night. This mostly gets frustrating because the end of the night is when I try to get my reading done, and so currently I've been reading more slowly than I was, because I fall asleep instead. Getting off of work after it's already been dark for an hour+ also sucks.

---

I did start kind of looking at my TBR list for next year (and the rest of this year). I've got nine books that I'd really like to finish by the end of the year, though we'll see if I can manage it.

For next year, my initial tentative goal is to read 50 books. I've managed more than that this year, and it'd be great if I could do it again!

More specifically, my goal is to get through some of the “classics” that I feel I *should* have read, and then put off reading out of misplaced guilt over not having read them yet, because anxiety is stupid: The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Ursula K Le Guin, and Terry Pratchett. The Hobbit/LotR is technically a reread, but I barely remember my first read through and I didn't enjoy it. For UKLG I planned to start with the Earthsea stories, and for PTerry I planned to start with the Watch books.
I also want to read the queer-themed ebooks from the charity bundle I purchased.
I also want to read the Up and Under novellas.
I also want to reread the Murderbot Diaries in preparation for the new one that comes out in May.

Then I actually did the math on that list: 4 Tolkien + 7 Earthsea + 8 Watch + 14 queer ebooks + 4 Up and Under + 8 Murderbot (including the new one) + 4 new releases for ongoing series that will be coming out next year = 49 books. So. Only one other TBR book for the whole year, if I'm aiming for 50??? (Not even taking into account any books I read with Alex or Taylor, or any of my "brain candy" side reads.)

Oof. Gotta realign some of those expectations.

Currently my plan is to prioritize LotR and the Murderbot reread. For the queer ebooks, the UKLG books, and the Terry Pratchett books I will make sure they're in a regular rotation of the TBR list, but I'm not going to worry about whether I get through all of those within the course of the year. Time is fake; as much as I like having a nice even spot (like the new year) to wrap something up and start something new, it's not illegal for me to carry my same goals forward into 2027.

Assuming we're all still here and not in a smoking crater, ha.

Happy Halloween! :D

Our big Halloween season event was last weekend. We went to "Spirits and Spirits," an event at Four Mile House. (This is the same place that had the lantern festival we went to back in September.)

Spirits and Spirits was an adult-only event with some spirit tastings, drag shows, a fashion show, a vendor marketplace, tours of the historic farmhouse including Victorian-era mourning customs, and the chance to attend an optional seance. I did get us tickets for the seance.

It was a lot of fun!

We got there right around opening time, and wandered around for a few minutes. We went to get something to drink, and then wanted to go to the first timeslot for the drag show... but unfortunately they had to cancel the first time. But it meant we were right there for the first fashion show slot, so we did get to see that, which was quite cool!



The fashion show was put on by Bête Noire, a local designer who mostly does super fancy gothy stuff.

Always love models walking to some Sisters of Mercy.

Five more pictures:

Liked the candles and coffin decor.


I was particularly fond of the floating candles.

My phone was not terribly cooperative with taking pictures of anything moving, so my pictures from the fashion show mostly didn't turn out well, but here are a few more:






This model was the best. She was so energetic and fun to watch.

After that we had to head to our seance session, since those were timed entries. (They actually did not check our tickets, even though all the sessions were sold out, ha.)



The seance was held in the attic of the farmhouse.

It was led by a couple members of the Rocky Mountain Paranormal Research Society.

They talked a bit about Victorian seances, and the spiritualism of the era. We had some tarot cards, runestones, as well as some objects (like an ax, and a creepy doll). There were a couple ouija boards, a pendulum, etc.


Trying to use a ouija board.

Just a couple more pics from the seance:

Another ouija board.

The ouija boards did not get much in the way of any response, or the ones they got weren't very clear.

The pendulum was about the same; the only 'response' we got was a "maybe," ha.

They had someone do a phone recording to check for an EVP, and that was somewhat interesting: There was noise in the background that sounded a bit like an argument, though nothing was clear enough to hear. While there was some background noise from the tours happening downstairs, it didn't sound at all like that. So that was at least a bit interesting!

But no conclusive ghosts, haha.

We hung out and chatted for a bit, bought a couple books.

Then we went downstairs and sort of took ourselves on a tour of the house. We didn't start at the beginning, but just sort of wandered at random. They did have interpreters in most of the rooms to talk about the house specifically or customs of the era in general.


The parlor, and talking about Victorian mourning customs in particular. (Mourning attire, mourning periods, memento mori, covering mirrors, etc.)

Six more pictures:

I liked this little couch.


Some stuff!


Cool old stove. (I genuinely don't know what the white streak is. Maybe the kitchen is haunted!)

Most of the wallpaper and such is reproduction, but they have a few sections of original wallpaper under protective covering. (Allegedly including some fine arsenic green!)




(Eek, it's me.) Or no, I should say: ~but there was no one there when I took the picture~ It's a ghost!


Last picture of fancy wallpaper.

We also went on the little "haunted hayride" around part of the property. It was quick, and went through a couple little setpieces with fake headstones or zombies and such, but it was fun! There was also a shooting star, which I think was the highlight for everyone, haha.

We wandered over to some of the animal pens, and the goats came out and started bleating at us.


So we petted some goats for a few minutes.

Sadly, we never ended up getting to see the drag show. There were three timeslots, but the first was cancelled, the second was during our seance timeslot, and the third was packed.

We did get apple cider churros, which were delicious.

This was a really fun evening. I wish I hadn't had to go back to work the next day, but it was still mostly the kick-off to my time off from work. If they do a similar event next year, I hope we get the chance to go again.

Last week, we were lucky enough to have a pretty nice day, so we definitely wanted to take advantage of it!

It was a very beautiful fall day. There were lovely colors, it was warm, and it was all around fairly perfect to be out.


Much gold! And the creek down in the corner.


Liked the view looking up. The sky was also just extremely blue.


Look, it's Bella!

Eleven more pictures:

This time we walked past the other two mosaics on the road bridg:






A boxelder bug nymph!


Ducks on the creek! And some nice fluffy milkweed seeds.


A late chicory flower.


More ducks and colors!


This goober.

(This was right after she took a wade in the very cold creek, immediately got the zoomies from being overstimulated by the cold, rocketed around for a bit, and slammed into my shin hard enough to make both of us yelp, lol.)


Flowers!

We went down to the little stone house for a bit.


It's Bella again!


Really nice colors!


I love the color of these geraniums, but it also seems like a fake color, haha.

On Tuesday, we decided that while we were out in the middle of nowhere on the eastern plains, we might as well do something else before we made the long drive back.

There was a historic cemetery that wasn't too far away, and the trip out that way would also take us past something we'd noticed on our way to the Sand Creek Massacre site:


A derailed section of train!



At the time, we were wondering if perhaps this was tornado or wind damage, since it looked more twisted than crushed.

Nope! Apparently it just... fell off?

It was carrying wheat!

(At least some of what looks like sand or dirt blown up against the cars is probably wheat.)

This article has even less info, but some cool aerial shots.

While a couple articles talk about the derailment, and mention the cause being under investigation, I did not see any followup. The derailment also apparently happened on August 20, so it had been sitting for a bit.

Five more pictures:

Many springs in the grass.

I was glad we got to stop and get a closer look, though at the time we didn't know any details about what had happened.

I still have one post from the lantern festival, but I'm getting slightly out of order, because it's Indigenous Peoples' Day, and that feels like a fitting time to post about our visit to Sand Creek.

Then again, memorializing a horrific massacre isn't exactly celebratory, so.

A couple weeks ago, we decided to take my weekend and go out to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. Alex has wanted to go out there for some time, but it's far enough that it would have to be an overnight trip, so we just hadn't had a good chance to. We had a weekend free, and could swing the hotel expense, so we decided to go.

It was a good trip. It's a somber, tragic place, but still good.


"Welcome to the Massacre" sets a bit of a weird tone, gotta say.

This sign does have the very brief explanation of the site and the massacre itself: November 29, 1864, the US Volunteer Cavalry attacked a peaceful camp of Arapaho and Cheyenne natives. They were camped in a place they had been told to go; they were actively engaging in peace talks with the territorial and federal governments; they had emblems that indicated they were part of these talks, they were flying an American flag, they flew a white flag of surrender; the camp itself was largely made up of women, children, and elders... And the Cavalry attacked and murdered them anyway, killing more than 200 of them, and mutilating many of the victims.


A 33 Star American flag. This is the flag that at the time would have been flown over the camp; the one that was ignored, even though it was supposed to keep them safe.

The site is pretty far away, and there weren't many people there, but we weren't the only ones, either.

We arrived pretty much just in time for one of the ranger-led talks about the history of the site. While I already knew a fair amount about it, it was still informative. The ranger who led it was very nice, and spent a lot of time talking with us. (It was Alex and me and then another couple who came to the talk.)

We were initially a little leery of the other two, as the guy fairly quickly brought up being a veteran. That shouldn't feel like a red flag, but. Turns out it was not; the guy had a lot to say about military violence, and how horrible anything like this was. When the ranger opened it up for questions, he asked about how he'd heard the current administration is threatening to shut sites like this down, or wants to ensure that things have to be portrayed positively, and wanted to know if those were concerns.

The ranger said that yes, those are very real concerns. He said they're under a lot of scrutiny, and well... "Massacre" is in the name of the site. It's hard to sugar-coat. He also said he has to inform us that if we feel he was being too negative about the nation's history, then we can report him and the site.

The other guy had some opinions about what bullshit that was, and how important history was, and accountability for history, and knowing what we've done wrong so we can do better now, etc. Appreciated it.


My thoughts on the mandatory signage. "Anything negative about past Americans..." Welp. They were murderous assholes, so.

There was discussion of a couple soldiers who did the right thing. Two in particular: Silas Soule, and Joseph Cramer. Both of them disobeyed orders and refused to fire. They also both later testified against Chivington.

I've visited Silas Soule's grave in Riverside Cemetery. He was murdered shortly after his testimony regarding the massacre; it is believed that is likely why he was murdered.

There are a few trails to different parts of the site. You can't go to the massacre site itself, though you can go up to an overlook. We didn't have time for one of the longer trails (the site's hours are limited, and they're closed on Tuesdays completely, so we had to do it on the Monday, after the long drive out, leaving us with limited time.)

One thing that we noticed on the walk up the trail we did take: so many grasshoppers! So many different kinds of grasshoppers. I'll put my squeeing over bugs into a separate post, though.


Looking out toward the actual camp site. Either a raven or a turkey vulture soaring over; I never got quite a good enough look at it to tell.


Toward the camp.

We met a couple older women up at the overlook. They also expressed that they were visiting because they'd heard about attempts to shut the site down by the federal government. They said that if the government tries, they and their friends will all come back and protest. Told them we'd see them there, ha.


One of the places I found most... emotional, I guess. There is a place for repatriation; remains are still being recovered. There were a lot of bodies and body parts, as well as belongings, taken as trophies. Some are still being found. The ranger mentioned that the most recent was earlier this year. I believe he said that the femur of a teenage girl had been found and returned.

Six pictures of signs from the site:

These are not all of the signs at the site; there were several I didn't get pictures of. But here are some with more information.




I appreciate that someone has scratched up Chivington's face.

The National Parks and Monuments have a "BARK Ranger" program. (Basically you bring your dog and promise to keep them on leash and pick up their poop.) But Bella got a BARK Ranger tag!)

I guess it was good timing that we went before the shutdown.