My viv and Poison Dart Frogs

Day Three: Greeley CO, and the Freight Station Train Museum

IIRC we traveled to GREELEY of the morning the Convention seminars started.  Greeley was only a short drive from the hotel eastward on Rte. 34.  When you get to the MUSEUM you see a rather nondescript metal building adjacent to the train station. 
Once inside the place is chocked full of a model railroad layout, and tons of memorabilia. On the walls you can find antique timetables, train lanterns, railroad uniforms - the list goes on and on. But the layout is the star of the show. 
Fater you pay a small entrance fee the cashier tells the children they they have a sort of  scavenger hunt. she tells them that somewhere on the layout 7 dinosaurs are hidden. The page they give also list a number of other things to find on the layout.  Now you would think that finding dinosaurs in a train layout should be fairly easy. Not so! They were actually pretty tough to find! Pete was able to find all the items on the layout and he did find (with some help from Mom and Dad) 5 of the dinosaurs. The cashier said that if the kiddie asks nicely a volunteer would help them. I think Pete needed help with the last two dinosaurs, but all they would do is give general hints. You still had to look ... hard.
 We spent about 1 1/2 hours there, but a real railroad buff could easily spend the entire day!

Here's my son with a small part of the layout. In the back you can see a red caboose. It was said this is the last wooden caboose. More of this next.

This is a shot of the inside of the caboose. Pete is sitting in the observation "tower." In there are bunks for at least two (short) guys, a pot belly stove for heat and to cook on, and and many places for storage.

This shows the amount of detail the layout has. The entire layout is constructed to the same level of detail.

Here's a little vignette of a building on fire, with a number of firetrucks and firmen around. There is a push button that when pressed starts a red and orange blinking light, starts smoke and has the firetrucks lights blinking.

 One more fire related vignette. This time a forest fire. I dedicate this to the Yarnell 19 that perished in a wild fire in AZ.

Of course being a train layout, I owe it to you to have at least one train picture! ;)

Our visit had to come to an end as there was a seminar at the convention Pete and I really wanted to hear. We had enough time to stop for some lunch and then head back to the convention.

More tomorrow...

The Newest Member of the Family

And it is Sydney! It's a pastel Bearded Dragon. They come from the semi-arid regions of Australia (hence its name) but a number of different varieties have been developed by breeders. Babies eat mostly insects and as they age they start eating more and more veggies and non citrus fruit. 

Day Two: The Prologue

Yes, I should have written this first. But I was so excited about talking about The Stanley Hotel that I missed out on letting you see a Little bit of the scenery at the entrance to the Rocky Mountain National Park. I was surprised there wasn't too many "pull offs" or "scenic views."  Here's a few pics between Loveland and Estes Park - -

(click images to enlarge)

A little view of the Big Thompson river.

Day Two: The Stanley Hotel

The story actually starts a year ago when the IPMS announced the 2013 Convention was in Loveland, CO.  I went to a map to see where Loveland was exactly and what was nearby. I quickly noticed that Estes Park was an easy drive away. I knew that The Stanley Hotel was in Estes Park, and I knew that The Stanley was the inspiration for Steven King's The Shining. The short backstory was that like Jack Torrance, Steven King and his wife, while on vacation, looked to stay at the Stanley Hotel on Fall Day. Being at this time there was no heat at the Hotel, the hotel was a day away from closing. He talked them into giving them a night there. He stayed in Room 217, which at the time was the Presidential suite, and supposedly he heard and saw children playing (remember he was by himself), it gave him the idea to write the Shining.  I wanted to stay for a night or two, but Deb wouldn't hear of it. So I had to settle for going on a tour.  :-/

I guess because of it's notoriety you can no longer just drive up to the Hotel. There is a long winding road and then you see the mechanical arm and gate house. You need to show your reservation or your tickets for one of the tours. We showed our tickets, drove it, parked the car, and went toward the tour office. Once in the office there were some memorabilia from the movie, and a Shining posters - one of which was signed by Jack Nicholson. The other awesome piece of memorabilia was the photograph of the July 4, 1921 Ball you see in the closing scene (I wished they used anti glare glass for the framing).

Listen, you can almost hear Midnight, The Stars, and You playing...

The tour guide showed a sort of tongue in cheek video of what ghostly happenings from FO Stanley and his wife Flora that might occur and then it was off to the tour. Contrary to any story the tour guide assured us that no one has ever died in the hotel and that any ghosts are because people enjoyed their stay so much, they decided to spend their afterlife there. (So don't worry about any woman in the bath tub if you stay...)  LOL

The first stop was the Ballroom. It's still in it's popular Victorian colors and Flora used to love to hold parties there. Today from time to time staff members swear they hear parties going on. When they open the doors ... no one. While the tour guide was talking I kept an eye open for any kind of shadow that didn't belong or out of the ordinary... nothing.

These colors, popular for the time, was the reason Stanley Kubrick didn't film his movie at The Stanley over King's objections. To Kubrick the hotel was just too "happy" looking. (The hotel in the movie is in Oregon, and only the exterior was used. All the interior shots were on a UK sound stage).

Another stop on the tour was a garage where one of the Stanley Steamer is kept. an original wooden body of one car was in the corner. I thought I took a pic of it, but all I have is the restored car.

The next stop was the hotel itself. But first we get to see the front facade.

The second floor window at the far right of my image was the original Room 217, this is where King's experiences where. The hotel was originally painted yellow with the red roof, but the towns people pleaded with Stanley to get rid of the horrid yellow, so he had it painted it the "boring" white. Another thing of note was the Victorians were enamored with symmetry. So the little "shed" just to right of the cupola on the roof, that seems out of place, was installed later in time when the elevator was installed.  Finally the half circle front lawn was there because when Stanley's driver would go to Denver to pick up his guests, the Steamer, which traveled at 45 MPH only had one speed - full speed. So after dropping the guests off the driver wasn't about to back down the driveway at 45 so the front lawn is the turning radius of a Steamer!

One of the stops was the infamous Room 217. This room was the Presidential Suite, but after an explosion, the room was divided up into four smaller rooms. These rooms are rented out, so we couldn't go inside. This is the best I could do.

Supposedly the 4th floor has had a lot of activity. It supposedly was where the nanny's of the rich would look after the children up there. They played, at their meals and lived on that floor, so their are reports of hearing children laughing, balls bouncing and the like. One of the ghost shows - Ghost Hunters - and one of the guys stayed in Room 401 and caught activity on camera.  Here's 401 - 

Luckily the guests had just checked out of 401 and the staff was in there fixing up, so we were able to get a look inside the room.

IIRC,  pieces of activity was a glass on the night stand breaking by itself, and closet door opening on it's own. I happen to be standing in front of the closet door and with the number of people on the tour I couldn't move to get a shot of it.

Finally we moved down to the lobby. The first thing you see is the stair case in the center of the lobby. Do you recognize it? It's the staircase in Dumb and Dumber where Jim Carey walks into the hotel giving everyone money and they he races up the stairs and tackles Lauren Holly to keep her from winning! 
We were told that Carey stayed at the hotel1/2 a night. He came down stairs from his room in the middle of the night and put the keys on the registrars desk and wouldn't enter the hotel by himself. He has also never said what scared him so much.

Below is one of the seatings around the fireplace. Because of the symmetry there is another just like it at the opposite side of the lobby. There is also another Steamer here in the lobby. Everyone was around it taking pics so I couldn't get a shot of it w/o strangers in my pics.  :-/
One of the things you may notice in the next images is the dark wallpaper and wood. It's no secret that King really hated what Kubrick did to his story. So years after the Shining movie King decides to make his own version, sticking to the book (if you haven't you must, it's a lot different than the movie). He decided to shoot it at the Stanley. But as Kubrick noted, the place was to "happy." He then asked the then owners if they'd mind if he redecorated. always looking for free upgrade they said "go ahead." So it's one of the few places decorated by Steven King.

There was a gift shop adjacent to this area. So I sat by the fire, while Deb and Peter went in. It was here that I got my only feeling. The guide said at one point that Flora was known for wearing rose perfume. While sitting there I distinctly smelled a quick wiff of rose.  A minute or two later Pete came over and he sat directly opposite me by the fire. Once again I smelled the rose perfume,  All I said to him was "Smell anything?" He replied "Roses."  I then reminded him of what the tourguide said. WOW.

Through some sliding doors was the dining room. Again made darker by King. All the lights are genuine original Tiffany. The band stage was also added by King.

As the tour ended back by the tour office there was a pretty neat piece of history. It was said during the tour that the Hotel closed down in the winter as the place had no heat in the rooms until the early 80's. Here's is a nicely restored heater. (BTW because the hotel is on the historical register they cannot add A/C).

Also in the hallway as a tribute to the land was a large fish tank with a few trout in it. The other was a vivarium where they were raising butterflys. The sign said they hold a release each week during the summer. We got to see the viv as well as an incubator "room" with chrysalis' and a few newly hatched butterflys. They are rather hard to see in the pic.

 Back outside again we get to see some of the scenery. It looked like rain and that keeps us from seeing some of the remaining snow at the tops of mountains.

More tomorrow...

Day One: IPMS Con and Colorado 2013

Yep, seems I haven't been keeping up with this blog. But starting now I promise to make a better attempt to keep current.
In this edition we are just back from the IPMS National Convention in Loveland CO. There are plenty of sites describing the Nats, so I'll just post links.

Contest Gallery Page - http://www.ipmsusa3.org/gallery/v/events/2013NATS/
(BTW- I was on the photography team for the website) ;)
The Convention - http://www.ipmsusa2013.com/
The Club - http://ipmsusa.org/index.htm

As usual we have always taken some extra time to do the tourist thing around the convention city. The convention hotels weren't in Loveland proper, but just to the east of Rte. 25. The Nats was in the Convention Center attached to the Embassy Suites, but because I procrastinated in making reservations, we stayed down the block at the Holiday Inn Express.  The hotel was a very nice, clean place so no worries. Good breakfast was served every morning. There was also a restaurant nearby for the locals called The Breakfast Club. A travel book I read a long time ago said for the local flavor go to where the locals eat and avoid the national chains. So this is what we try to do when we can, and we ate there twice. There were a number of terrific restaurants nearby like Nordy's BBQ, The Boot Grill, and Bonefish to name a few.  

Getting to the hotel later than expected, we just grabbed something quick to eat we got our bearings of the immediate vacinity.  The next morning we were up early (2 hr. time difference really did matter) We headed off to Greeley. Our aim was the Greeley Freight Station Museum. But not reading the website close enough to see that the Place was closed Mondays and Tuesdays, we needed another option. Nearby was the Ranger Station for the Pawnee National Grasslands. It was a very nice little museum filled with artifacts from the Grasslands - - 

(click images to see them larger)

After a chat and a look around, the Ranger gave us a map and directions to the two sections of the Grasslands. The western part is a giant loop around and it's used mostly for birdwatching. The eastern part contains the natural monument Twin Buttes.
Once there at the starting point we realized that the the trip so far was pretty long and that did we really want to loop around looking for a possibility of seeing birds or should we press on to the Twin Buttes? We chose the latter.

The starting point for the weatern part.

Above is an example of the wide open spaces. I can only imagine 200+ years ago, when nearly the entire midwest was one open space.

We then got back in the car and continued east looking for the Twin Buttes. We were probably in the car another 1.5 hrs, the last 45 minutes or so was on a dirt road. All the roads off the main route were dirt roads!? Finally we made it! And were treated with an awesome view of the Buttes and the surrounding scenery  - -

 We spent at least an hour enjoying the views and the tranquility; we had the whole place to ourselves the entire time. Deb and Peter took one of the trails to get a little closer to the Buttes (not that much) and while they hiked I looked around and noticed one of these boulders. There were a few of them around and they were used to direct people and cars. But this one I noticed had the ripples throughout. These were the ancient ripples of a prehistoric tidal area. So if the rocks were from here, it indicates that at one time this whole place was at the edge of that inland sea we read about. 

More tomorrow!

Catching Up

Yeah FB was a little more addicting that I thought. Bu the novelty is definitely wearing off.

One of the major new items is that the band I'm involved with, ALIVE, is now out playing. we had a few shows aready and play to play every month or 6 weeks or so.

Here we are -

The next item is that we attended the IPMS Nationals again this year. This time is was back in Phoenix, AZ. Once again we took a full week. This gave us time to visit relatives nearby, attend a D-Backs baseball game (they won), and have a 2 days side trip to Flagstaff, and Sedona. Pete never saw the Grand Canyon, so we figured we would remedy that.

Oh yeah, the Scale Model Convention was excellent. I didn't enter anything as I'm afraid of that the airline baggage handlers will do to a model, and I have to many things already in my carry on) For pics of the Con visit here -
http://www.ipmsusa3.org/gallery/v/events/National+Convention+2010/