The national park in my backyard

Like generations of southern Colorado travelers, I stumbled upon the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in the western foothills of Pikes Peak. 

The national monument brings an unexpected glimpse into a long-gone world, a window to a past when colossal redwood trees loomed over a humid, swampy Colorado from 34 million years ago. 

I lost track of my visits, but several stand out from the past 17 years. In October 2008 , I never expected the fossil beds would become local.  Even in September 2015, when we wandered the visitor center and toured the Hornbeck Homestead, an 1870s home once part of a larger ranch led by Adeline Hornbeck, the fossil beds never felt like they might be next door someday. 

Then May 2019 happened and I can’t imagine going without the fossil beds. I have visited dozens of times, attended the park’s 50th anniversary celebration, hiked all 15 miles of trails, and looked at Jupiter’s moons during a star party (the national monument is an International Dark Sky Park). 

I let my visits slide a little in 2024. I don’t really know why. In late February, I realized I let my annual National Park pass lapse, so I trekked up the hill the Florissant. 

Winter was still strong on a sunny, almost spring-like day. A few inches of solid snow coated the ancient lakebed that hosts the fossil beds. The elevation of 8,500 feet provides a respite in the summer, as temperatures usually run 10 or more degrees cooler than in the Springs. The wildflowers bloom later, and winter returns faster.

Not on the map

Every time I visit, I learn something or experience something on the trails that eluded me to that point. 

I relish the pond not on the trail maps that draws dozens of bird species in summer, and where hoofprints cross the ice in winter. I wait for the first calls of the prairie dogs from a massive colony past the pond, or the chirps from the ground squirrels near the Hornbeck Homestead. 

This trip I finally stopped to watch the park film, and learned what happened to the rest of the redwood trunks. The stumps run about 15 feet tall because that was the height of the lava mud that covered the valley. The 200-plus feet of tree that stood above the flow died and rotted away, while the stumps gradually fossilized. 

What makes Florissant an easy spot to revisit is the nature of its fossils. We have the redwoods, relatives to today’s coastal redwoods, the tallest trees on the planet. Like living redwoods, they can humble visitors with their size and longevity. The monument is often quiet, and there is space to contemplate the world of these giant trees.

Florissant also preserves a vast trove of tiny creatures with its collection of insects and invertebrate fossils. Those include an ancient wasp (which serves as the fossil beds’ logo), a tsetse fly (only found in Africa today), beetles, molluscs, and snails. Finding these tiny remnants is a miracle of sorts. 

Hard work preserved this land. At one time, two private attractions covered the fossil beds – Colorado’s petrified forest, then a lodge that include more of the stumps. Walt Disney bought one of the stumps and it is still displayed at Disneyland in California. When the land went up for sale and was targeted for a housing development, the locals organized, and eventually the federal government acquired the land, and the national monument came into existence. 

But now the parks are in the crosshairs. Rangers aren’t lazy. They tend to show passion toward their work. Most people take less money to stay in these jobs. In 20 years of heavy national park travel, I have rarely met an unfriendly one. 

Staff cuts have arrived. Florissant Fossil Beds announced it would close entirely on Mondays and Tuesdays – slow days for an out-of-the-way national monument, but indicative of a cut in employees. have never lived so close to national forests (Colorado has 20 million acres of them). The Forest Service suffers even more. Homeless people squat at campgrounds, often trashing them in the process. They conduct controlled burns to lower the overall wildfire risk. Seasonal camp hosts oversee campgrounds. 

Staff shortages will bring trouble to these special places. Human beings behave terribly when no one is looking. We criticisize the tourons who act terribly in our national parks, but they have the freedom to act because most NPS units already were understaffed. 

Florissant has limited visitor center hours in the past due to low staffing. It is hardly the lone NPS site to struggle with this problem. Having a national park site in my backyard – 45 minutes away- I feel I need to spend more time there. Maybe even start volunteering as staff are unlikely to lose the target on their backs soon.  

I’m not a fan to short-sighted decisions, and cutting the federal workforce feels stunningly short-sighted. When compared to the millions of years it took Florissant’s grove of redwood stumps to turn to stone, these actions that threaten endangered places occurred in a blink. Perhaps there’s a darker goal of privatization. Nothing would shock me right now.

We have to keep these places closer to us if we want any chance of keeping safe from people who can put a price on anything, but don’t understand that value goes beyond money.

Flow and its profoud animation

“Of course you like Flow , Bill - the main character is an animated black cat,” you might say. 

Very true, that was my initial reaction, the movie post of a submerged, wide-eyed cat. Yet I can’t remember the last time a film moved me like Flow. There’s something much more profound transpiring in Flow. 

Through the flood that drives the movie, the boat eventually ferries the cat, a capybara, five dogs, a ring-tailed lemur, and a secretary bird. 

The cat is the main character, as we use its point of view for this world without humans and the calamity that emerges. We see what the cat sees, but we can only interpret how it sees the world based on the actions it takes. 

At times the world of Flow seems like ours, then other moments moved into surrealism. As our group of animals cross the waters, a giant whale roams close by. Not a whale of our world, but one that feels pulled from legend. The size of our POV creatures makes it seem even more massive. 

We the audience react as the animals do. We know nothing about the flood – caused by a storm or hurricane, a broken dam, whatever caused it, we don’t know. Nor do we know where the people have gone. The house where the cat safely sleeps prior to the flood seems to have been recently abandoned. The workshop cottage has sculptures of cats in the yard and drawings on a desk.

Directed and co-written by Gints Zilbalodis, who spent five years assembling the film, it’s the first Latvian film nominated for Best Animated Feature and Best International Feature. The movie has already won the Golden Globe for Best Animated Feature Film, beating some heavy hitters like Inside Out 2. 

Zilbalodis diverts from traditional animation, not just in the lack of dialogue, but in the actions of animals. The animals act mostly like animals. The anthropomorphic touch is deliberately light, and instinct prevails and derails the animals at inopportune times. 

If they take actions that seem human, they are done to survive. And sometimes the cat just has to knock the lemur’s shiny objects off a ledge. 

All the noises are from actual animals (only the capybara is changed, with baby camel noises subbing for its natural high-pitched squeaks). The dogs are easily distracted by possibly prey. The lemur chirps and hoards shiny trinkets, including a mirror that the animals fight over. The secretarybird becomes the sailboat’s silent captain. 

Sound keeps us moving as our little group of animals rises with the floodwaters. The score perfectly complements the animal noises. Crafted collaboration by Zilbalodis and composer Rihards Zaļupe, they pared down hours of music to the 50-minutes that bring additional texture to the movie. Several cues are unforgettable, such as the floods reach the cottage and the cat forced the climb a giant cat sculpture when escape becomes impossible. 

The cat and its companions face peril from the beginning. Before the flood, the same dogs hunt the cat at times. Law of the jungle prevails, even if there’s no talking animals to tell us so.  

There are several scenes near the end that cut deep with beauty and sadness. There is a sacrifice that comes from receding floodwaters. I won't discuss it, but its unlikely to leave dry eyes.

Zilbalodis wastes nothing – the deer, the secretarybirds, the mythic whale – all have their purpose in this tale.  

Flow gives few answers to the reams of questions it produces. And it doesn’t need to.

Messenger from the deep

I couldn’t react immediately. The glut of poetic reactions to the deep-sea anglerfish appearing in shallow waters off the Canary Islands caught the world by surprise. You can see the pictures here or anywhere across the Internet. This was the first surface level view of an adult abyssal humpback anglerfish.

The pictures create more questions than answers. A fish that lives and dreams in total darkness, the only light it knows is self-generated. On its head, a bioluminescent bulb on a ray draws prey to its mouth of needle-like teeth. Symbiotic bacteria generate the light. We can confirm she was a female, because only the females have the lighted lure. 

They can live more than a mile below the surface, two miles below my elevation. Sunlight only penetrates to depths of 200 meters; plant life cannot survive below that level because there isn’t enough light for photosynthesis. So these small fish are rulers of the dark, their offering of light not an olive branch to other species, but a way to hunt and stay alive. 

In the photos she looked giant. She measured out at six centimeters long. Hardly the nightmare fish those zoomed-in photos depicted or heavily adapted for Finding Nemo. The pictures portray her as big as an ocean sunfish, but a shot of the filming diver reveals the truth. 

I’m sure it isn’t the first anglerfish to die where light reaches, just the first humans have recorded. They have ended up in fishing nets, but none have been seen free-swimming like this before. The anglerfish was in poor condition and did not survive long, the biologists reported.

There’s sadness to the appearance. These creatures live their whole lives in the dark, but this one didn’t.Whenever you spot animals at normally night active during the day, a problem exists. A raccoon or opossum in daylight usually has health issues. I suspect that when an anglerfish rises into daylight, something must be off. 

Illness, chase from a predator, or an unexpected ocean current could have forced the fatal drive to the surface, which likely took the fish several days. any number of occurrences could have launched its last ascent. 

We’ll never know what drove it from the dark, to waters where the light must have been blinding. Still,  we can still be humbled by a tiny predator that shares a planet with us, yet occupies a wholly different world a mile below the ocean surface.

Sunrise from Salina

Looking south on Santa Fe, downtown Salina

Looking north on Santa Fe, downtown Salina

 

This time, Topeka got no love from me. I pulled into a hotel where I stayed when moving HB to Las Vegas more than 25 years earlier. Exhaustion and proximity to the interstate won out. The rain of Friday gave way to 100 miles of thick morning fog. 

Flint Hill fog

I couldn’t wave goodbye to Topeka if I wanted to. I spent dozens of miles traveling well below the speed limit, not a banner start to the last 500-mile push home but at least the danger had character. The towns along I-70 spread out further after Topeka. 

Miss a stop and you might wait 40 miles for another town of any size. The rest areas become more frequent. Not that I could see much of anything that morning. 

The fog would not abate till I reach the floodplain of the Saline River and found myself wandering Salina at an hour only suited to joggers. Even if the city weren’t fogged in, I would traverse fog layers for the next 100 miles, till the weak December sun burnt off its last traces. With first light encroaching, the skies above Salina were clear. 

At nearly 50,000 people, Salina is a Great Plains metropolis and regional trade center for north-central Kansas. It’s the largest city till Denver another 400 miles west. 

Art Deco arch

Once the west end of the Smoky Hill Trail, the region had been rich hunting grounds for local Indian tribes, since Kansas grows much drier in its western reaches. I debated stopping soon. But fog can prove as stressful as two-lane mountain roads, so I decided breakfast at Salina would suffice. 

Salina has the only Braum’s close to Interstate 70 (the vertically integrated fast-food chain only has restaurants in a 300-mile span from its Oklahoma headquarters. I contemplated ice cream but felt I could wait for another Braum’s visit in 2025. 

Despite the long road ahead, I decided to take a good wander through Salina. A town of this size demanded several. In its silence, I found myself charmed by Salina. This was not the dead main street I encountered too often in Small Town American, but a vibrant block of small businesses. I found a small coffee place and took off the to wander around Santa Fe Street, the steaming up enough to keep my gloves off. 

Mural on the Mill

The downtown immediately stands out. Art Deco-style arches rise above the street, marking the pedestrian crossings below. At the north end of the block, I could not escape the Mural on the Mill, in which Australian artist Guido Van Helten depicts children plan on the walls of a massive mill. 

I had one more turn before the interstate and happened upon an unusually old gas station at 9th and Bishop. The restored Tudor-style cottage building has been restored, with vintage 1930s pumps outside.

Restored gas station

 The restored station debuted in summer 2024 after a local automotive museum undertook the project. It sat empty for many decades and miraculously survived several redevelopment efforts (background credited to the Salina Journal). Despite the offer of regular for 20 cents a gallon, the pumps don’t run. Still, it’s fascinating to see a gas station, which are generally as architecturally unappetizing as possible, had some style a century ago. 

The fog drifted off as I delved deeper into Kansas. I wondered if I still had a few stops left. Maybe I’m alone in finding Kansas intriguing. My native Ohio is thick with farmland, but Kansas just feels different. There are still hills, not like the rolling hills that cover all of Iowa or Missouri. 

Turbines in the morning fog

 When the land flattens, the occasional grain bin soars above the fields and dormant irrigation equipment. There are few trees anywhere. But one high point stands apart. 

The Basilica of St. Fidelis – better known as the Cathedral of the Plains – appears long before reaching tiny Victoria, Kansas. Founded by British immigrants, who named it for their queen, many returned to England. A wave of German immigrants followed. Bypassed by the interstate, it still has 1,000 residents.

The Romanesque church is not officially a Roman Catholic cathedral, but it feels far older than any church finished in 1911. The sand and limestone building fits a region with few trees, but it also feels like a European church for its use of stone and its remote location. 

But there was no train of Medieval pilgrims to be found. Or anyone else. I was alone except for light traffic on the main road.  Victoria remains a quiet farming town with a mighty church standing sentinel. 

Cathedral of the Plains

Cathedral of the Plains

South of St. Louis (National Park edition)

Green Tree Tavern, St. Genevieve

Ulysses S. Grant Home, St. Louis

As I reached the Great River Road that traces the Mississippi River through southern Illinois, I enjoyed the quiet nature of the country surrounding me. I could have turned south and crossed the river to Cape Girardeau, Missouri, but opt to follow the River Road north to Chester, which has the only bridge crossing between CG and St. Louis. 

In the misty morning and driving rain, I got little feel for character of any town I crossed. I just wanted to reach Chester. 

Chester’s small downtown had several stately buildings, but I really just wanted to find the bridge. Chester served as a filming location in the film In the Heat of the Night, which takes place in Mississippi. Nothing from the movie stood out in the rainstorm, unfortunately. A few missed turns later and I spotted the river crossing. 

But first, I spotted an unexpected statue. 

More than 1,000 miles upstream from the Gulf of Mexico, a bronze depiction of Popeye the Sailor overlooked the Mississippi. The spinach-loving sailor man was created by Chester native Elzie Segar, who based several characters in Popeye’s tales on people who knew from Chester. 

A little visitor center leans heavily on Popeye and I was the only one there that rainy morning. I didn’t expect much from Chester, but the Popeye connection made it a town worth remembering. 

Saint Genevieve National Historic Park
Crossing only bridge between St. Louis and Cape Girardeau, one could be forgiven for not believing the oldest White settlement east of the Mississippi hid nearby. The rain revealed little of this farm country. 

Little did I know the broad farming fields south of St. Genevieve followed the same sites of French colonists from more than 270- years ago. The 7,000-acre Le Grande Champ possessed nutrient-rich soils and even hid the remains of mounds built by earlier Native cultures.

The town served as a capital of French Louisiana then Spanish Louisiana, and broader settlement opened up after completion of the Louisiana Purchase (I’ll stop saying Louisiana now). The original townsite was critically damaged in 1785 floods, and the residents gradually moved the town to higher ground along the Mississippi. The town is rich with several French colonial architectural styles, mostly due to the use of posts to put the main floors of the homes high above ground level. 

Despite its oldest settlement title, St. Genevieve is among the newest NPS sites, its creation formalized in 2020, plus a visitor center to highlight the town’s history. The park service only protects a handful of historic buildings. Many of the homes are privately owned and open for tours from non-NPS sources. 

The oldest structure is the Green Tree Tavern, which dates to 1790 and also served as an inn and the home of the family that operated it. It also is noted as the first Masonic Lodge west of the Mississippi. It was easy to imagine its importance to the river community as a communal spot and one where travelers could take a break from the river. 

Jean Baptiste Valle House was an early leader, who oversaw the transition from French to American rule after the Louisiana Purchase. His home was a nexus of local political activity, and the house look as it did during his time. Rose gardens and a grape arbour remain on the grounds, while slave quarters, a summer kitchen, and other out-buildings are long gone. 

The Bauvais-Amourneaux House was also built by wealthy residents. It is notable for its “post-in-ground” architecture, one of three surviving St. Genevieve houses built in that style. 

The rain sapped what energy I had for tours. The only person I spoke to was an elderly Black man walking down the street, limping slightly. We greeted each other and went on in the rain. 

As I sought the route out of St. Genevieve, I realized the historic park was just a drop in the bucket. The town boasts some phenomenal architecture and brick streets. After experiencing a small historic sites, I didn’t realize such a historic town surrounded the handful of buildings administered by the Park Service. This one deserved a lot more time, although the outskirts of St. Louis beckoned me to one more NPS stop. 

 

Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site
Ten miles south of downtown St. Louis lies a lesser-known site in the life of the Civil War’s victorious commanding general and the country’s 18th president. Deep in suburban St. Louis, there lies a vibrant green Victorian home surrounded by a number of vintage farm structures. It was painted white for decades, but the park service restored its vintage colors for period accuracy. 

Ulysses S. Grant left the U.S. Army in the 1850s after serving in the Mexican-American War and his posting at remote Fort Humboldt in far north California, where he was driven to drink and eventually resign his commission. Having no other means of income, tried his hand at farming on his father-in-law’s plantation. Grant’s farming venture did not go well, as numerous environmental and economic factors dampened the farm’s output. 

After multiple attempts at careers around St. Louis, Grant moved the family to Galena, Illinois, in 1860, joining his father’s leather goods business. His career trajectory was changed forever by the Civil War’s outbreak a year later. 

The site shows the conflict for Grant, who grew up across several Ohio river towns east of Cincinnati, and his father was a staunch abolitionist. Grant had to face a different reality after leaving the Army. 

Then there were the slaves. The farm had anywhere from 18 to 30 slaves, although the only one Grant acquired, William Jones, came from his father-in-law in his days at White Haven. Grant freed Jones in 1859. As with other slave states bordering Union states, many White Haven slaves simply walked off the plantation after the work broke out. 

The Grants only sporadically visited the house after the war, as Grant became president in 1869 and Col. Dent died in 1873. Grant gave up the house to satisfy a debt in 1881 and it spent the next century in private ownership. 

Grant Home interior

The White Haven property was chopped up for development, cut down from 850 acres to the 10 acres protected by the park service since 1989. White Haven escaped redevelopment several times but remained a private residence until threat of its demolition led to its purchase by park service. 

Across Gravois Creek, lies the massive and unrelated Grant’s Farm, an event space with a Versailles-style estate owned by the Busch family of Anheuser-Busch fame. The famous Clydesdales The estate also includes Hardscrabble , the cabin that Grant built before they moved into White Haven at Col. Dent’s request. 

Winter kitchen

The rain pulled back. I arrived in time for a 2 p.m. tour, just the ranger and I. It was the only way to access the house. We had a good conversation about Grant, and he pointed out all the out-buildings that were original to White Haven. The house had both summer and winter kitchens (the former outside, the latter in a basement accessed by a 4-foot-tall door). 

Ties to a famous American made the house historically interesting, enough for it to end up preserved. The site might have been a small part of Grant’s life, but it illustrates that not everything is so clearcut with historic figures. 

Barn outside Grant Home

 

Original out-buildings

One last look

 

Nicodemus: A statement on Kansas' high plains

Nicodemus is one of those places that requires a commitment. One must take a slower road, rattle off many miles without another vehicle, and cross little towns that rarely spy an out-of-state license plate. These little commerce centers for the vast farms surrounding them. But out on the South Fork of the Solomon River, Nicodemus is one town not like the others. 

Nicodemus was founded for Black Americans, former slaves looking for a new life out of the South. The Nicodemus National Historic Site protects a small community, the first Black community founded west of the Mississippi and the only one to survive into the 21st century. 

Many Black communities were founded throughout the South after the Civil War, but Reconstruction was harsh and cruel, and many former slaves turned into sharecroppers for the same people who once enslaved them. Nicodemus offered a fresh start in abolitionist Kansas. 

I kept worrying I missed the small town when I left the interstate and cross the rolling landscape of northwest Kansas. Trees were sporadic outside of river corridors, although I was rewarded with a view of the largest turkey flock I have ever seen. Maybe 50 turkeys loitered in an empty farm field on the edge of a cottonwood grove. I had to stop and marvel. 

 Soon enough I found Nicodemus. History aside, it fit the template for a small Kansas farming town. The original 165-acre townsite received National Historic Landmark status in the 1970s, then joined the National Park Service in 1996, with the park district extending to five historic structures. Before the railroad and the Dust Bowl, the initial town conditions led many would-be homesteaders to return to the South. With few trees, sod houses dug directly into the ground formed the earliest form of Nicodemus. 

After building a small community on the hardscrabble Plains, the quest for a stop on a railroad line became make or break for Nicodemus. Unfortunately, race likely factored heavily into the rail route across northwestern Kansas.
 

The rail route around Nicodemus would be comical if not for its implications. The route makes an arc around the town. While it looks like the railroad chose to go through a different town, Bogue didn’t exist and was formed by the railroad, ostensibly to keep Nicodemus off the rails. The population boom never came, even as the town endured. 

There were other Black communities, especially in Kansas, where abolitionist sentiment ran strong and Black homesteaders sought new live after the Civil War and Reconstruction. East of Greeley on the Colorado Plains lie the remains of Deerfield, one of two dozen settlements in the Centennial State. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s prove the death-knell for communities on the Plains regardless of color, and Nicodemus was the only Black community to survive. 

A small group of historic buildings form the park site. The Nicodemus Community Hall from 1939 serves as park headquarters and the visitor center, with exhibits detailing its history and a series of short films about descendants of the original homesteaders who still live in Nicodemus and farm the land. 

The site includes two churches – The African Methodist Episcopal Church from 1885, and the First Baptist Church from 1907.The St. Charles Hotel dates to 1881 and has fallen into some disrepair. It speaks to the need for small hotels and boarding rooms at a time when transportation moved much slower. 

Nicodemus is still a living community of Black farmers. Private residences surround the historic buildings. It was silent at 10 a.m. on a sunny but cold Saturday. I stayed on the streets and away from the private homes. A large park lies along the U.S. highway, mostly used by truckers taking road breaks. 

Miles south of town when the railroad line comes into Bogue, one can wonder what might have happened had Nicodemus received that train stop. Hays is the biggest town in northwest Kansas at 20,000 residents, but the railroad changed fortunes. 

Smoky Hills

Shortly after Nicodemus, I passed the town of Damar, settled by French-Canadians and boasting a large Catholic church. It didn't look all that different.

Through the Smoky Hills, my thoughts never strayed from Nicodemus. The promise did not hold as the railroad favored its own interests, yet the families stayed. That its original buildings have joined the National Park Service are a testament to the Black farmers still working the fields that brought their ancestors out of the Southeast and slavery's stigmas. 

Still, Nicodemus is no ghost town, and its NPS status ensures the former slaves who founded the town won’t go forgotten.

A new year's moose moment

Fog hid the upper reaches of Cheyenne Mountain. The clouds that obscured the mountains and Pikes Peak for new year’s eve dropped a glaze of snow on the entire town. There was no difference between ice and powder. 

Still, I headed up the mountain for a first-day trip through the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. The drive was not as treacherous as it appeared, and zoo visitation was light at opening. Besides, I find therapy at the zoo, watching the animals long enough that they forget your presence, if not their own captivity.

Staff milled about, but no one followed my path into the Rocky Mountain Wild section. I always start here, because these animals are mostly natives and typically stay active when people are not around. Usually I go for the Mexican gray wolves, mountain lions, or the rambunctious porcupine. 

This time I stopped at a duck pond on the edge of a ravine He stood across his habitat when I arrived, grazing on sprigs of grass on the snow-covered ground. He took immediate notice of me watching him.

 At four years old, Atka looks every bit of a bull moose in his prime. When he first arrived, he was little more than legs and a head. When his mother was killed in a car crash, Atka was just eight weeks old, far too young to survive in the wild. He’s been in human care nearly his entire life. He had to be bottle-fed till he was old enough for solid foods. 

But that 80-pound baby pushed past 1,000 pounds in 2025. He wore a sturdy set of antlers, the velvet long gone. In the wild, you would give him a wide berth. At the zoo, the fences allow for closer interaction. The longer I stood there, the more curious he was. He moved closer until he reached the fence and trees that kept him in.

As I spoke softly in his direction, he made a few soft noises, not quite moans, but gentle moose whispers. His ears never pulled back. Wild mammals can change mood on a dime, but he seemed at ease on this snowy morning. 

He pushed his snout on the net fencing, as if hoping I had something for him. Maybe food, maybe scratches, I couldn't really say. I didn’t have any food for him and told him as much. The distance was too far for me to reach his snout without crossing the thigh-high barrier, and I was not feeling like being the first person the zoo kicked out in 2025. 

Mostly I just stared at the massive ungulate five feet away. I don’t have good words for the feeling. But starting my year with 15 minutes of one-on-one with a captive moose … what else can I say? Just standing so close, being in that presence warmed up my morning. 

 Then came the voices of  people coming up the hill to Rocky Mountain Wild. I decided to bid Atka a good 2025 and move on. I would visit again, probably several times before the zoo's busy season, but the start of the year felt like a moment that would not recur.

 Leaving him, I headed uphill in the snow. I felt eyes on me and turned. One of Cheyenne Mountain’s three mountain lions stared at me from less than five feet away. I instinctively jumped back two steps despite the fences between us. The predator sat within pouncing range and I stayed oblivious.

The cat continued to study me. I moved again and he bounded up the rocks in his exhibit to watch me from above. After my time with the moose, another close encounter was asking too much. 

Finally, Casa Bonita

We didn't account for the tree.

Casa Bonita was open when I first moved here. But not for long. The COVID-19 pandemic struck, the Lakewood institution closed its doors, its parent declared bankruptcy, and it seemed I missed my chance. Colorado media continually asked about its status, but hopes for reopens never seemed bright. 

Enter Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Fresh off the latest syndication contract for South Park, which landed them $800 million, they announced they bought Casa Bonita and planned to renovate and revive it. 

But they ran into 30 years of deferred maintenance and other issues. When they finally opened, each month's block of tickets vanished in minutes. I wanted to go. But when?

My dear friend Rob was kind enough to ask if I would be a sixth in a party that already had five. I couldn't wait to reply. 

Having wondered how I would get to Casa Bonita when everyone I knew in Colorado would probably find their way there with another group, I wondered no more. How better to experience such a place than with a friend of 20-plus years?

Cliff diver

After some strong winter in early November, our date arrived with 50 degrees and sun, optimal conditions for Colorado between October and May. We milled outside for a bit before they ushered us in, gave us a brief Casa Bonita primer (you have an hour at your table, so wait on the attractions because you can stay as long as you like after you eat) and brought us to the second floor. 

It's a spectacle, to be sure. Meant to mimic a Mexican village, the tables are set among fake palm trees and rock formations, with a waterfall and splash pool at the center of things. 

The food might not have been worth $50. My Colorado friends warned me the food was truly awful - you went for the experience, and maybe some sopapillas. In the purchase announcement, Parker said he four-year-old mentioned how bad the food was, and that it has to be overly bad to register with someone that young.  

Still, green chile brisket was probably a much better option than what preceded the new ownership. Chips and salsa came with the meal, and it concluded with an order of the fabled sopapillas (one free per table). They were quite tasty, even though I ended up with honey on my hands and jeans.

Lest we forget...

With brief warning, we were given notice that it was diving time. From our second-floor table, we appeared to have a prime spot, were it not for the faux rock formation in our direct path. 

The cliff divers assembled. In their red swimsuits, they strolled around the rocks before taking the 20-foot dive into the pool. Only they may dive; anyone else who attempts a dive earns a trip to jail and a permanent Casa Bonita ban. Imitate Eric Cartman, and you are guaranteed to follow him to jail and never enjoy Casa Bonita again. 

After a few rounds of cliff divers and a stop through the arcade, we entered the closed theatre for a magic show. It ended up being pretty entertaining. 

The puppet shows have resumed, and brought a crowd each time to the little set of seats near Black Bart's Cave. The gorilla in gym shorts has been replaced with ManBearPig, a creature from the show seemingly created by Al Gore for attention but later proven to be real.

We maneuvered through the confines of Black Bart's Cave, where Black Bart is most definitely not hiding, as the sign will tell you. A little series of tubs announces the presence snakes, and forced air tickles your hand if you dare to test them.

Mostly I was glad to see Rob, since we often go 5-6 years between visits. This time, we went a scant seven months. And by making friends with Rob's friends, I will only go a scant four months between Casa Bonita visits, because it's fun, silly, and the much-lambasted food didn't offend the senses. 

Garden City nights

Cousin Eddie welcomes travelers to Coolidge, Kansas

I roared out of Colorado on Black Friday, eager to erase a blacker Thanksgiving. No turkey, no company, no nothing but a good bottle of wine that I didn't want to drink alone. And a good bottle of wine without someone to share the wine never tastes as sublime. 

So I headed out along the Arkansas Valley drive, U.S. 50, bound for Kansas and a little Midwest friendliness. Somehow, I would find it in Garden City, 50 miles across the border, yet tied to the same region as my Ohio roots some 1,300 miles northeast. 

The town of 30,000 is a regional hub among the vast farm fields of Kansas. The west begins to take hold here, as influence of the Gulf of Mexico fades. But its location on the Arkansas River boosts local farming. 

Due to local meat-packing and farming operations, Garden City has a large Hispanic population, and good Mexican options are abound. I picked one that was packed inside, and took my burrito to go so I could have a quiet picnic at the Lee Richardson Zoo, Garden City's biggest attraction. 

I have written about the LRZ before, and it will write about it again, but the zoo remains the best place to wander around in southwestern Kansas. 

A free zoo (you can drive through for a fee), it has lions, lemurs, sloth bears, otters, and an impressive Cat Canyon exhibit with bobcats, cougars, jaguars and several species of leopards. Not animals came out - more comfortable in much warmer temperatures, the rhinos and giraffes were kept indoors. The lions were still stalking their prairies, with the males trading roaring sessions. 

I spent some time observing the zoo's newest arrivals, a pair of burrowing owls. The tiny owls live on the Great Plains and often occupy abandoned prairie dog tunnels. The zoo constructed a new exhibit with tunnels for the owls to occupy. 

Full on burrito and time outdoors, I found my hotel and headed for Hidden Trail Brewing, one of Garden City's two breweries. Hidden Trail is a standalone facility, with a big modern taproom that was crowded with Chiefs fans watching their Black Friday game with the Raiders. Some 375 miles from Kansas City, this was the western edge of Chiefs fandom, not the place to bring up favorable calls from referees. 

I ended up talking with a man who had a house in Green Mountain Falls (up the hill from Colorado Springs) but grew up in Garden City about what brought me there. He seemed glad that I was a little taken with his hometown. It's the first place I can get a taste of the Midwest. He invited me to come back for one of the various 5Ks run through the LRZ and downtown. 

As for the beers, they were fantastic, especially the honey strawberry wheat, which requires one to resist the urge to just pound the beer. They leaned toward hazy IPAs, but had a seriously dank pale ale that taste unlike anything else in the hoppy beer realm. The staff were friendly and rolled with all my questions about the brews.

With Black Friday in full swing, I stopped at a Goodwill and took the rare step of perusing their records. To my shock, another lady looking at them noted a big stock of recently stocked country records. An even bigger shock was their pristine condition. I could have left with a stack but opted for two classics - Merle Haggard's Mama Tried and an Elvis Christmas album. 

The night ended with more turns. I tuned to Applebee's for a nightcap. Not a place I had visited in a decade or maybe two. But it was relatively friendly and inexpensive. Plus, I was gunning to get my 10,000 steps so I needed a good walk. I ended up doing laps around a closed Sam's Club parking lot. I planned to use the hotel's treadmill, but after 20 seconds the screen went dark and could not be restored. So I wound down, expecting an early start even if Garden City had not yet risen. 

GC cat with cannon

Abandoned hotel 

Aside from a few runners and delivery drivers, I was alone downtown. A black cat crossed my path for far less time than I would have liked. 

Finney County courthouse

I bought a coffee and started walking the blocks. I hate to blame a certain ubiquitous big-box employee, but it shut out most of the business that would have occupied these downtown spaces. 

Garden City has a few spots with special history, such as the Finney County Courthouse, where the murderers from In Cold Blood were tried and sentenced to death. In this sparsely populated spot at the Midwest's edge, that history never goes away. 

Some change is afoot. The Flat Mountain Brewhouse, a steakhouse and home to Garden City's other brewery, has been transformed into the Main Street Food and Brew Hall, with five vendors and the brewery. That's enough enticement to draw me back in late spring, when I might need another night away. 

Inevitably, I decided to head west again. I could find more to like in Garden City, but wanted enough to fill a future night on the plains.