Alamosa, CO and all points east

We just let out of Alamosa, CO, heading east on US160 towards a town that
starts with a “W” but neither kelly nor i can keep it in our mind.
Welhausen? Weyerhausen? I don’t remember. Oh well, from there, up I25
to Pueblo/Colorado Springs, then US24 to I70 and on through Kansas.
Hopefully, we can make it to Kansas City, Missouri today. It’s possible,
but not real likely.

Outside of Alamosa in an interesting mix of plains and mountains. The
mountains rise gracefully from the edge of the plains, soaring into the
sky. Many of the snow-capped peaks we see here at 13000-14000 feet high.
We currently sit at about 7000 ft. It’s great to look out the window and
see huge mountains.

We just passed through Walsenberg (not Weyerhausen), and are on our way
north on I25 towards Pueblo and Colorado Springs. The flatness of Kansas
is starting to creep in a bit, i fear. Kelly mentioned that she almost
didn’t want to get on I25, because US160 was such a nice, scenic drive.
We haven’t been on an Interstate since Flagstaff, and I guess we’ve been
spoiled. Well, if we didn’t take I25 to I70, we’d never get home.

We finally made it to Limon, CO, and got on I-70 towards Kansas! About
100 miles out, we saw a “Point of Interest” sign — and saw some weird
tower up on the side of the highway. Looks interesting…. pulling up, we
see that it’s the “Wonder View Tower” — see six states from the top!
Huh. This tower isn’t THAT tall, but we walk inside the crampt store to
find an old man by the name of Jerry Chubbuck. The store is crammed from
walls to ceiling with various old relics — bottles, blowtorches, rocks,
gemstones, t-shirts, EVERYTHING. The ceiling even has stuff hanging from
it.

A note: words cannot completely describe the Wonder View Tower in Genoa,
Colorado. Words and sight may not do it justice. All senses are
assaulted.

The old man tells us that it’s a $1 for admission — and we’ll get our
dollar back if we can guess what the uses of various “mystery items” are.
He produces two metal mesh basket-looking things, and Kelly guesses a
collander, and I said it was a cheese strainer. His faces lights up with
the guesses — he mentions that some people think “hat”, others think “bra
cup for Dolly Parton” (to which he places them both to his chest, and
dances about a bit). I am COMPLETELY mesmerized by this old guy. Turns
out, they are muzzles for horses, so they don’t eat the corn whilst
harvesting. He leads us to an old glass case crammed with random stuff.
The first “mystery item” is a a strange cutting device — or thats what it
seems like. Imagine a garlic press — but with a blade on it. I think
“umbilical cord serverer”. He mentions one woman thought it was a
pill-cutter. He produces a box with instructions for this device on the
back — it turns out it is a chicken killer! Place the blade in the
mouth, and the flat part on the skull. Pop! Brain-b-gone. He produces
some stones that turn out to be a dinosaur gizzard stone, and some
dino-dook. A “cow-pill” magnet that is fed to a cow to get the various
metal objects in a cow stomach out (“it’s been used three times, pulled
out of three piles — but only cleaned once!” he exclaims), is the next
item. Also included — a rubber core from a 1910′s car wheel.

So, quickly the amusement of the tower has been severly downgraded –
looking at all the stuff on the walls, in the twenty-two rooms of this old
house could take years. Now, this used to be a stop on US24, a highway
that used to pass by it (which was replaced with I70). I70 ran around the
back of this used-to-be restaurant, nightclub, museum, curio shop. So,
after US24 dried up (it’s still there), Jerry Chubbuck, who knew the
original owner as a kid, renovated the place out the back. Now, it is his
own private museum and antique shop.

A little background on Jerry Chubbuck — he’s described in one of the many
articles on the walls as an “amateur archaeologist”. In 1957, he
discovered a huge triceratops skeleton near Kit Carson, CO, also an 8500
year old bison kill near the same place. The triceratops — or part of it
– now lies in one corner of the front room of the old house.

Jerry’s enthusiasm about every little piece of the place is contagious.
Kelly likened it to a young child wanting you to play with his toys — and
Jerry has them in spades. Take, for instance, his bottle collection. In
the span of 15 minutes talking bottles with him, I received an education
that I will never forget. I now know how to accurately age a bottle –
it’s all in the seams. Single-seam bottles date from 1915 on.
Multi-seamed bottles from 1875 on. Things earlier than that are
“tri-molded”, and seamless. He pulled out some amazing bottles, and I was
enraptured with each. It was amazing.

Having a conversation with Jerry is interesting. He ends most sentences
with “thats for sure”, “ain’t that right”, or “dontchu know it”. It’s
almost like he wants to show the entire museum to you in the span of your
stay. Frankly, I could’ve stayed for days — weeks even with the stuff he
has there. WWI helmets with bullet holes, Civil War era telegraph keys,
early blowtorches, two-headed calves, bizarre medical implements, rocks
and rocks and rocks. Old books stacked floor to ceiling, 20,000 indian
artifacts, unused bars of soap, barbed-wire, and bottles. So many
bottles. Bottles from 18th century London, 19th century booze and pop
bottles.

One half of the museum has 10 rooms and the tower, the other half (which
used to serve as the kitchen, the dance-hall, the stage, and the
restaurant). While you are looking around, Jerry will often stick his
head around the corner, urging to you to “come look”. There are so many
things, and Jerry knows a story about them all. One of which was a 200
(or so) year old ceremonial chair from China, which used to have jade
stones inlaid — which had been removed and replaced with marbles.

The great thing about Wonder View Tower is that Jerry makes the museum
what it is, and Jerry wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for Wonder View being
built back in the 1880′s. The history behind the store is compounded by
what it is today. I can only imagine what it was like back in the 1930s,
when the founder of the place, C.W. Gregory would stand on the top of the
tower and greet the oncoming motorists via a loudspeaker. They would stop
over for lunch, or the for the night, and enjoy the view and the live
music.

Finally about the tower — it’s pretty tall, and according to an alleged
1934 Geological Survey report, it is the tallest point between Denver and
New York. something which I could believe, as it stands at 5000 something
feet above sea level. Also, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not proved that is was
possible to see six states from the tower.

The Wonder View Tower is the perfect side-of-the-road site. Lots of
history, lots of fun, and a curator that is like a whirlwind of generosity
and knowledge. I was sad to leave it really, but as we exited the museum
with t-shirts in hand, Jerry ran outside, wanting to get our pictures
taken with some guns and hats he had stowed away. He snapped our fotos,
and then ran back inside to grab the other two visitors, to have them snap
the photo. He returned with the other visitors and — get this — a
monster mask and a big spear. They took our photos, we shook hands, and
regrettably headed out on the road.

By the way, outside, there were two old junked cars, a Ford Fairline 500
and a Cadillac, FILLED WITH BOTTLES. Bottles on top of bottles. Also, a
junked modern import. Later, Wonder View!

Wow. I don’t know if anything will top that, really — and to think, we
weren’t originally going to pass through there. I’m so glad we did.

About 75 miles outside of Hays, KS we started seeing signs for the “Worlds
Largest Prairie Dog — 8000 lbs!”. Well, eventually we got off the I70,
and turned into “Prairie Dog Town” — which is now a Prairie Dog Ghost
Town. Oh well.

We pulled into Hays, KS with the gas gauge on E — we made 320 miles on a
10 gallon tank. Pretty good. We found that there was a local theatre
showing SpiderMan, and after we checked into the Super 8 motel where we
are now staying, we caught some dinner, and then went to see the 9:30
show.

Well, if the previews were any indication, this movie was going to rock.
Star Wars Episode 2 — HOLY MOTHER OF GOD. I don’t think i’d seen the
trailer they had shown. Action, action, action. Sooooo good. The Men In
Black II trailer was equally as kickin. I can’t wait to see a good fun
summer movie. Even the Minority Report trailer looks really good!
Spielberg can be a little saccharin for me, but this seems to be something
that won’t be quite as much. AI was almost too sweet. Needs more
‘splosions!

Well, anyway, Spiderman rocked the house. I had worried that it would be
too corny, as Stan Lee titles can be sometimes, but I think the script and
directing made this sufficiently dark. Spiderman comes across as a more
and more dark and conflicted personality. Sure, the depth of that isn’t
MILES deep, but for a 2 hour movie, it did the job well. Also, the
casting was excellent, I thought. Many slighted Tobey Maguire for being
sleepy and stoic, but it fit the writing so well. Maguires portrayal at
times IS a little sleepy, but the stoicism and introversion that comes
with “super powers” is there. The story line isn’t the big happy Superman
boy does good line that one may expect. I’m so happy that talent and good
writing are finally coming behind the stories that have been so popular
with so many people over the years. Sure, the costumes can be a little
hokey at times (which is dealt with greatly in this movie), but you can
suspend your belief a bit. Willem Dafoe played the Green Goblin
excellently, and thankfully, they didn’t portray him as they did in the
comics I read when I was younger. Obviously, it’s updated, but he isn’t
quite as, um, cartoonish and elf-like.

Now, i have to mention the following: Ben Parker tells Peter “With great
power comes great responsibility”. This is a good theme in the movie –
but replace “great” with “super”, and imagine Thomas Haden Church saying
those words — THATS RIGHT. The Strobe, from the Specials. Just
remember: WITH SUPER POWERS COMES SUPER RESPONSIBILITY, DAMMIT.

Heh. All together, a great, great movie. It has a great feeling about
it. It’s not too corny, but not too dark. It’s a good, fun, well
directed (Sam Raimi of Evil Dead fame), FUN movie. Fun fun fun. Also, it
sets up a sequel quite well, and for the fans of comicland Spidey, it
sticks well to the title.

A note from Kelly: Kirsten Dunst had great shoes. Kelly gives extra-soopa
props to the costume designer. “Especially the camel-butterscotch
slingbacks in the wet-Mary-Jane upside-down kissy scene”. I have to
admit, i wasn’t so looking at the shoes in that scene — YOWZA!

Well, it’s nearly 2AM CST here, so I’m going to go to sleep — gonna go
back to St. Louis tomorrow, hopefully in town by Sunday (3 days early!)

Other addenda: There is a restaurant in Ellis (i think that is the name
of the town) called Big Wong’s. *snicker*