70 in 70 - Number 8 - Museum of Boulder!

Kendall and I had been to the Boulder History Museum when it was housed in the historic Harbeck-Bergheim House. However, the Museum moved to its current location in 2018 and slightly rebranded itself to now be known as the Museum of Boulder. We figured a visit to this new incarnation would most certainly count toward our quest of 70 new adventures in this our 70th years. It proved to be an excellent visit!

A bit of background first: The Boulder Historical Society was founded in 1944 by A.A. ‘Gov’ Paddock, then publisher of the Boulder Daily Camera, to collect, document, preserve and interpret the history of the Boulder area. The Boulder Historical Society was officially organized on October 10th, 1944, when the “Territorial Pioneers” and other interested citizens convened with the intent to establish an organization and a facility to collect, preserve and display the history of the area. Today, the Boulder Historical Society operates as the Museum of Boulder.

On the day of our visit, exhibits included “Voces Vivas: Stories from the Latino Community in Boulder County, Past and Present”, “Boulder Strong: Still Strong, Remembering March 2021” – an exhibit in remembrance of the March 22, 2021 King Soopers mass shooting, and the “Boulder Experience Gallery” which includes displays of everything from Boulder’s origins to entrepreneurs of Boulder’s food industry to Boulder’s athletic endeavors to Boulder scientists and their involvement with a variety of technologies.  Each exhibit unique unto itself - an impressive combination of powerful, moving,  fascinating and enlightening.

Kendall the museologist at the Museum of Boulder

 A few photos from the Voces Vivas exhibit - a very extensive exhibit, teeming with culture and information:

 

The Boulder Strong exhibit is so very moving - with stories from people who were involved with the incident (employees, neighbors, first responders, dispatchers...) and a sampling of the collection of memorial artifacts left along the fence put up around the store after the shooting.

 

The Boulder Experience Gallery is loaded with photos and memorabilia from Boulder's history throughout recorded time. These photos illustrate just wee snippets of the fascinating exhibits in this section of the museum. Naturally the photos I've selected here have to do with food (Boulder seems to be a hotbed of natural food entrepreneurship - I was particularly impressed with the display of the Very First carton produced for Horizon milk), and athletics (Boulder being a mecca of athletic endeavors).

 

 

A dandy visit - so dandy, I am sure we will return!

70 in 70 - Number 7 - Counting Birds!

Kendall and I have become increasingly interested in birds - in part because of the influence of our friends, Mort & Lysa, who are avid birders and in part because we added bird feeders to our back and front yards during the winter of 2020-21 which have become excellent sources of entertainment. Thus when the Great Backyard Bird Count rolled around this year, we did not hesitate to jump on board! 

The eBird folks kindly offered a webinar on how to go about participating in the count - and it turns out that a) it's not limited to your backyard (Yay! We could explore!) and b) a counting period need only be at least 15 minutes in length (Double yay! We could do many mini counts!). 

A little background on the GBBC: it was one of the first online projects to collect information on wild birds (it celebrated its 25th anniversary this year) and was also instrumental in the creation of eBird in 2002. The GBBC creates a 4-day snapshot of bird populations around the world; this year that snapshot took place from February 18-21 and involved 320,000 people posting their sightings from 253 subregions of the world.

Our Vaughan & Miller bird count covered our back & front yards (bird feeder gatherings including house finches and black-capped chickadees in back and downy woodpeckers and hairy woodpeckers in front), Littleton’s Sterne Park (a whole lotta geese & ducks including one hooded merganser), and Boulder’s Bobolink Trail (mostly red-winged blackbirds and black-capped chickadees, one magpie, some Canada geese flying overhead, and two hawks – one red-tail and one too far away to tell).

All in all, a very fine endeavor and a great excuse to get out and about, peer at the sky, scrutinize trees and bushes, and revel in birdsong!

Our backyard feeder

 

Again our backyard feeder - busy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Front yard

 

Cute couple at Sterne Park

 

 

 

Lovely Merganser

 

 

 

Red-tailed Hawk along the trail

One of many Black-Capped Chickadees flitting through the bushes along the trail

 

70 in 70 - Numbers 5 & 6 - An adventure in extinction?

We had grand plans to pursue the 5th and 6th adventures on our list a couple of weeks ago - but big snow in Colorado had other ideas. At least Taz was pleased by the turn of events. He does love a good romp in the snow!

This past weekend, Kendall and I had our chance to get out exploring.

 

First stop (Adventure #5 of the 70 in 70 quest): the Triceratops Trail in Golden, Colorado!

(https://www.cityofgolden.net/play/recreation-attractions/trails/triceratops-trail/) 

This is a short trail with astounding fossil finds: triceratops tracks, small mammals, insects, and - my favorite - beaUtiful fern fossils. Signage and markers along the way describe the formations and help point out the fossils to those who travel the trail.

Kendall & Taz, ready for the trail

"...explore unique fossil tracks and traces from 68 million years ago...
rocks ...from the Late Cretaceous...
This area was a marshy delta with lakes, streams,...swamps & scrubby forests..."

Triceratops track

Fern fossil

Fern fossil

 

Second stop (Adventure #6 of the 70 in 70 quest): Alfred Packer Grave Site, in Littleton, Colorado

It turns out that the Civil War veteran, shoemaker, mountain guide, and the only man in U.S. history convicted of a crime related to cannibalism - Alfred Packer - is buried in the Littleton Cemetery.  We've known of Alfred for quite some time since the University of Colorado has an Alferd Packer Grill (his first name appears with two different spellings throughout written records). Information about CU's Alferd Packer Grill points to this wikipedia entry which has quite a bit of information about Alfred/Alferd:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alferd_Packer. 

In any case, once we found out he was buried and memorialized in a Denver suburb, well, how could we not put it on our list!

So an odd sort of day - extinct beings and a dead cannibal - but interesting bits of history practically in our own backyard. And speaking of backyards - that's the next adventure! Stay tuned!