My newest mission for my time here: to bear witness to the oddities and strangeness that have made Colorado the amazing state that it is. So last fall when I got my coveted library card, and read in a book about a festival centered around a cryogenically frozen man in Nederland outside of Boulder....I waited with gleeful anticipation for March's arrival.
Nederland is what is called by one local, "nedervoid...the closet you can get to the twilight zone." It is a tiny town fifteen miles outside of Boulder, up 3,000 feet of curvy mountain road, and its residents are a fine mix of hippies and miners, and any other eccentric personalities. Crystal, one of my ever faithful travel buddies, found us some floor arrangements up in Fort Collins, and we spent the weekend between Nederland, Boulder, and Fort Collins.
It seemed important to attend the opening ceremonies because I mean, come on, what could they even do during opening ceremonies in a small town centering a festival around a frozen dead guy? Well, not much apparently, but they did make a big show of shutting down the town's only roundabout and having the mayor of Nederland break a bottle of champagne over a fifteen foot carved statue. And then glory of all glory, the Nederland High School Skeletonettes urged us all to move a few feet back, pulled out a battery operated CD player, and regaled us for six minutes of jam packed dance moves that repetitively made me think of zombies walking around....and just as quickly, it was over and we were inside a local art shop trying to regain feeling in our noses and toes from the bitter, biting cold. We skipped the 70's theme dead ball and headed up to Fort Collins to meet up with Crystal's brother and friends for the remainder of the night.
Saturday we were back to see the parade of hearses, many of which were the same from the coffin races I went to in Manitou back in October, but when you stop to think about it, how many hearses can the state of Colorado even have?
There were a ton of people around and it was devastatingly windy, so much so that we had to abandon plans in the later afternoon to walk around.... in addition to being so cold, the wind kicked up dirt and you ended up standing frozen in position waiting for it to subside...no fun!
And while we didn't pay the $30 bucks to take a tour up to the tin shed where Grandpa Bredo is kept on dry ice...we did pop into Dog Video to watch the first documentary made in the 90's. Turns out a lot of my original information was wrong, the real story centers around Bredo's grandson, Trig, who was hoping to open a cryogenics facility in Nederland, but had only begun by shipping his grandfather's body and the body of another man, Al Campbell to this mountain town, before he himself was deported back to Norway. Upon discovery, Campbell was immediately shipped to Chicago for burial, but the fate of Bredo went to court and somehow even though a law was passed prohibiting the storage of bodies in one's home, Grandpa was in effect, "grandfathered" in.
Abandoning plans late afternoon to continue trekking across the small town, we headed in to Boulder and made sure to drive by a few roadsideamerica.com sites... this is the house used in outside shots in the old television show, Mork and Mindy:
And these are fish windows....which would be pretty cool if they weren't full of algae and you could actually see fish through them, but they have a cool sign, in theory are neat themselves, and are along a pathway that runs the length of the creek/river/waterway.
Our last night staying in Fort Collins, we stayed with Crystal's longtime friend Julie and her husband, Sam. Sam and I spent some time playing music and singing together, while Julie and Crystal caught up over dishes....my favorite way to aid in chores! But before we had settled in for the night, I was introduced to the new craze of a frozen yogurt bar! Quite delightful and with a friend managing a new one in the Springs...it may become a regular staple...:o)
Never fear friends, I have joked and prodded people about cryogenics ever since my return from Nederland, "It's all about maintaining the form so when they figure out how to revive function...." but I think for me, the good ole ground will be good enough when the day comes... and the good people of Nederland have quite adopted Grandpa Bredo now, as one man in the documentary put it, "I'm fine with him being up there as long as he doesn't come down here and knock on my door, or bother my dogs." My heart is content.
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