Karmelo Anthony got off easy.
Garden Of The Gods
On the western fringes of Colorado Springs and across US24 from Manitou Springs sits a region of raw sandstone formations. It was dedicated to the city in 1909 by the rancher that owned the property under the provision it remain free to the public. The park is actually on the smallish side with development approaching the park boundaries. Rock-climbing and hiking are popular activities.
Being so close to a substantial city, it receives something in the neighborhood of 2 million visitors per year – it can be crowded at peak season.
Not ones to pass on an opportunity to collect money, the city has attempted to collect a $500 fee from “professional” photographers. It is uncertain what constitutes a “professional” photographer. There have been attempts to get around the “free admission” provision, including putting the park into the National Park system but such attempts have failed.
Definitely worth a visit if in the area; not sure I’d plan a long trip with the park as a destination. Valley of the Gods in Utah near Mexican Hat is in the red rock country and does not have the feeling of being in someone’s back yard.
The Cairn
Once upon a long, long time ago from forever ago until the 1930s, there was a body of water known as Winnemucca Lake not far east of Pyramid Lake in Nevada. The lake was roughly 30 miles north-south and 4 miles east-west. In the hills between Pyramid Lake – which still exists – and Winnemucca Lake – which doesn’t – appear the oldest petroglyphs known in North America, estimated to be more than 10,000 years old.
One can see a road following the western shores of the lake on this 1894 map which is now Nevada Highway 447.
The combination of a dam built in 1903 on the Truckee River to the south (which drains into Pyramid Lake) and construction of a modern highway in the 1930s which closed the run-off between the lakes, what was Winnemucca Lake – a shallow, tule filled breeding ground – is now a dry, barren wasteland; it lost its status as a National Wildlife Refuge in 1962 due to the lack of water.
John Fremont is the first American known to have travelled through the area but the lake is not present on his maps. Originally known as Mud Lake – the water level fluctuated but it was often shallow. The maximum level recorded was 85ft in the 1880s.
[Y’all know my interest in old roads. There’s a road indicated on the 1894 map between the two lakes just to the north of Tohakum Peak passing by the “A” in “Range”. Yet another road I’ll not explore … and there’s no hint of it on modern maps or satellite view.]
I was wandering around the hills along NV447 sometime in the early 80s looking for I don’t recall what when I came upon this cairn. It had been in place long enough that the desert varnish on the cairn appeared as old as that on the surrounding rocks. Many rocks in the area were covered in petroglyphs but apparently those were not “officially” discovered until the 1990s. Wish I knew where my photos of those were … probably in these totes laying around here that I’ll get around to examining “someday”.
So the cairn is old … Did Fremont have that cairn built or is it even older? What did it signify?
A campsite? A trail? A survey point?
The area is on the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation; it appears the tribe has restricted access to these sites in recent years and it’s not likely I’ll ever travel that trail again …
The Fountain Club
Rock Springs, Wyoming is/was the site of large coal deposits, first discovered by Americans in the 1850s. Nothing much was made of it – the pioneer routes were 40 or 50 miles north.
In the 1860s, Ben Holladay set a stage station at a site near potable water springs (“rock springs”) when he moved the Overland Stage Route south; the beginnings of a settlement.
The Union Pacific side of the transcontinental railroad passed through here in 1868, noting the extensive coal deposits as a fuel source. The UP built a coaling depot along with freight and passenger stations here in 1868. Rock Springs became a town.
The original passenger depot was replaced with the current structure in 1900 which saw its last passenger train in 1997. But this isn’t a story about railroads or coal mines.
The Fountain Club saloon would have been behind this building
Down on Main St in old town Rock Springs Wyoming, right across from the railroad station, sits the old Fountain Club saloon. Once a hangout of Butch Cassidy’s along with a variety of people passing through when the train stopped here – among them, Calamity Jane. She didn’t live here but, being a known drunkard with the Fountain Club directly across from the train station; a handy spot for a quick one while the train was readied for its next leg of the journey.
(Butch Cassidy picked up the name “Butch” when he worked at a butcher shop across the tracks on Front St. It’s not inconceivable the Wild Bunch gang had its beginnings at this bar in 1896 after Butch was released from prison (when Butch was 30). The gang occasionally frequented the bar when they were in the area. It’s been said by some, including his sister, that Butch did not die in South America but returned here to his home in Rock Springs.)
[As a personal note, in 1980 I had occasion to meet an elderly woman in Doyle, California when my girlfriend of the time started talking with this woman. Said woman claimed her husband had worked for Butch Cassidy as a stable hand when a boy sometime around 1910-1915 in Nevada and insisted Butch Cassidy did not die in South America.]
But Butch Cassidy is not this tale. There actually isn’t a tale …
The building left of the Fountain Club is the old National Bank building, built 1892. The larger building to the right was also a bank, the First National Bank built in 1887. It has been lost to time when the Fountain Club was built but probably a bit earlier than the banks. The 1892 National Bank building is abandoned now but the company is still in business in Rock Springs. The 1st National Bank underwent corporate and name changes; the company was shut down in 2000. the building is being renovated.
The Fountain Club building’s in sad shape now – perhaps beyond restoration. This was the core of the original town but over the years, much of modern Rock Springs has built to the east of this part of the historic district – which, other than a block or two along Main St, is mostly empty with a few modern commercial buildings. Front St on the other side of the tracks from Main St, has some historic buildings still standing but for the most part, they’ve been “modernized”.
downtown Rock Springs
Fountain Club would be the next building center left out of frame
tall building is First National Bank – still standing
the two small buildings left of bank no longer exist
many of the buildings further “down the street” still exist
Main St is visible along the buildings in the background;
Front St passes along the tracks to the right.
Tunesday: Bloodrock – DOA
A sample of some obscure – and maybe not obscure – tunes from my strange and off-the-wall collection.
Today’s medley selection: Bloodrock – D.O.A. 1970
Bloodrock was a band from the Dallas-Ft Worth region. This – their only charting song – was from their second album “Bloodrock 2“
When the guitar player was 17, he had aspirations to be a pilot. Flying with a friend, they landed, the guitarist got out of the plane to watch his friend take off, get about 200 feet up, then crash and burn. At another time, the keyboard player was casually picking a couple of notes that happened to sound like a European ambulance siren. They put the story together – the result was D.O.A. – the dying of the pilot while being treated after a mid-air collision told in 1st person.
Considered one of the most banned songs of the ’70s, radio stations refused to play it, high schools banned it.
It still hit #36 on the charts of the day.
The lyrics are considered overly-graphic by some …
Roads
Going over many of my photos taken over the years, some “themes” become obvious. One of those is “roads”. Bare trails through dusty sage, bustling multi-lane highways through busy urban centers.
Y’all can probably guess which is predominate in my collection …
This one here splits the difference: I-80 in Nevada.
Now – of more interest to me … if one looks just left of the center, a thin dark trail heads up into the mountains.
I couldn’t estimate the number of times I’d have gotten off the highway to see where that road goes. More often than not, nowhere in particular.
But every so often … when the phase of the moon is right … when I hold my tongue in the proper position … I run into something from places long abandoned of times even longer past.
I breathe easy … and I kind of feel at home.
But this … this wasn’t one of those times; my journey to wherever continued.
Sunday Evening – A Final Thought
It’s not mine to post here but over at “Virtual Mirage“, post titled “The Beat Goes On” about halfway down the Comments section, June 7, 2026 at 5:04 am begins an interesting string based on “Christian” vs “Orthodox Christian”. Agree or disagree, an interesting discussion in any case.
https://www.virtualmirage.org/the-beat-goes-on-2/
Just Another Day In The Neighborhood
A few up-to-the-minute headlines in today’s local news.
So are the alternate routes (US30)
normal is high 80s
wait til hot & dry arrives in a month or so
cats have faster reflexes than a rattler
And that’s today’s big news from the big city …
Erosion
To tell the truth, I don’t recall where I took this photo but I’m going to guess it wasn’t east of the Divide.
The layering caught my eye – eons of sand deposits and run-offs over millions of years in oceans long since turned to dry and dusty lands.
Climate change …
What is Lorem Ipsum?
When attempting to design printed templates – say a book, or presentation, or web page, it is not uncommon for the reviewer to be distracted by the text and overlook the layout itself. Lorem ipsum is used as a placeholder as it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters which looks like readable English but is itself unreadable.
The invention of the moveable-type printing press sometime around 1450 ended the practice of hand-writing books. Up until that time, there were perhaps only a few thousand books in existence in all of Europe. While the first printed book (perhaps) was Gutenberg’s Bible in 1455, there were more than 9,000,000 books in existence by 1500. For the first 100 years, the process of producing books was more or less a free-for-all. After about 1550, the printing process became standardized for the most part.
In the earliest days, many if not most books were printed in Latin, the language of the educated at the time – undeniably the influence of the church of those days.
In order to appeal to customers, printers used a “dummy text” to illustrate different fonts for books. As Latin was the language of the day, the dummy text used was a fragment of Latin prose. This practice died away as printing became standardized and printing languages shifted from Latin to local dialects.
Time passes …
In the 1960s, an advertising company used Lorem ipsum as filler text for advertising blanks. This allowed typesetters to be able to produce mock-ups quickly by simply replacing the text on pre-formatted copy.
About 1980, when PageMaker software was developed for desktop publishing, Lorem ipsum was used as a placeholder for developing page layout. Microsoft Word adopted the practice and now its use has become wide-spread.
Thought to be random Latin words, an America professor of Latin in 1982 traced the text to a 45BC work by Cicero: De finibus bonorum et malorum (“On the Ends of Good and Evil”). Lorem ipsum is a corrupted version of Cicero’s treatise.
Written in 45BC by Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum is a philosophical work consisting of five books in which he explores competing theories of ethics, a popular topic during the renaissance. Lorem Ipsum is derived from Book 1 in which Cicero presents the Epicurean philosophy that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain are the highest goods.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
“Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure? But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system. On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue.”
There’s more – much more … five books worth.
The books are available on-line (isn’t everything?) at https://www.loc.gov/item/unk82083889/