All Entries Tagged With: "Rockies"
Ruins Are Ancient Racquetball Court
(Delta – Noah’s Archeology – November 25, 2015)
After almost hours of research, archeologists and people in sunbonnets at the University of Downtown Delta have determined that unearthed ruins here are a remote wing of Fort Uncompahgre and not those of a Stone Age civilization.
The tunnels and halls, stumbled upon only last year during a cleanup exercise, stretch some 900 feet in all directions and housed a rather lavish athletic complex designed by none other than Antoine Roubideau, Western Colorado’s first trapper/merchant.
Known all along the Old Spanish Trail as a fur trapper who liked to stay in shape, Roubideau built Fort Uncompahgre in 1828 sans amenities like a lap pool and climbing wall. Those came later. During the first year it was quite enough to fight off Indians, cure meats for the winter and solidify the weight room and sweat lodge. The next summer saw a further expansion that included mud baths and a full-time masseuse.
The racquetball court was constructed of discarded lumber then next fall.
It all came crashing down when local Utes, who had been secretly working out deep in the forest, attacked the fort and killed everyone twice. It is surmised that they carried off what was then state-of-the-art exercise equipment. To this day only a few free weights have been recovered.
During the world wars Fort Uncompahgre was part of an elaborate defense network and then used to house livestock. More recently it has been refurbished and is drawing many visitors keen on touring Roubideau’s racquetball court.
Dr. Ardmore Diggins, Head of the Tail and Posterior Department at UDD says the startling discovery of the massive workout arena is only the tip of the iceberg.
“If we simply dig up the surrounding mesas and river bottoms there’s no telling what we’ll find,” he offered. “Why just last week we happened upon a rusty ankle weight like the kind worn by Father Silvestre Escalante while he searched for an overland route from Santa Fe to Monterey in 1776.
“He liked to pump iron too,” said Diggins.
Diggins, a magnificent ruin in his own right, has been instrumental in exhuming Forts Crawford, Monroe, Hepburn and Garbo in the Uncompahgre Valley. He is recognized as the first white man to prune the Ute Council Tree (circa 1969).
His doctoral thesis, stored on small rolls in each of the fort’s privies, presents evidence that aliens built the forts and taught primitive man to trap beaver and shell pistachios. He operates the nation’s largest ringworm farm is an avid collector of old bottles.
– Dinty Moore
Roscoe wins dog contest
(Gunnison — Old Dogs New Tricks — December 14, 2015)
A charming Golden Retriever/Lab mix has won First Prize in the Grand Championship Dog Challenge for 2015. Edging out some 2000 other entries, Roscoe came out ahead in the performance bracket and in overall points. What is particularly interesting about the competition is that it was concocted, streamlined and managed strictly by dogs.
People have no clue as to the ramifications and minutiae of Dog Challenge but the five-day trials and finals drew some 5000 human onlookers. The impact on the local economy was noticeable especially in a shoulder season between Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays.
“Despite the fact that most dogs don’t have shoulders as such they were reportedly happy to “keep the town in kibble”,” said a local veterinarian who demanded anonymity. “We call them “man’s best friend” but the relationship is severely one-sided. We know so little about why they do things, how they see us, and even their basic thought processes.”
The source went on to say that we understand canine priorities all right but we don’t comprehend what might be sophisticated motivations for certain acts such as cleaning out the litter box, sniffing posteriors and drinking from the toilet.
“Dogs run this competition from start to finish,” said the vet. We don’t know any more than that. The upshots, the essentials, the consequences escape us like a whirling ball of busy border collie fur or the lazy drool of a red-eyed St. Bernard. Some of the finer points as to what constitutes a winning performance here shall linger in the domain of dogs, and they aren’t talking,” she smiled.
-Dag Katz
Doing lunch with the best company
Today I had tea in Uruguay
With a big orange cat,
and it turned into more
under a green acacia tree.
Matching whiskers I turned to the Tom and said:
Maybe there are enough mice for you
(at least for now)
But never enough for me!
Then we sat and watched birds land
and take off like windy weeds
from a crooked fence.
They test the currents and buzz the ocean,
still in their winged pajamas,
even though it was well past noon.
Erotic Rock Art Show Slated for January
(Montrose, CO — Hands of Stone Gazette — January 5, 2016)
Jack up your dormant January libido at the first ever Uncompahgre Erotic Rock Art Show to be held at the Dalton Trumbo Park here from January 22 – 31. Over 4000 specimens of naughty rocks and bawdy rock formations in all shapes and sizes will be part of the display.
Joining these lascivious pebbles and stone monstrosities will be a rare conglomeration of minerals and gases, studied intensely by geologists, and thought somehow related to the evolution of the earth.
Rock has been defined as the solid material forming part of the surface of our planet. It is usually exposed or found underlying the soil or the oceans. It is used for everything from patios to fireplaces. People employ rock as weight, filler and projectiles.
All of the boulders at the show are from the Rockies while some of the more evasive minerals have been collected from all over the world. Just what constitutes an erotic rock will be the work of a select jury of earth scientists, experts on earth’s physical structure and substance.
“Sure, anyone can identify the phallic and the sensual rocks and stones,” said one organizer of the event. “What takes the real skill, the academic separation is to see eroticism in a flat rock or a chunk that has fallen from its mother mountain. We are fortunate that we have plenty of resources right here in the Rockies. You won’t see a display of this magnitude in a place like Kansas.”
Concrete, dirt, petrified wood, compacted ash or asphalt will be considered according to the source.
“We’re looking for creative erotic art,” continued the organizer. “What looks lewd or salacious to one person may not appear that way to another. These pieces of the earth come in all shapes and sizes just like people. Preferences and carnal qualifications are often intangible even though these specimens represent down to earth stability and the foundation for all that follows.”
The show is free but an occasional booth or two may be off limits to minors.
– Rocky Flats
Still No Irish in Hell Says Cromwell
(Dublin, Ireland — Blue Eyes in the Caribbean — January 5, 2016)
The late Oliver Cromwell, a man who, in the 1600s, attempted to save the Irish peasantry from Papist domination by killing them, has confirmed that there are as yet no Irishmen in hell. The British Isle population down there, says the former Puritan despot, is made up entirely of English patricians from the middle to late 17th Century.
“It appears that we made such a successful go of things in Ireland back in 1649 that our pal Lucifer is still running short of bunk beds,” he said.
Cromwell “the Cruel” made sport of tormenting the inhabitants of Ireland, killing thousands that opposed him and sending many more Irish children into slavery in the British Caribbean colonies, before dying of communist syphilitic warts in 1658.
His roommate in hell, the former Pope Adrian (Hadrian IV) aka Nicholas Breakspeare, has the distinction of being the only Englishman to become Pontiff. Breakspeare is credited with naming Henry II of England as sovereign ruler of Ireland in 1155 and opening the door to British exploitation that lasted through 1922.
It was not clear where deceased Irishmen, who may not have made it to Fiddler’s Green (Paradise) reside these days. But they are not in hell with the Puritans according to Cromwell. The Irish, after suffering 800 years as England’s first colony appear to have greed themselves and taken flight.
“Not all of the Puritans are down here yet either,” he stressed. “Many are still among the living practicing a modern form of intolerance and control with the same old twisted warnings of evil and salvation. They feed off fear and maintain their power base with the freedoms they steal from others…even in the United States,” he smiled.
– Eamon O’Murgatroid
