Talkies

Since I first saw Ken Burns first major treatment of history, "The Civil War", I really liked that sort of presentation. The old photos, with someone explaining the history, sort of like an old primitive movie. Only it isn't Chaplain, or some 3 Stooges type thing, it's interesting.

So, while looking for the explanation of a mining term, I came across a very cool website. They have some really nice "movies", which I really liked. The website is: http://www.heritageaspen.org/ahs_home.html
and it's about Aspin, Colorado. When watching the mining movies, say to yourself copper, and northern Michigan, the lake Superior shore region, is really similar. The mineral they were after was copper, and it's similar right down to hiring divers to come and try to pump the mines out after they were allowed to fill with water during a strike, which is what killed the industry. My Finnish ancestors were copper miners when they hit the US around 1900 and didn't speak much English.

My personal travels have included Colorado, but only the flat part. There is a highway from Denver to Cheyenne, and from that interstate you can see the mountains, but the area you are in is pretty flat. It smells like cow manure when the wind is right, they have a lot of feed lots in the area, and produce a lot of the steaks we have in the grocery store here in the midwest. The locals claim they don't smell it, I suppose..... It's a pretty area, expanses of green prairie as far as the eye can see to all directions except west, and to the west the mountains rise like a wall out of the prairie. If you've never been to Boulder, it's at the bottom of the mountain, about 20-30 minutes north of Denver. From Boulder you don't look west at the mountain, so much as you look up, like straight up. I guess it's cool. People sometimes compare it to Madison, I don't think so..... We don't have the rich people from Orange County driving up the price of homes here that they are rumored to have there.