North of 21st Avenue, west of Gay, south of highway 66, east of Francis

I parked my bike in the Calvary Church parking lot. As I was locking it up, I heard a deep rhythmic sound  and couldn’t figure out what it was.  Then finally saw across the street, at Carr Park, somebody was working out on a punching bag set up in the park shelter building, at about 8:45 on a Sunday morning.  A pretty dedicated pugilist!

St. Patrick’s Day today.  So I thought I would see quite a few flags, banners or other indications of the day.  But surprisingly, the only three I saw were all on two blocks of Grant Street, toward the end of my walk.  And one of those was some lawn leprechauns that I think may be permanent.

But I’ll toss in the John Deere tractor mailbox, just for the green-ness.  And for my brother Randy, who I’ve heard is the best darn John Deere mechanic in south-central Nebraska!!  (and also the 3rd best nil protector west of the Mississippi!!?!  (that’s an inside joke about our all-night spades card games we play when we get together)).

Just a note: the John Deere mailbox and the lighthouse belong to the same house.  You can barely see the lighthouse in the background of the mailbox photo.

 

I had never noticed before that the Boulder County Sheriff car had ‘Serving since 1861’.  Do they all say that?  The ‘1861’ is slightly smaller print than the ‘Serving since’, which made me wonder.  That’s 15 years before Colorado became a state.  I’m sure the Sheriff’s office has changed a bit during those 152 years!!?!

I thought the 5 little chairs in the front yard were cute… maybe one for each of the grand-kids?  I zoomed in to read the names, and from left to right, they are labeled  Gage, Jessica, Daniel, Danica, and (I think) Andrew.

There was a reason I chose this area to walk today.  My dad had recommended a book to me, “Six-Horse Hitch”, by Janice Holt Giles.  I enjoyed it very much, as it takes places in the 1860’s  ( I just realized that’s a reference to the Sheriff’s Dept. car above??!?  synchronicity?), and is a historical novel about a stage driver largely taking place between Fort Kearny, Nebraska, which is just a few miles from where I grew up, and Denver, obviously near where I  live now.

Except for some of the main characters, the rest of the people in the novel were real people — passing mentions of a young Buffalo Bill, the Bent family, various Denver dignitaries, Jack Slade, Jules Beni of Julesberg fame, Ceran St. Vrain, etc.   Quite enjoyable for me, both as a history, and an interesting story line that stood on it’s own as well.  The only weak point in the book is that it would have been nice if it had a glossary or map in the back to pinpoint where the stage lines and locations where located.  It used place names of the time, most of which have apparently changed.  For example, it mentions Latham several times, and off-handedly mentions later in the book that Latham later was renamed to Greeley, Colorado.

Janice Holt Giles book list

 

 

So why did I choose to walk this area today.  Because toward the end of the Six-Horse Hitch book, it talks about  Col. John Chivington and his involvement in the infamous Sand Creek massacre.  Until 2005, there was a Chivington Street in this sub-division.   The city agreed to change the name of it so as to not honor the instigator of this attack.  The John Chivington link below actually mentioned this name change.

I understand that residents could submit suggestions for  renaming the street, and that one of my wife Jennifer’s patients had the winning submission:  Sunrise Drive.  (some people weren’t so happy with the change… it’s quite a headache having to change one’s address even though you haven’t moved!)

 

Sand Creek massacre

John Chivington

 

 

One last thing before I close for today… another Ft. Kearny reference.  As I said, I grew up near there, and my sister worked for several summers as a tour guide there.    So, about ten years ago, when I read “Around the World in 80 Days”, the very well-known novel by Jules Verne, I was quite surprised to see it had part of the action taking place at Fort Kearny!   My sister did not know that, so I assume it was not part of the common ‘tour information’ there, and I was also surprised none of my English or history teachers at Minden (about ten miles away) ever mentioned it.

The following article mentions the Jules Verne reference.  Don’t be thrown by the picture show in the article… there actually is a fort still standing there.  I don’t know why the wikipedia article just shows an open field.

Ft. Kearny wikipedia

 

In the last hour of today’s walk, I decided to add something new… I’m now going to see how many different state license plates I can photograph during the year’s walks.  I’ve got three easy ones today… Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona.  I will add this as a ‘digression’ blog.

 

Total for today:  12,740 steps, 2:28 time, plus biking there and back.

three new license plates — Colorado, Wyoming, and Arizona