A bromide about Chloride, New Mexico

A gal can only sit around on Main Street so long before she has to go seek adventure elsewhere.

Now and then someone writes a blog post about Chloride and the Pioneer Museum. If you've never been to the museum, you're thinking Muse-Ho-Hum. If you've been, you know those other people are wrong.

I'm not a museum cheerleader, but this is unique. So, let me RAH! RAH! tell you a teensy bit in an enthusiastic way.

[If you've heard this before, please adjust your volume. I'll alert you to the new stuff.]

Donna Edmunds, restorer and curator.

 When Don and Donna found Chloride, they were looking for a campsite and got lost. They thought they had stumbled into an old movie set. Donna said "This is where we need to retire."

The safe weighs 6000 pounds. I guess it's SAFE where it is.

Bats and rats had lived and pooed inside for 70 years. That's a lot of composting. They started their project with shovels.

Ninety percent of what's on display was under the poop. The rest came from other buildings in Chloride.

The previous owners closed up and left everything where it sat. Which is where Don and Donna found it, and set to restoring the building and its contents.

If you had saved a historic place from poop, you would be proud, too. They have made this into a place worth coming to see. You can imagine that they're sensitive about sham-poo in their museum; please use the pit toilets in the rest area.

 There is no set fee for viewing the museum, although you are free to leave a donation. Think about all that guano they shoveled. The longer you think, the more money you'll want to leave in the box. That's long enough! You'll want to save some cash for lunch. TURN YOUR SPEAKERS BACK ON.

 Donna and her daughter, Linda, encouraged me to have dinner at Chloride Bank Café. If you insist!

I browsed their menu and saw something appetizing that could be easily veganized. Yay food! I ordered a quesadilla without the queso. She offered to sub beans. Yay beans! Not only did she know what "vegan" means, she IS one! She and her husband have been vegan for twelve years. Yay vegans!

You can have whatever you're craving, though, because they offer meat and cheese and eggs. It's a full-service place, and breakfast is served all day. You won't need a lot of money to eat there, but you will need cash.

The gallery and gift shop features local artists' works. There is a beautiful quilt there that I stared at until we were all uncomfortable.

Disapproving Horse can eat and disapprove simultaneously.

My GPS requested that I turn left.

 REQUEST DENIED, GPS! Find a different shortcut.

Linda at the Winston General Store was very friendly and suggested two primitive campsites I might enjoy. The store offers some groceries, hot coffee, jewelry, belts, things in camo colors, and cute, gifty items. And showers.

Paula found her inspiration in my interview with Percy:

A tumbling bird from Nantucket
A pigeon with really bad luck-It
flew down from the sky
with a shriek and a cry
Landed butt over beak in a bucket


Sherry from In the Direction of Our Dreams is making matches for Spud. Look who she found:

He has honorable inTENTions.

Think about all the guano I shovel. Put on your boots and click. 

Hello, cowboy.

Ever alert, especially while napping, I knew the yipees and ki-yays were coming from outside my head.

I changed immediately, out of my afternoon pajamas into my afternoon pants, to investigate. These caballeros de caballos, these señors de vaca, they are stuffed with lore.

I detected cowboy sign:

He rode off before the sunset. Unorthodox.

Annie has been confined to the barn for several days because of her bad back. I waited on her hoof and mouth for a few minutes, then I went out.

Ancient Pueblo irrigation canal.

The nation that lived in this area about a thousand years ago is commonly called Sinagua ("without water"), but that seems wrong. Lookit the water!

Montezuma's Well

Montezuma's Well from space.

Pueblo

Benchmark. Modern artifact.

My friend, Rob of Look Out, It's Evil!, introduced me to Krazy Kat once we got here. I've been reading the strips and I'm beginning to talk funny, Jinja Snep!