Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th February
Owing to the aching of the left knee, I did not go out on Saturday - in fact, I had a very lazy day and did absolutely nothing apart from reading an e-book. Paul was able to go without me and ski to his heart's content.
On Sunday, Paul decided it was time that he too had a rest day, so we decided to go for a walk. It was a lovely sunny day as you can see, and I understand the slopes were very crowded indeed.
This is the view from just outside our front door - we are on the first floor of the building, and it is at the top of a hill. This is the building itself, from the road outside.
It is not a historic building. There are some other attractive buildings nearby.
We went to see a local museum, the Edwin Carter Museum.
This is the back, it is much more attractive from the front.
Edwin Carter came originally from the eastern US, and did many different things, including mining. In the 1870s he became concerned about the impact of mining on the local wildlife and the environment, and he began to devote his life to collecting and documenting the Rocky Mountain wildlife. In 1875, he built this log cabin as his home and workshop. The workshop was for taxidermy - he shot and stuffed the local wildlife, so that the memory of the type of animals that had existed in the mountains would not be totally lost. A great many people came to see his stuffed animals during his lifetime, and his cabin became very crowded. His specimens apparently played a significant role in the development of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, and most of his collection is there. Some is still in the log cabin though.
The museum is most interesting, with lots of interactive things to do, like a form of a deer with a deer skin you can try stretching over it, to see how difficult it would be to do. There are also lots of reminders of the way things were in the 19th century.
This is a photo of the man himself with some of the skins, but I took the photo to show the wall. These are the original 1875 logs, and apparently he was a good carpenter, so the place was weather proof. It was only more recently, when the logs had shrunk a bit, that it became necessary to put in the chinking between them to keep out the draughts.
I couldn't resist this bear, though we were told it wasn't Edwin Carter who shot or stuffed it.
The little animal in the front is a fox.
There are other museums in the town, so we will have a look at them on another occasion.
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