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16th May, 2009 Grand Junction
Today I need to start with a History lesson, In 1945 Lloyd Olsen, a farmer in Fruita was slaughtering a chicken (named Mike) when his axe slipped and he didn't kill the chicken, it was headless but had its brain stem, a jugular vein and one ear intact. The farmer kept it alive by feeding it mash and water through a syringe - it was a "miracle", and he toured the country making enough money to pay off his farm, buy new equipment etc, anyway Mike died after about a year, and today they have a celebration in Fruita "Mike the Headless chicken" - we went.
The web site gets about 40,000 hits a month, and here it is - www.miketheheadlesschicken.org
Fantastic car show, egg throwing, headless chicken races, blind folded lawnmower races and stalls where you can buy anything to do with headless chickens - T shirts, hats, chicken meals and so on. It was great but a bit sad for old "Mike".
After that we went to the Dinasaur Museum at Fruita, amazing, they were big sods, Colorado is an area where numerous Dinasaur skeletons and bones have been found, there are still
plenty of digs out there and they are recovering more each year. You will see the size in the photo's.
And then on into the Colorado National Monument park, another National Park and more rocks, you climb up the side of the mountain and there are some fantastic views over the valleys below, lots of walking tracks etc.
Late lunch at "I HOP" (International House of Pancakes) great food and pretty reasonable except for my milkshake ($8.00 NZ), and they were busy, 198 seat restaurant and constantly turning the seats over.
By the way The Americans have a lot of respect for us older people, when you reach the age of 55 you get all sorts of discounts, 10% at the Museum, seniors meal prices at restaurants - T Shirts that say "Old People Rule" - Sam keeps threatening to buy me one
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