Holy Peter, Paul and Mary - I had better fit one last entry into the Operation Decompression archives before twenty-twelve slips a roofy into my tonic water and wipes out my twenty-eleven memories.
Quick refresher: I took a soul searching adventure from Chicago to Des Moines to Omaha to Denver to Cheyenne and back - successfully found my soul, my sobriety, my mind, my marriage and my love for two-lane highways.
In my last post I left off with a visit to the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, CO with my old pal Cousin Brian.
After feeding our eyeballs with the Garden of the Gods we were off to the Shrine of the Miracle Rose Lady. This dim bulb was perched atop an eroded gravel driveway at the corner of 36th Street and Pikes Peak Avenue.
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| The first thing you spot is a sign warning visitors of alarms and guard dogs. There were no attack dogs or sounding alarms, just creepy overgrown shrubs and broken lights that once illuminated a sculpture garden. |
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| One of several stately marble sculptures from the booming days of the late 1960s when the Shrine was a popular Catholic pilgrimage destination. |
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| A folk art painting of Rose Averson dominates the ramshackle enclosure that houses the shrine, bundles of artificial roses and piles of paper containing correspondence to the miracle maker. |
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| Faux marble painted onto rotting plywood sets the tone of this odd and neglected space. In 1963 Rose posthumously brought life to six roses atop her casket. Her daughters built the shrine to spread the word of said roses' ability to cure sickness. Oddly enough the shrine only housed the filthiest of artificial roses. |
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| All marble statues aside, this primitive sad sack was the best part of the shrine. Nothing better than a weathered anthropomorphic mass fashioned from cheap cement and exposed rebar. |
The shop itself housed resin reproductions of Garman's little people (not midgets) for exorbitant prices. Attention to detail was the best part of the displays, perfect scaled down radios, filthy street trash, a dirty bird bartender grabbing his crotch, high riding Daisy Dukes on a 1950's sexpot.
After snapping photos of the "gift shop" displays for Magic Town we went to enter the exhibit itself and were greeted by a sign demanding a $7 fee for admittance and complimentary popcorn. I reminded Cousin Brian of my rule of not paying to see any of the attractions on Operation Decompression. As we exited the shop to grab some coffee at the delightful java spot next door I spotted a lard ass on a couch, positioned in front of a continuous loop of a documentary featuring Garman, with a jumbo sack of popcorn. That fat bastard was eating $7 worth of popcorn to make his tour worth it.
I made an effort to strike small talk with the purveyors of coffee houses, diners and shops along my routes. More often than not it ended in amazing tips on local oddities, but this stop at Jive Cafe produced a doozy of a lead. I am quite certain that the barista took a shining to me after telling of my Operation Decompression adventures and disbelief in discovering a Magic Town admission fee. She said, "I can take you in back." My mind went right to its dirty place. I asked, "Take me in back?" She motioned to a hallway leading to the bathrooms, "The back entrance to the museum is just pass the bathrooms."
The hallway was sure as shit a Bat-Cave entrance to Magic Town.
We slid around the red rope and into the world of magic town. It was really wonderful, but not $7 wonderful. Again the attention to detail was more than one could hope for in one-sixth scale replicas of life in a world of yesteryear.
Amazing coffee drinks were had on our way back through along with a game of over sized checkers. Upon further research of the rules of checkers it is quite evident that Cousin Brian cheated his way through several king me's and wins.
If my lazy Jimmy Dean sausage fingers can make their way to a keyboard I plan on completing my Colorado leg this week. Until then, may your new year be filled with fond memories, adventures and naked one-sixth scale ladies.
