Exploring Fairplay's Historical Museum and Burro Days

Martha and I drove over to Fairplay to check out its museum with particular emphasis on the Burro Days event happening this weekend.

Most of the events, such as the International Burro Race (who knew there was such a thing?) happen  Saturday/Sunday but we won't be attending those.  

This exploration was something to do under heavily overcast skies and cool conditions.

As usual, the pics I share are things that caught my eye.  The museum is quite large, encompassing over 40 buildings, some original to the town, some moved here from nearby towns.  The buildings reflect the services provided by mining towns of the day.

The fee was $12/person but it was worth it to us, as the offerings were well curated and appropriately marked.

At the bar at Rache's Place

The Burro Room, was dedicated to photos and paraphenalia related to the Burros used to haul cargo around back in the day:

In case you ever wondered how they got the

lumber up the mountains to build the shacks

The Burro in the middle seems unhappy

Here's a link to info on the Burro Races: LINK

The main race is to run up to the top of Mosquito Pass and back.  The Burro with a standard miner equipment load and the human running alongside.

The train station:

We checked out the inside of this caboose:

On a different part of the transportation spectrum, there was the Stage Coach Stop and it's accommodations for travelers:

The one room schoolhouse.  It looked to me the kid below was fleeing from the wrath of the ruler-wielding teacher.

At the Ranger Station, the sole moto content for this post:

The most fully stocked drugstore with offerings from back in the day:

We posed in front of the Soda Fountain, not from the pioneer days of course but latter days:

You can glimpse some of the buildings which are part of the museum behind the gate:

While wandering through the souvenir/art stores lining the tourist trap portion of town, we saw this sign:

A Homage to Prunes

Fairplay's Beach

Nearby the above picture, there was a wooden gazebo with flower displays: Below are variations of the Columbine, Colorado's state flower.

And, in case you ever wondered what WTF means:

Sadly, the Burro Days display advertised to be near the courthouse wasn't even set up yet.  The event is billed for three days but really, it's only Saturday/Sunday.  We saw that all the vendors were still setting up tents and such while we were there.

Back at camp, we just rested in the VRRV: