The Ziggurat rises upward toward the heavens – a yellow cylinder on a blue base. Not all that far away, the Sangre de Cristo mountains are an unbelievable movie backdrop; nearly fake looking. I walk up the ramp not sure if I’m supposed to do something as I go. At the top, I stand to admire the view. Flies buzz as if something dead has attracted them. But I don’t see what’s called their attention. It’s not me. They were here before I was. With them keeping me unwelcome company, I take some pictures and head back down. I walk around the structure and wonder who built it, why, and what was the reason for painting it yellow?
I first learned about Ziggurats in college in an Art History class. The dwelling places of the gods built by those who honored and glorified them. I liked the idea of the tiered levels, like stairsteps up for humans and down for the deities. Of gods coming down to dwell near humans.
I’ve driven nearly four hours to get here and I’ve done the site like a thing to cross off a list. Is that all it is for me? Not really, but still, I wonder what I should do to make it worth it. Ah, the destination is the point. I’m content. I’m here. Even so, I walk up the ramp a second time, stand at the top again with the multitude of flies, and feel the beauty of the mountains and the blue sky. Of those clouds. Not knowing what I’m supposed to feel, I feel nothing but the contentment of being in a beautiful place and doing something interesting (at least to me). After a few moments, I leave the Ziggurat to the flies and head back down the trail. As I make my way, I see the thin shimmer of something like mother-of-pearl. I lean over to see what it is. A snake skin. Eyeholes empty, skin abandoned. I take my pictures and leave things as I find them. Leaving behind only my tracks in the shifting dirt-sand.
Fortunately, for the sake of the gas and time, not far from where the Ziggurat is and I am is the UFO Watchtower. Another place I’d put on my list of things to maybe go see.
It’s absolutely worth it.
A rounded dome, a metal watchtower, and what looks like items for a yard sale stand on a flat piece of sandy land. Inside the dome which is a little info hut and giftshop, I ask the lady if the place is hers.
“It is,” she says.
In rounded words I also ask what made her decide to build this place. I really want to know if she’s an alien believer.
She says she’d moved out here to ranch cattle and the locals had mentioned time and again the UFOs they’d seen. “Someone ought to build a watchtower,” she’d joked. In the time that passed, she’d given the cattle business her best. “But cows can’t eat sand,” she tells me. So she sold them and while she was trying to figure out what to do next a friend told her that she should be the one to build the UFO Watchtower. “So, I did. I’ve had fun with it. Still am.”
“Fun is the best way to do life,” I say.
Out of the dome, I go up the metal steps, past the sign that warns me to get off the tower immediately if a thunderstorm rolls in, and up to the viewing platform. I don’t stand up there much longer than I did at the top of the Ziggurat. I do not see a single UFO.u
I feel nothing really.
I’d felt more the day before when I’d driven out to Arvada for the sole purpose of seeing the Cold War Horse statue. Felt the absurdity of the Mine-is-Bigger, Talk-Big-and-Carry-the-Biggest-Stick mentality of the United States and Russia that drove the nuclear tests and the finger-on-the-button horror of the Cold War.
When I’d stumbled across a blog about the Horse, I knew I had to go see it. Even if it was a two-plus hour drive away. There’s something about seeing something with my own eyes. The notching of a thing on my own belt. The adding to my Cold War knowledge.
The day I go, I’m tired and aggravated by the construction and the traffic, but eventually I’m there, and, thankfully, Arvada is a calmer place than Denver and its highways. I pass a lake with walking trails and think that that will be my extra reward for coming out here. I can walk off my aggravation and stiffness before getting on the opposite side of the highway and fighting the construction and traffic going back. It’s not time for that yet, so I keep on going down the two-lane highway until I finally see the horse shaped red image and pull over. I am glad to have come. There it is. The Cold War Horse.
It is worth seeing a thing in person.
The red of the radiation suit, gas mask and all, stands out; the Cold War Horse in all its prophylactic glory.
This area was the former site of the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant where plutonium triggers for nearly all the United State’s nuclear weapons were produced. Plutonium is, of course, highly radioactive and the factory was guilty of many, many accidents and bad safety practices (think, horribly horribly unsafe and disastrous accidents and terrible safety practices).
Over the course of its existence, the plant leaked toxic and radioactive material into the ground, water supply, and air.
It was so bad, in fact, that in 1989, the FBI and the EPA (a never before joining up of agencies) teamed up to raid the factory and then shut it down.
As I stand and take my pictures from all sides of the Horse inside it’s fenced-off cage, I glance at the gravel under my feet and wonder if the ground is still radioactive. If the water of the nearby lake is still irradiated. Does it affect the fish, the ducks? How does it affect me right now? I’m only going to walk beside it, not jump in. I’m not going to fish it. But still.
Thinking about all
this, I finish staring at the Horse and then go take my walk alongside the
lake. I wander long enough to stretch my legs and appreciate the views. Then I
get back in the car and head back to the Springs.
As I drive from place to place, I pile up my experiences and try to make them fit together. Looking it up later, I find out that the Ziggurat was commissioned by an American businessman and celebrated aviator who was also the 2nd administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration. He purchased the land in 1978 and had the place built as a private place for prayer and meditation. Did he believe the gods would come down and dwell there? Not likely. Not how it was structured. Unless the flies are gods come to earth. That could explain their presence there.
Gods as flies. UFOs as a humankind’s redemption or their destruction.
From gods to UFOs to humankind and their Cold War mistakes. This place to this place to that place. The three places aren’t really related except that I visited them all. However, since meaning is what we attach to the events in our lives to make story, I can use my trips to reflect on the strangeness of the human experience, the beauty of nature, and as a way to have adventures.
