I came as a young man, refugee from the plains.

Looking for higher ground.

The sun shines through the rain.

You're the mountain folks & old cow folks.

who found peace of mind I guess loving Mother nature makes you naturally kind.

Colorado, everywhere you go I'm in your shadow.

You're calling to me.

Colorado, The sun's melting snow.

Making the river flow to the sea.

Life is the game that must be played.

It's fun to come to Durango and come to Colorado.

And, this is a classic, and I hope I will beat the train.

Probably not, but I'm going to come back down.

I don't know, I'm gonna try.

25 years ago, there's a young fellow named Tom Mayer that was a bike rider, and his brother was an engineer on the train.

So, Tom with challenges, brother to race to Silverton as Tom finally got old enough to beat his brother.

It's kind of a big deal.

And since then, it's grown into one of the largest bike races in the United States.

As well as one of the oldest.

We'll have 2000 competitors this year, and, most of them will beat the train.

But the trainll beat some.

Durango to Silverton is real prestigious race to win.

It's one of the I think one of the most, difficult and, spectacular races of the whole year.

This is my first race.

And, I figured, may as well make it a hard one.

It's just beautiful here.

People are nicer.

Can you talk to you.

They wave back.

I'm thinking of moving here.

Second time.

Good challenge, scenery but youre gonna hurt I think it's beautiful.

The hills just keep going and going and going.

I mean, there's something about being on top of those mountains that, You can't compare it to anything.

So the mountains are beautiful.

You ride hard, and nothing could be better than being on top.

Coming down.

Yabba Dabba Doo For every uphill, you got the downhill, which is pretty sweet coming down.

So it makes it a little interesting, Plus the scenery is pretty nice There's 2000 bike riders here for the weekend, and, the spirit is just amazing.

You get caught up in all that and you want to continue to do it.

Because I'm a little bit crazy because my friends are doing it and it's beautiful up on top.

I've never lived up in the mountains.

And every day I get up and I just look around and it's just like, man, this is.

This is sweet.

Wonderful experience.

You really feel good.

It's just a whole different world.

And it's really unbeatable.

I'm going to stay here for as long as I can.

Who dares, wins.

You always have to be in it.

You cannot give up.

It's definitely a pull.

It's a it's a tough run.

It's uphill race all the way.

It's probably the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, you know, strap myself to a burro & just go all out.

This is the fair play burro race.

And this year is the first time that the women have run, are going to run the same course as the men, which is a distance of 30 approximately 30 miles.

The mountain in the background just to the left of that, that's Mosquita Pass.

And so that's the point where we go up.

we'll be at elevation of approximately 13,300ft, I believe something like that.

So we're down here at 10,000.

So we've got quite a bit of elevation gain.

But the way I look at it, if we can get up to the top of the pass and run 30 miles and back, I crawl the last two blocks.

We're out here to win this one for my Dad.

This is his lamp right here.

It's, a good luck charm.

He was hurt in a mining accident So he had to retire.

And this is my tribute to him for, you know, 20 years he put in for his family.

This is my tribute.

They take off out of town, and it's just all out.

It's a whole different thing when running by yourself because you run so much faster with the burro.

He's definitely fast.

So that's one thing.

I've run some other burros and you know, I'm just not bragging or anything, but I can run fairly quickly and I've run with some other burros that can't run that quickly, and Maynard can run as fast as I can usually if he wants to.

Well, you got to have a pickax, a gold pan and a shovel.

The gold pan on this one's in the saddle bag.

Some people take a metal pan and strap it to the top so they can bang it with their lead rope and make a little noise.

You have a lead rope, and it has to be less than 15ft.

So you can never ride your animal.

You have to run or walk with it.

And 33 pound load.

Every pack has to be 33 pounds to be official.

Let's go.

This is just real indigenous, this sport because burros of course, that's how the miners got up to their mining claims.

They threw their saddle and their pick in their pan on the burro, and they ran up the mountain and stake their claim.

So this just kind of revives the the legendary mining days and what better place?

I mean, these mountains in Colorado, beautiful.

Well, it gets you up in the mountains and away from everybody else.

And, just a companionship of having having a workout partner.

It's just not you out there.

And it's that partner that, you know, determines how well you do in the race.

Some days I'll go out and run 10 or 15 miles with Sailor.

But it's not always just going out and doing the distance.

It's rapport with the burro.

As far as, just short little runs to, make sure he's listening to you.

He knows what you want.

You get up there.

Once you let up, he'll let up, and that'll be it.

And that's the big thing.

You cannot give up.

Yeah.

It takes so much focus.

It's the challenge because it's not only you out there running with your legs.

Your arms are doing a lot of work.

You're doing a lot of vocal commands to the burro because they're they're pack animals and they respond to certain stimuli and certain type of commands.

And if you get it right and if you practice enough, then you should have a good race.

Well, then you've got the mood there.

Into my burro runs better when I'm behind him.

But some people, everybody has a little different way of running their burros.

Winner of this years competition it's a big challenge.

It's a huge challenge I always thought, it's always good to do part of the local culture.

You know, like if you live in the mountains, you should do mountain sports.

If you live in New York City, you should do whatever people do in the New York City.

Well, I don't think it's much abuse to let them run 30 miles with us you know, it's, it's abuse to me.

Yes.

It's something they kind of enjoy.

Good boy, Sailor.

I know you didn't like that very much.

Were finished.

Good boy.

It should be noted that children at play are not playing about Their games should be seen as their most serious minded activity.

Where you guys goin?

Rodeo.

Today we had our, 13th Empire, annual frog rodeo.

We started this 13 years ago.

A few of us got together here in town.

We figured that, you know, nobody ever got together.

Neighbor didn't know neighbor.

And we said, let's let's plan an event where we get everybody together, especially something for the kids.

And, I recently read, Mark Twain story about the celebrated jumping frog of Calaveras County.

And, they said, let's do a frog jumping contest.

It'd be kind of fun.

There arent any frogs up here But we knew we could get some.

We wanted to have dinner as a popular event.

We've just kept it going.

It's.

It's a lot of fun.

So we'll put them in a cup.

They're only a dollar.

I'll get two.

You want 2?

Ok.

and then when the judges, the judges will tell you who won that heat.

And you circle that name because they have to come back for the finals.

Okay?

I'm a star, you know that?

A what?A star like a frog.

On your marks.

Get set.

Go take the cops up.

That's it.

Oh, I got a winner.

Got a winner.

Oh!

You never got out of the cup.

Howd your frog do?

Say, it never left the cup.

It never left the cup.

It right here.

The kids love it.

You see the smiles on their faces when they get the trophies.

Just get their frogs.

They get really excited.

It's a lot of fun.

Kids love, love, don't fire Frog Road.

It's something they look forward to every year.

And, you know, a lot of these kids, they, they take it pretty serious.

There's several kids here today with frogs from previous years.

Dennis Hopper is the frog.

The original frog, that one first time four years ago.

He's back to defend his title today.

Oh, almost killed my frog.

He won first place last year.

I'm here to do it again.

All right, come on in.

Okay, okay.

Ready?

Take the bottle when it comes up.

Squirt it.

Okay.

That's it, that's it.

Up.

That's right.

Oh.

Oh.

All right, all right.

one for a price.

That's one.

He won that heat I bestow congratuations for a lifetime of good works.

Well, thank you, thank you, thank you.

I'm proud.

You must be croaking.

Im croking.

The rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature.

A lot of people have been here for a long time.

Since the Indians.

I think people start looking out at that water.

They get up in the morning with their cup of coffee, and they just can't keep their eyes off it.

It's just, there's a lot of action out there.

Let's go win this regatta all right?

You got there.

You're always nervous at the beginning.

Everyone's jacking around the boueys trying to get a good start.

And you're just, like, nervous for the longest Just after the turn of the century, some Denver businessmen who had summer homes up here decided that they wanted some way to get together with their families and compete and have some kind of an organized activity.

And so in 1902, they incorporated the Grand Lake Yacht Club.

And it you know, on the surface, if you've never been here, it doesn't sound like that big a thing.

Three guys get together and found something.

But you got to remember that there weren't any roads up here that you could really haul a sailboat over.

There weren't any cars.

They had to haul the first sailboats over that pass behind teams.

My grandfather was one of the three founders of the yacht club.

And, as Don said, it is quite amazing that they would find, place 110 miles from Denver, that because in those days, it was very difficult to get here.

Took three days to get here.

By 1912, they had so many families enrolled around the lake that they built the building that we use now as the Grand Lake Club.

They had, a regatta with sailboats.

They had, water sports events with rowboat races and swimming races.

They had a, thing that we now call Venetian Night, where they decorated boats and made floats that paraded for judges in front of the town pier.

And in that same magic year, 1912.

And they built a building, Sir Thomas Lipton, who was, an Irishman who, really enjoyed publicity and really enjoyed sailing, brought his fifth America's Cup challenge to the United States He did kind of a goodwill tour around the United States, and he happened to hit Denver in the winter time.

He had been giving away to a few selected clubs, these wonderful silver Lipton trophies.

And they thought, here's our chance.

And these guys put on this fantastic dinner in Denver.

But he couldn't come up and see that they were really talking about four rowboats with sales.

He didn't know that.

And it was really just mostly an elaborate con.

And the more he drank, the more he talked about how wonderful mountain sailing was.

And by the end of the evening, he had promised them a lipton cup.

There is a wonderful spirit here.

I personally feel that the, Grand Lake Yacht Club members are a part of a big family.

And my three sons of, managed to win all of the trophies at one time or another.

And and had a great, sailing season this year.

Yes.

We won the Colorado Cup, which is kind of special because it's the oldest cup around 1903.

It's kind of a three handed loving cup.

These guys celebrate all season.

Part of the fun.

Boulder a small, quiet university town located amongst the Rocky Mountain foothills.

Kinetics a branch of dynamics that deals with the effects of forces upon the motions of material bodies.

Boulder kinetics.

We call this the Rite of Spring.

You get rid of your winter doldrums and everybody comes out here and get some UVs and watch everybody else have fun.

That's it.

Come on, mooo, moooo!

Wild thing!

Like oh yeah, Fools rule.

Fools rule.

We cheat to win.

And anything that's in the way we use these little tiny bombs here, you know, that will bomb you out of the water and also create a party of its own.

Carpe Diem.

Definitely, live for.

The day.

We're here every year with the melon heads.

But we don't have a craft.

When we first started kinetics, people used to say, well, what is it?

And I go to and tell what a kinetic sculpture was and what we did with it.

And, I get through and then people would say, well, yeah, I understand, but what is it?

It's a human powered, environmentally sound vehicle, recyclable and human powered.

Nonpolluting.

It's the Colorado way.

Only a fool would do kinetics.

That's why we're the ship of fools.

We came all the way from Sarasota, Florida to see this.

It was really wonderful to be greeted by all the happy people.

Y ou can't get in without a happy face, it's a miserable day today.

We're hoping for the lightning and thunder.

Like to hear my headless doll?

My mom says it's okay to do it.

You know, my mother is about 55 million years old.

I'm only 20 million years old.

And she said, you know, it's about time that I kind of got getting this sort of thing of being a dinosaur and just racing through here.

And she's hoping that we can find some of her relatives out here where we dug up this one.

I keep telling you, you're a wizard in training, right?

You're a WIT.

but only half trained, so you're a half wit.

Oh, it gets crazier and crazier.

The people are so creative and out of sight.

I am one of the Viking wild Viking sponges from hell.

That would be me.

And I am so happy to come down from Wyoming to be in the Boulder Kinetics, Yoooo.

And you can never predict the winner.

I don't care how long you've been going to Kinetics, you cannot predict a winner because they judge by so many different parameters style, bribes, sculpture, engineering, suits.

It's crazy.

It's nuts.

It's the best event in Colorado.

It's out of sight.

Can't believe it.

Were gonna win Whoo!, Kinetics, Whooo!

We Draw people from all over Colorado.

We've had entries from Wyoming, New Mexico.

I'm calling in sick to work, so don't put this on the TV or anything.

Oh, this is crazy.

Totally, absolutely nuts.

But that seems to be the name of the game is Drink Beer and Be Crazy.

So we'll see shortly.

We go across the reservoir with oofa loofa power.

That means we get in the boat and we oofa loofa.

All across the reservoir.

Yeah sure.

Oh, of course, is set up basically to give you a lot of water to give us some land, because the sculpture is supposed to negotiate both land and water.

They also have devised what they call mud flats.

All right.

You guys look sexy in the mud.

Oh.

Thank you.

Oh.

Heaven help the fool.

You know, the mud flats is always the most devastating to most of them.

If you didn't have the mud flats it'd be a little easier.

But then, on the other hand, if it were easy, why come out & do it?

Be careful of a fool with mud.

it's a great time everybody, it's like the first chance in the spring for everybody to take a few clothes off and get some sun.

It's crazy.

Crafts.

They got out there floating around, you know, it's fun.

It's really cool.

You have earned the Wizard's blessing by completing the 1994 Kinetic Sculpture Challenge.Yeah!!!

we made it.

Let's go, let's go now.

And that line right there, there's beer at the end.

Oh!

We don't care who wins.

There's no winner.

The one purpose of the whole thing is just fun.

We are officially last.

Yeah.

Whoo!!

!