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| Window Shade in the Colorado ghost town of St. Elmo. (click to enlarge) |
On a business trip to Colorado in 2003, I arranged to stay a few extra days to explore and photograph. I bought a book on Colorado ghost towns and my intention was to visit several of them. Unfortunately, stupid me, after arriving in Colorado Springs for the conference I was attending, I continued my physical workouts at the same pace as I did at home—at sea level. You know where this is going...
Well, the last day of the conference, I got very tired and very sick. I passed up the steak and lobster banquet to lay in my hotel bed. I thought I had caught the flu. I was miserable.
The next day I wasn't feeling any better but decided to try to continue my plan to explore ghost towns. I drove my rental car up to an elevation of 10,000 ft. (3048m) to the small town of Leadville (worth a visit). Of course, as miserable as I was, I did explore and photograph on the way there. Later that day, feeling even worse, I checked into my 'motel' in Leadville and asked the front desk clerk for a fan as I was burning up and the room had no air conditioning. In my room I was feeling so bad that I felt I needed to cut my trip short and just go home. However, I couldn't get a flight out the next morning. I think I went to sleep about 7 p.m. I was not doing well at all.
As it turned out I'm glad I wasn't able to get a morning flight as I felt better the next morning. Not 100%, but better than the previous day. I then decided to continue my wanderings and found the ghost town of St. Elmo. You can read more about it here.
Everything in St. Elmo was very well preserved. I guess that has to do with the extremely low humidity and cold climate. I walked around making images. In the image above, I was attracted by the simplicity of the (potentially) over 100 year old window shade. The old, weathered wood of the window frame, wrinkled old cloth of the shade material contrasted by the delicate tassel fringe grabbed my eye. Simplicity.
If you are interested in what more of St. Elmo looks like, here is another image I made at the time. I would encourage a visit as I understand it is still well preserved and, at least when I was there, no graffiti was seen. Hopefully, no one has defaced it since.
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| (click to enlarge) |
Oh! My sudden illness? Altitude sickness. It never crossed my mind. I thought I had caught the flu. I was told by my doctor that it was most likely brought on by the vigorous exercise I continued from sea level. My body needed the extra oxygen and it just wasn't available. Of course, the worst thing I could have done was go up in elevation but that is what I did. I guess I'm lucky I didn't accidently kill myself. Lesson learned.
Thanks for looking. Enjoy!
Dennis A. Mook
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