Pikes Peak Historical Society Preserving the history of Florissant and the Pikes Peak western slope

The fascinating story of the shortlived Pony Express will be told by presenter Ken Valles. Pictures and/or video clips will be shown of paintings, stamps, routes, stables, posters, historical markers, stations, office headquarters, statues, memorabilia, museums, even Bibles, and of the 150th anniversary in Julesburg, Colorado and Sidney, Nebraska (2010). Also on display will be Ken’s personal collection including: books, movies, photos, sample Bibles, maps, posters, and more (items not for sale). A colorful, pictorial, summary booklet is available for a donation of $15 or more to the nonprofit KP Chronicles. Be sure to attend this historic adventure into the wild West and its Colorado connection!

Though born in Chicago, Ken has, over the last 40 years, studied and traveled much of the American West and Southwest, including working with people of the Navajo Nation. He also has studied the Pacific Theater of WWII, and Japanese martial arts for 40 years. He has made various presentations in numerous states and foreign countries.
He began KP Chronicles to share America’s unique history to young and old alike, including aspects of patriotism, U.S. and other cultures, little known facts, and elements of faith. Most of his presentations include corresponding costume/outfit, displays, video clips, photo album and projected photos (Powerpoint). The general topics include: 1 The Early American West; 2 WWII Pacific Theater; 3 ‘Incredible Colorado’; and 4 Japanese Martial Arts. Ken has 4 adult children, 11 grandchildren, and currently lives in Divide, Colorado.

The Pikes Peak Historical Society invites you to learn more about The Pony Express at the PPHS monthly Chautauqua on Sunday, May 19th at 2pm at the Lake George Charter School. The Lake George Charter School is located only 4 minutes from Florissant, on the south side of Highway 24 just 2/10 mile west of the Ferrell Propane lot. This program is presented as a public service of the Pikes Peak Historical Society. Admission is free and refreshments are served. No reservation is required. For more information call 719-748-8259 or 719-748-3861.

When we last left Kaelin, he was
having adventures with geocacher, Hives who took him to several states after
leaving Colorado before heading to Europe for more fun and had traveled
14,468.2 miles.  On October 9,2018, Hives said farewell to Kaelin,
dropping him in the Colorado ‘Explore geocache’, which was placed in 2014 to celebrate
50 years of Wilderness Preservation after President LBJ signed into law the
Wilderness act.

               On
the 24th, another geocacher, Hegenor, retrieved Kaelin to take with her on
another road trip to Utah.  Hegenor is a geocacher from Norway who rented
a campervan for 24 days to go geocaching and exploring around the western part
of the US, starting in Denver.  They stopped at several caches in Utah
including the John Wesley Powell River History museum and the oldest cache
placed in Utah as well as another earth cache (one relating to unique
geoscience features) ‘Sunnyside Rock Asphalt’ .  Here they learned more
about this deposit of asphalt estimated to contain some 800 million tons and
contains enough rock asphalt to build three 64 foot roads completely encircling
the globe.  It is the largest and richest of natural rock asphalt in the
US.

               Hegenor
and Kaelin parted ways back in Longmont, CO where he stayed until another
geocacher from Colorado, Jasperdakota grabbed him.  This geocacher loves
to do puzzle caches and so far they have done over 150 together. Along the way
they also visited the “Land of Eccentrics” where they saw 150 welded sculptures
by artist Bill Swets displayed in a park near Ft. Collins and learned some
chemistry while doing the ‘Winter Recipe Time” puzzle cache.

               After
Christmas, they headed to Nevada where they continued working geocache puzzles,
including ‘The Las Vegas History Quiz’ cache and several ‘NV Planetary’ cache
puzzles.  They stopped at the Clark County Heritage museum on the way to
Hoover Dam.  This is where they visited ‘A Virtual Reward for a Dam Cool
Dog’ cache and learned about the Hoover Dam mascot who every morning while the
dam was under construction boarded a transport and put in a full days work
along with the other workers.  He inspected everything daily.  The
workers opened a bank account for him to pay for food and his dog
license.  The commissary packed a lunch for him every day and he soon
learned to carry it in his mouth when he boarded the transport. At the
construction site, he placed the sack alongside the workers’ lunch pails and
went about his business. When the whistle blew, the dog raced for his sack and
sat patiently until someone opened it for him.  Kaelin especially loved
that story.

               They
visited another earth cache at ‘Rainbow Gardens’ east of Las Vegas. This area
contains many beautiful examples of rock dating from the Precambrian to almost
the present day. One of the most conspicuous rock formations in this area is
the Rainbow Gardens Member of the Horse Spring Formation, which consists
primarily of limestones and conglomerates, overlain by limestone, conglomerate,
dolomite, and sandstone. These rocks were laid down in the Miocene Epoch, and
are on the order of 19 – 26 million years old. 

               Another
earth cache they visited near by was the ‘Frenchman Mountain Great
Unconformity’.  The Great Unconformity was named by Clarence Dutton in
1882 to describe the dramatic exposures he studied in the Inner Gorge of the
Grand Canyon. This Earthcache in the Frenchman Mountain area east of Las Vegas
is a more western exposure of that famous geologic feature and requires
significantly less effort to visit. 

               They
headed back to Colorado where they attended the Puzzling Workshop and Trackable
Swap where they got to meet other geocachers to solve puzzles together. 
They are continuing to solve puzzle caches.  Kaelin had no idea there were
so many.  He is having the time of his life with more that 250 caches
visited over 19,791.5 miles.  Can’t wait to see what new adventures await.