Tag: Fruita

  • Grrrreta the Grrrreat Big Dinosaur, Fruita, Colorado

    Grrrreta the Grrrreat Big Dinosaur, Fruita, Colorado

    The hills above Fruita, Colorado, are full of dinosaur bones, but it’s in the centre of town that visitors can get up close and personal with Grrrreta, a bombastic, bright-green tyrannosaurus.

    Radiating with a pleasant retro zeal, Grrrreta has served as the symbol of this quirky outpost for more than 80 years. From her spot in Circle Park, she watches over Fruita’s laidback coffee shops and bohemian craft beer emporiums.

    It’s a bit like Jurassic Park, with slightly less chance of having your head bitten off. Well, unless you’re Mike the Headless Chicken.

    Grrrreta’s syrupy smile, however, hides a prehistoric pain. Despite her legendary reputation in western Colorado, the old girl has more than once stood upon the precipice of extinction.

    Her story starts way back in the primordial soup that was the 1940s. Local chap Ray Thomas and his wife owned The Dinosaur Store on the outskirts of town, which sold a scrumptious array of candies, sodas and, erm, rocks. Well it was before PlayStations and Tamagotchis, so the kiddies made do with what they had – and Colorado certainly has its share of rocks.

    When Highway 50 was rolled out right outside his shop’s front door, Ray knew he needed something BIG to pull in customers, and decided on an enormous dinosaur. The only problem? He didn’t really know what they looked like.

    “They wrote to the Smithsonian and asked them to send them specs for a dinosaur,” explained local character Sherry Tice, who later leased the building the creature guarded. “And so they sent the specs and they built that dinosaur out of railroad ties, chicken wire, and ferrocement.”

    Looking at the beastie, maybe that should be ferocious-ment – teehee!

    Ray named his creation Dinni – but let’s just stick with her current name, Grrrreta, to avoid confusion. Thousands of curious travellers popped in to see her, and the commemorative rock business had never been healthier.

    But that’s not all-osaurus, folks!

    They said you’d never get anywhere
    Well, they don’t care and it’s just not fair
    That you know, that I know Grrrreta

    Anyone who thinks ancient lizards don’t have a flair for fashion, has never met Grrrreta. She’s had more looks than Greta Garbo, Greta Thunburg and Greta the disturbingly sensual mogwai from Gremlins 2 combined.

    As The Dinosaur Store changed hands over the years, her new owners festooned her with their own quirks and peccadilloes. One year she was green with orange spots, the next a handsome shade of chartreuse yellow. One owner, feeling festive, replaced her eyes with bright red lightbulbs, which must’ve freaked out the local drunks.

    “Later on, there was a speaker put in its mouth and a remote control from inside the gas station, and they could press a button and the dinosaur would roar,” Sherry revealed. “One lady was pumping gas and the dinosaur roared and it scared her so bad she jumped in the ditch nearby.”

    These days it’s just the gas prices that terrify customers – teehee!

    Much like the age of the dinosaurs, however, all good things must come to an end. But instead of a colossal comet, it was the twin terrors of gentrification and corporate gluttony that almost wiped out this prehistoric princess.

    In the early-80s a truck driver – terrorised, perhaps, by her jagged teeth and relentless claws, but more likely overwhelmed by lust for her exotic curves and come-hither eyes – got into a tyrannosaurus wreck, destroying Grrrreta’s tail. The tricera-cops turned up to drag him off to the gulag for the crime of damaging a Big, but the damage was done.

    When The Dinosaur Store shut its doors for good, Grrrreta was left to decay in the relentless Colorado sun. A metaphor for the downfall of society, the old girl’s predicament became a saur point for the good folk of Fruita.

    But, as chubby, bearded gentleman from Jurassic Park would say, “Life finds a way!”

    When I say, ‘I love you,’ you say, you Grrrreta
    You Grrrreta, you Grrrreta you Grrrret

    Seizing upon Grrrreta’s cultural value, some art boffins in nearby Grand Junction raised funds to have the dinosaur completely rebuilt. The old one was thrown in a bin somewhere and a brand spankin’ new metal skeleton was crafted, with some sort con-cretaceous poured over the top. With a new lick of paint, Grrrreta was ready to charm the locals for another four decades.

    But it ain’t easy bein’ green (or whatever colour Grrreta was at the time).

    Shortly after Sherry Tice took over the former Dinosaur Store and turned it into a pizza shop (the marrrrgherita was, not surprisingly, delicious!), the building was condemned. Grrrreta, tragically, was to be torn down. Well, jurassic times call for jurassic measures, and Sherry wasn’t going to let her gal pal become part of history.

    “When we found out, I went down to the federal building in Grand Junction and I asked if the federal government would give us that dinosaur for the town of Fruita,” Sherry spluttered.

    The pollies, empathetic to the plight of a fellow sharp-fanged, scaly creature, gave a resounding, “Yes, ma’am!”

    One warm day in 2000, Grrrreta was loaded up on a truck and driven through the sun-dappled streets of Fruita to her new home, as thousands of besotted locals watched on. To ring in this new era, the local kiddies were given the opportunity to rename their favourite dinosaur.

    They of course chose Barney, but the town went with their second choice – Grrrreta. I assume the ‘r’ key must’ve gotten stuck when they typed out her nameplate.

    Grrrreta the Devil You Know

    The old gal was placed behind a sturdy fence to keep distracted truck drivers – and hormonal teenagers unable to restrain their lurid desires – away from her hedonistic curves.

    She also had a leash strapped around her ankle to prevent her from going crazy and storming through the streets of Fruita, chasing cars and peeping in windows. Or, at the very least, popping into one of the town’s colourful, yet competitively-priced restaurants for a snack. Just a tip, this dino likes her steak rawwww!

    The locals took to dressing Grrrreta up for special holidays. A pumpkin on her head for Halloween, a Santa costume leading up to Christmas, a yarmulke for Yom Kippur, that sort of thing.

    Grrrreta’s whimsical nature harkens back to simpler times. No, not the Triassic period, that would’ve been vaguely horrible. I mean a time when men and women across the world built giant roadside dinos, like Tyra and Big Kev and Digby and the marvellous, majestic Ploddy.

    Millions of years from now, long after we’re all gone and the Land of the Bigs servers have been shut down for good, the next inhabitants of this planet may, perhaps, stumble upon what’s left of Gretttta and the thousands of other roadside attractions that decorate our lonely blue planet. The only remaining trace of mankind’s existence, they’ll tell the stories of our culture and history, our triumphs and failures and wildest dreams.

    Perhaps they’ll stand before Grrrreta, their six mouths agape, 23 eyes non-blinking, antennae wobbling around comically, feeling the same sense of wonder that the rest of us did the first time we saw this prehistoric masterpiece.

    Gretttta, my fellow Biggies, is the ultimate expression of what it means to be human.

  • Mike the Headless Chicken, Fruita, CO

    Mike the Headless Chicken, Fruita, Colorado, United States of America

    Have you been running round like a headless chicken in search of roadside attractions? Then strut over to Fruita, Colorado, where you’ll find a bonkers statue dedicated to Mike the Headless Chicken!

    The bizarre story of a chook who lived for 18 months after having his noggin lopped off – and went on to become a national celebrity – has long enthralled locals and visitors alike. A four-foot effigy to Mike, lovingly created by local artist Lyle Nichols, can be found outside the Aspen Street Coffee Co on the town’s leafy main street.

    There’s no need to walk around on eggshells when visiting, because the mother hens at the cafe are really quite lovely. Maybe give the omelettes a miss, though – you might offend Mike.

    The headless heartthrob’s no spring chicken, having been revealed to a bemused gathering of admirers back in March of 2000. Carefully crafted from 300 pounds of old metal farm castoffs, including axe heads and sickle blades, Mike fits in with the many oddball artworks scattered around this quirky village.

    “I made him proud-looking and cocky,” Lyle cock-a-doodle-dooed, before joking that he gave the Fruita chamber of commerce a discount because Mike didn’t have a head.

    Despite living just up the road from another Big, the legendary Grrrreta the Grrrreat Big Dinosaur, Mike certainly rules the roost in Fruita. The locals even throw a festival – or should that be nest-ival? – in his honour every June. With a 5km fun run, chicken dancing competition and displays from the region’s craft breweries, there’s always a few sore heads the next morning.

    But I guess that’s better than having no head at all!

    Where’s Your Head At?

    The legend of Mike the Headless Chicken goes back to September 10, 1945. Fruita chap Lloyd Olsen, long henpecked by his domineering mother-in-law, decided to win her over with a succulent chicken dinner. Taking his prized cock, Mike, into the backyard, Lloyd kissed him goodbye and then lopped off his head with an axe.

    And that’s when things got interesting. Instead of laying down to be served with a side of steamed vegetables, Mike went about his day, strutting around and fluffing up his feathers. Lloyd, who couldn’t believe his cluck, fed the decapitated bird with an eye-dropper. It was then that he saw signing signs.

    Leaving his mother-in-law was unfed, Lloyd scooped up his headless chicken and rushed off to the University of Utah. There, the resident boffins proclaimed that Mike had just enough of a brain stem left to go on as if nothing had happened.

    Well, it’s not as though fully-intact chickens are solving the secrets of the universe, anyway.

    Lloyd hired a manager for Mike, and the bonceless bird immediately beaked the curiosity of the public. Soon he was travelling across America and appearing on the front cover of everything from Life magazine to Bird Fanciers Quarterly. Thousands – if not millions – lost their minds when they chooked him out.

    Mike was the cock of the walk. Tabloids of the day caught him partying with Hollywood bad boy Gregory Peck, and stepping out with actresses Ingrid Birdman and Vivi-hen Leigh. The biggest star since Cluck Gable, many thought him destined. But one should never count one’s chickens – headless or otherwise – before they hatch.

    One windswept night in Arizona, after a year-and-a-half without a head, Mike choked to death on a kernel of corn.

    Beakle-Mania was over. Lloyd’s mother-in-law finally received her chicken feast.

    Mike was immortalised in The Guinness Book of Records (as the longest surviving headless chicken), and the docu-hen-tary Chick Flick: The Miracle Mike Story. Pop royalty penned ballads about him. Mike the Headless Chicken by Sandy Lind lit up the charts, as did Headless Mike by The Radioactive Chicken Heads (An instant celebrity/He toured the country in an auto/Probably the greatest thing/To ever come from Colorado).

    Mike brought newfound respect to chickens worldwide. He inspired other Bigs such as California’s Chicken Boy, and Charlie, Chickeletta and The Big Chook over in Australia.

    Quite a chicken-feat, but nothing serves as a greater tribute to his legacy than the BIG statue in his hometown of Fruita. Cheeky, handsome and truly individual, you’ll have egg on face if you don’t see it!