House peeping in the one and only Guffey, Colorado

The small town of Guffey in central Colorado is an unusual place. Some might even say weird.

Those are indeed skeletal horses.

Unclear if that is actually a human skeleton driving the wagon. Or what became of his prisoner. But this is par for the course in Guffey, Colorado.

We first found Guffey about nine years ago when we drove there to look at an earthship that was for sale. That same earthship is still for sale.

We recently visited Guffey and our trip confirmed my belief that the town dwells in its own time warp – on its own planet, in fact.

If you look beyond the coffin, on the bottom left hand side of the photo, you can see a large propane tank. When we were standing out front, two hillbilly-looking  guys took a torch and lit the thing up.

When I asked the old hillbilly guy with the long scraggly beard what was in the tank he replied: “chicken”.

Then he laughed and said “We ain’t gonna tell you what’s in there!”

He really said that – I swear.

Guffey looks like any other Colorado ghost town, but quite a few year-round residents live there – like 100 or so.

Guffey has a post office, a charter elementary school, and even an elected mayor – who happens to be a cat named Monster.

Guffey’s big annual event is the Fourth of July Chicken Fly. The Chicken Fly consists of chickens being ejected from a mailbox on top of a 10-foot high platform. People come from all over to witness the launching of the chickens.

I snapped a few pics of some local houses…

Most of the homes in Guffey are rustic old log cabins but they do have electrical service there.

Guffey-ans are very proud of their little town, and despite the coffins and “no trespass” signs, they actually welcome visitors and delight in showing off their finery.

So we stopped in at the Last Chance Antiques to have a look…

They had lots of great dusty old stuff…

I almost bought this antique lamp [below], but thought better of it as my kids tore recklessly through the shop…

I know poor Big Bird has been through the wringer lately, and we didn’t go looking for him. But there he was, looking forlorn and tossed-aside in a back room of the Last Chance Antique shop in Guffey Colorado:

Poor Big Bird.

If you are ever in Colorado and find yourself driving down highway 9, drop in to Guffey and say hello to the locals.

But don’t expect to see any live chickens there.

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For more information about Guffey, see the folowing links:

http://www.guffeycolorado.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guffey,_Colorado