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Bayou Salado Rendezvous

What's Old Is New Again!

I guess nothing really says it better. Here we are again celebrating a bygone time and playing at games from our grandparents' era and what fun it is.

As I walk the streets of Fairplay and South Park City, my mind takes me back and I can hear the clattering roaring dredge at the bottom of the hill just below the Hand Hotel.

I can smell the morning coffee and hear the fur trappers laugh as they trade their stories of giant bears and even bigger beaver.

Just around the corner I see, standing in the shadows of the Courthouse, a dark and somewhat mysterious, possibly dangerous figure. I'd guess he makes his living with that brace of ivory Colts peeking out the sides of his duster. Yes indeed, Friends, the vision seems so real.

Now, although the era is gone, the spirit of the times return and once a year we have Burro Days. I have attended Burro Days for a couple of decades, mostly shopping the vendors and watching the parade. I visited the Mountain Man Rendezvous one year and caught the Buckskinners Disease. I have been doing the fur trade re-enactment ever since and, now, I find myself running the very rendezvous that first captured my imagination.

Over the years the Mountain Man Rendezvous has evolved a bit, both in spirit and location. A couple of years ago we (my friends who help run it and I) decided to expand on the event and include Old West Re-enactors up to 1900. After all, isn't Fairplay a genuine, honest to goodness, Old West town? Yes, it is.


          photo by Linda Balough

Up until a few years ago, we were located across the river from downtown and behind what is now the NAPA Auto Parts. For a couple of years we were located at the northeast edge of town on Hwy. 285, across from the fairgrounds and Two Mile High Stadium. Last year we made the move down to Hartsel. Follow the signs to Hartsel, the Bayou Salado Rendezvous site is approximately 8/10ths of a mile south of Hwy. 24 on Hwy. 9.

Here's hoping to see y'all there.

- Perfesser
  aka Lou Gebhart

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Updated July 8, 2008



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