FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS

The Midwest has no huge claim to fame like other parts of the United States. California and the west coast has the beach, Hollywood and all the celebrities. The Upper East coast is home to New York City, Boston, Philadelphia and DC some of the most historic, glamorous and substantial cities in the country. The south has great food, crocodiles and well, they are really good at sports. Texas…well we won’t go there. And there is Colorado, yes we have the Rocky Mountains (which if you live here you know this is enough to rank us coolest of them all) but to the world this is not much, so we must rank ourselves in other ways. Ben and I experienced one of these unique ‘High Ranking’ Colorado Experiences this past weekend as we went to commemorate, celebrate and participate in the world famous (or soon to be) FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS of Nederland, CO. Let me explain…

Once upon a time there was a man named, Trygve Bauge, lived in a small mountain town in Colorado known as Nederland. Trygve’s Grandfather passed away in Norway and so, convinced that the science and technology of the world would soon skyrocket, Trygve had his grandfather first shipped to CA (on dry ice) where he was cryogenically frozen and then sent to CO where they kept the body in a shed in the backyard. Soon afterwards Trygve was deported for ‘visa issues’ and was forced to leave the country and…grandfather. The remaining family members, worried that grandfather would thaw, went to the authorities who (even though it was and still is illegal to keep frozen humans or animals in your possession in Nederland) luckily decided to help ‘keep Grandpa in Nederland.’ Soon, with the help of the town and ongoing help of tuff shed, Grandpa became great local news. Now to commemorate the wonderful town togetherness of saving Grandpa they throw a festival one weekend every March.

This festival houses Frozen Dead Guy look alike contests (points for looking dead, frozen and like Grandpa), the Polar Bear Plunge (jumping through a hole in the ice into the frozen lake), coffin races (carrying a ‘dead person’ through a maze), a hearse parade, frozen t-shirt contests, frozen turkey bowling, brain freeze competitions and so much much more. There have even been documentaries done on Grandpa, that are shown all weekend and there are (for $30 a person) tours to go visit Grandpa (yes he is still there- now 109 years old) in his Tuff Shed.

Here is a picture and video of the coffin races. There is a team that carries a coffin (that they had to make) holding a team member (aka 'dead person') through a frozen obsticle course. 

We were really excited to see this odd and thrilling side of Colorado and then…we got there. The sun was shinning and so was the wind (it was about 35 degrees and -4 with wind chill) it was literally a FROZEN day. We were expecting a high energy event with lots of people booths, exhibits, retailers, ect and that was not exactly what we found. We did find a LOT of people (and in a small town it looks like even more) but it seemed like there was only one event going on at a time, so the masses migrated from one event to another (like cattle or maybe to keep warm). It was like we had joined the ranks of pot smoking hippie rednecks- which was kind of entertaining to watch but again, not really what we expected (I guess I didn’t know what to expect in Nederland). It was fun, we left early because it was so cold, but we can now say that Colorado has something worth while to put us on the map…and we’ve been there, the FROZEN DEAD GUY DAYS!!