A 40-acre Kitchen Junk Drawer

Not quite sure how to describe what we discovered at Miller Family Farms just outside Platteville, Colorado. It isn't quite a junkyard, although there is a replica of the Sandford and Son truck. It isn't quite a "museum" since most of the items are simply placed in the dirt, falling apart or otherwise not really identified.

It is, at best, an "experience".  The farm is a fully operational, real working farm. Established in 1949 by Roy and Dorothy Miller and their story of striking out and maintaining an actual, traditional family farm is heart-warming in an age of mega-industrialization of rural Colorado. With a huge variety of crops and full-in support of family market days across the region, we originally visited to take advantage of their 5-bag offer of picking your own produce. Granted, the price was fairly steep at $65, but given that I am a dedicated, but horrific urban vegetable gardener, I had visions of my girls appreciating an experience of where their food actually comes from, meandering through fields to pick just the right strawberry and be amazed at lines and lines and lines of lettuce heads.

So, the farm part isn't open until Fall Harvest.

That bit would have been useful to put directly on the website, where the open hours are listed.

So, after making our way through traffic up north, finding the farm and pulling in, we spoke with one  of the Miller family who explained that they were not open, but that we were free to explore and play in the "play area".  Glancing around, I wasn't totally sure what she was referring to, but following her gaze, we noticed the break in the metal fence just beyond the parking area, that had a beat up, worn out wooden plank bridge and some faded arrows painted on top.

"Great!" Thanking the owner and relieved we could at least look around before jamming back into the truck, we made our way over to the bridge.  I cannot really describe what we found on the other side, but I'll try.  You know that kitchen drawer you have that you fill with crap and, every few months or so, clean out thinking what the fuck you kept that broken set of used rubber hose washers for? the ones you figured you could fix in your next couple of spare hours and some Gorilla Glue?

Ok. Now, picture that on 40 acres of dirt and expand the size of the rubber washer to, oh, let's say, a DC-9 aircraft.

It is jaw-dropping in so many ways. From old fire trucks, to Model Ts, to various decaying aircraft, to replica not-quite-a-good-fit, low effort characters from Cars... this place has it all, without really having anything. Ever wanted to see an emergency, long duration sea-escape pod? How about 4 of them, buried in Colorado plains clay?

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, here is metal, sharp and jagged. Wait, actually there is an exception to that... the Croc Pit. Fuck what? Crocodiles? Nope. Crocs. The shoes. Millions of them, cut up into maybe the weirdest ball-pit play area on Earth. I mean, it is a mastery of resourcefulness and rural genius but, at the same time, it didn't actually appear that foot grime was washed out of the crocs before milling.

There is an old, rusted nail ensconced mini western town, complete with a mine shaft that has a "no not enter" door that hangs open for the kids. That is on the other side of the raee car chicken coop from the tractor pedal car race track.  As your kids risk life and limb at .5 mph on the track, you can take a sit in the massive, concrete and plaster bug, flower pot or human-sized sneaker with real, working laces for all your knotting pleasure... because.. if there is one thing we all enjoy, it is tying shoes! Who's with me?!?!

The place is simply weird and wonderful. It is exactly what I hoped it would be without knowing about it. I am poking fun, but at the cost of "free" and the WTF factor of 11? Awesome. The family could not have been friendlier.  The kids loved it and so did I. We climbed, ran, jumped, drove and flew everything on those 40 acres, managing not to get a horrific, rusted metal infection along the adventure.

Am I planning a return trip in the Fall to augment the play and get to pick up some produce? ABSOLUTELY. Cannot wait to head back up for any one of their festivals!