October brings us back to Baldpate Inn

The Kansas crew arrived Sunday, Oct. 10th, in time for lunch. Brian and family from Oregon arrived that evening. We started working Monday morning after a wonderful breakfast lasagna and homemade cinnamon rolls!  The Nebraska crew came in late that afternoon.  Boy, have we all been busy since then!  Steve and Brian are working with scrapbooks and photos hoping to date different parts of the building.  Marie, Mary, Joan, Kinber, Adam and Keri are working on state keys.  Mary is thrilled to have finished with Texas after 722 keys, and is happily tackling Oklahoma and Nebraska keys.  Joan, who traveled the world last year, feels that she will never get out of Illinois, but we are making good progress.  Kimber is so pleased to learn she doesn’t have to spell Cincinnati this year! Brian likes the gloves Joan found for us to  protect the tags this year. 

Well I wrote that Wednesday and the week got away before I got it posted.   We added over a 1,000 more keys to the index in our 4 work days, laughed until our sides hurt and helped Henry celebrate the milestone of losing his first tooth.

Henry lost his first tooth!

Thanks to Lois for letting us to help save the history of Baldpate Inn and to the crew who loves making this hapen. 

Baldpate crew Oct. 2010

Back for another visit

Working on more keys, updating the index. Post added from new Android tablet.

A Final Meal to Celebrate

Rib Dinner at Estes Park Brewery

After a full week cataloging keys at the Baldpate Inn, it was time for a group celebration.  We broke  bread, or more likely, chewed the meat off of fabulous pork ribs at the Estes Park Brewery. 

We can recommend the Estes Park Brewery as one of our favorite places to eat pizza and ribs.

Thanks to Adam for suggesting we try those fabulous ribs!

We have more pictures from our supper, but too many of us were caught licking our fingers or with sauce on our faces.  Not a pretty sight!

End of another Year at the Baldpate Inn – Where are We with the Index?

Window View from the Baldpate Inn Dining area

Just another location at the Inn where we were sometimes allowed to take our work.  Luckily, the owner let’s us spread out when necessary. 

If you come to see the keys, make sure you stay for the soup and salad bar and the pie.  We have staff favorites.  Zucchini muffins and Lemon ginger are on the top of our muffin list.  For soup, we love the mushroom soup, corn chowder, cowboy stew .  We usually fight over our favorite pies.  Some like the chocolate, others the blueberry, and some the pecan pie.  But we all love the cinnamon rolls served to guests at breakfast time! 

In fact, Adam and Kimber packed an entire suitcase full of their saved cinnamon rolls to take back to Nebraska.  Can’t blame them.  Lois makes them from scratch every morning!

We are now all home safe and sound.  The index of keys has grown.  So I know you are dying to hear the total number.  If you add the keys from the walls, with those in the cases, orphas keys with no tags and the keys from the ceiling, to date.  The total indexed is: 6472.  Amazing work!

Friday and Still Counting

Inside the Baldpate Key Room

Still counting the state keys!  Our noses are running from the cold and the dust. 

Thanks to Kimber, we all think we know how to spell Cincinnati.  Or is it Cincinatti?  No, really, we have it memorized and can recite in unison how to spell Cincinatti.

This will be our last day indexing this year.  We return in the Spring to see if we can finish.  We will blog tomorrow to tell you how many we have entered into the Baldpate computerized index as of the end of business today.

Thanks to Devin for creating the software that can now be searched!!  We have all the keys except the state keys entered into the software.  Visitors to the Baldpate Inn can sit at the computer terminal and look for Hitler’s desk key, the key from Earl DeBiggers, the key from Jack Benny’s dressing room, and many more.  We are looking forward to adding all the keys that have been donated from loving fans in the very near future.

We found the Ugliest Key!!

Ugliest Key at the Baldpate Inn

We couldn’t stop laughing!  This was donated by a patron from the “show me state” of Missouri.

 

So the Mon-key was tagged and is now hanging from the ceiling in the key room once again.  Not sure what animal the hair came from, but we all decided it was time to wash our hands.

Tuesday at the Baldpate Inn

Just another wall of keys

Everyone was busy today with keys, photos and letters.  Joann and Mary made great progress on the international keys as well as the keys from Texas.  Although, I’m sure Mary doesn’t think she’ll ever finish the keys from Texas!  Pam has worked quietly on the letters that have come to the Inn.  She’s done an excellent job organizing the letters by date and then alphabetically so that they can be found easily.  We might just digitize them and link them to the keys in the collection.  Steve and Brian worked on photos.  Devin finished his IT work with us and headed back out.

Back at the Baldpate Inn

The crew is back at the Baldpate Inn this week to continue working on cataloging the keys.  Stop by and visit with us!  We have a great crew this week:  Mary, LeRoy, Joann, Brian, Devin, Steve, Pam, Kimber, and Adam.  The laptops are busy and we are working on the letters that have been sent with the fabulous keys.