Frozen Dead Guy Days, The Champagne Tour

So at the conclusion of the ball we met out in the parking lot with several other people, all aficionados of cryonically frozen people, from what we could determine on quick acquaintance. We all caravanned up into the hills surrounding the town of Nederland. It was a dark night. Not stormy or anything - just dark. Cold too. A little snow flurry here and there. Kind of creepy, but only a little.

Bo, our tour guide, is the individual who has been on retainer by Bredo Moerstol's grandson to keep the cryonic chamber filled with dry ice so Bredo doesn't thaw out prematurely. Bo was a fount of information about Bredo, his grandson, the cryonic chamber, sheds and pretty much anything else you might have a question about and lots of stuff you don't. Quite a character.

And I did say shed. See the truth is that the cryonics facility that Bredo is entombed within is not exactly the high tech ultramodern stuff you see in movies like Demolition Man and the like. It's basically a garden shed. A Tuff Shed to be accurate. A few years ago the original shed-like structure was in imminent danger of collapse due to the harshness of Colorado weather and a certain lack of construction expertise on the part of the original builders. Because Coloradans are kind hearted helpful types and the local Tuff Shed people saw a marketing opportunity that begged to be exploited, a shiny new shed was built to replace the shaky old one. That worked out nicely for Tuff Shed, since they became a sponsor in later years of the Frozen Dead Guy Days. Don't you like happy endings?

Bredo's shed is a very nice shed. If I ever have to be entombed in a shed I'm confident that a Tuff Shed is the way to go. I'm not too sure that the company is happy to get this endorsement, since I haven't seen any marketing campaign promoting the idea of storing deceased loved ones in backyard sheds. But still, if it becomes a trend, it's nice to know one company is out in front, ready to lead.  

Back to the tour. The shed, or cryonic facility, depending on what description pleases you more, is located next to the unfinished shell of a house that Bredo's grandson was building before he was deported. The deportation was apparently due to the fact that the grandson was a) not a US citizen; b) living in the US illegally for years; and c) just possibly crazy as a loon.

The first couple of factors are based on historical record. The third is only a surmise, based primarily on a) the fact that he was cryonically storing his grandfather in a garden shed and b)  the design and construction of what was to be the grandson's primary residence. I like to think of the not quite complete structure as the 'Doom Bunker'. It's constructed entirely out of concrete, a construction material that isn't exactly the easiest stuff to use for people who are learning about it on the fly. He did buy a paperback book with handy advice for the first time concrete home builder. It had a photo of Don Knotts on the cover. I think that pretty much says everything that needs to be said about the longevity that could be expected from the structure.

Anyway, the cryonic facility is, as we mentioned earlier, a Tuff Shed. The cryonic chamber itself is a large wooden box with extensive plastic foam insulation on the inside. The bottom of the chamber or box is filled with the mortal remains of Bredo, contained within what appears to be a sheet metal box. The box is surrounded by chains, which at first blush we thought might be a means of insuring that during the inevitable zombie apocalypse that shall soon be upon us, Bredo would stay safely in his box. Unfortunately, the explanation was lot more prosaic and not nearly as much fun - the chains were used to lower the box into the chamber and left on because they were too hard to remove afterwards.

Also contained within the cryonic chamber was cake from birthday celebrations of years past, as well as ice cream, because what's a birthday cake without ice cream? I like to think of this as the modern version of burying great nobles back in the Bronze Age with weapons, food, and slaves to accompany them on their journey through the afterlife. 

The inside of the chamber is filled with dry ice supplied by Bo, and replenished on a regular basis. How much does it cost to keep a dead guy on ice year-round, you might ask? From what we could gather it should set you back around $800 a month.

After removing the cover and observing the sheet metal box that Bredo actually resides within, we all had a toast to his memory and eventual resurrection, with Old Grand-Dad whisky. You see, the tour itself is not one of those things that can be purchased with money or a credit card. Our guide, Bo, is a staunch Libertarian and insisted that the tour would need to be handled through the mechanism of barter. It's also possible that it's illegal to charge money to look at boxes containing dead people. In our case, we decided to proffer a bottle of Old Grand-Dad. We discovered afterwards that a team of crack journalists from the National Enquirer did the same some years ago when they were pursuing a story about Bredo. So this pleased us no end.

 

Photo: Cocktails at Bredo's Shed with creepy lighting.

 

 

Thus concludes our visit to the Norwegian-American cryonic center of Nederland, Colorado. It was a weird and wonderful trip which we most definitely will never attempt again.

Next: Face plants and frozen toes as the Frozen Dead Guy Days festival reaches a crescendo of fun!