Lemme Tell Ya the Story of Mike, the Headless Chicken

In Colorado in the 1940s, a guy stepped into his backyard to kill a chicken for dinner. His ax skills weren’t all they could have been, I’m guessing, because not all of the chicken’s head came off. What remained was one ear and the brain stem. The chicken (Mike) didn’t just run around headless, he continued to live headless, because—in true American fashion—his owner decided not to finish the job but to keep Mike alive so he could capitalize on the gruesome situation. For 18 months, he fed Mike through the wound in his neck using an eye dropper (eww) and took him on tour, charging today’s equivalent of $4 a view.

We were listening to this outlandish story on that app called Autio just as we were pulling into Fruita, Colorado. And, lo, right then we passed under a banner announcing the Mike the Headless Chicken Festival, and, even more lo, it was happening the very weekend we’d be staying near Fruita in Colorado National Monument. Our timing is terrible for festivals, for shows by bands we enjoy, for local merriment in general, but, look! We made it to the 25th annual Mike the Headless Chicken Festival.

Fruita, Colorado, may just be one of those small, funky towns that’s still weird. While listening to the intentionally hokey band the Cleverlys play bluegrass versions of 1990s pop songs, I chatted with locals about 1) Lenny Kravitz in Architectural Digest, 2) a comparison of the January 6th insurrectionist wearing the bison head to the 1990s punk/acid jazz band Jamiroquai (they both wear weird hats, but one is a violent traitor), and 3) how it’s surprisingly easy to ride your bike up the steep cliff road in the monument: “You just put in your earbuds and pedal.”

Alas, we missed the chicken-wing- and peeps-eating contests, the run-like-a-headless-chicken 5k, the myriad other chicken-themed events, plus the opening remarks by the governor, all because we were sweltering up on the monument and kinda afraid to try our luck at a crowded outdoor event down below.

You’d think with the slight elevation rise it would be cooler up high than down in the valley, but the rock faces up top retain the heat of the day, plus there aren’t any of the planted trees or agriculture that Fruita is known for along the Colorado River.

And the trailer is mighty hot in the sun, without shore power so without a.c., and without trees taller than junipers and pinyons. Our outside thermometer says 105 degrees in the sun.

But, we made it out of the sweltering monument for several bands and for local Colorado beers on draft, and it wasn’t even crowded. Heck, we parked about one neighborhood block from the little town park the festival was in and walked on over. No for-fee parking lots, no lines to wait in. Just small-town festival fun.

I even posed with the festival mascot, who is tall enough that he has to bend for anyone to notice the bloody end where his head should be. He might look like a chicken, but he gave me rabbit ears!

Colorado National Monument is an astoundingly beautiful place geologically, and I’m grateful we were here right in time to take in the weirdness that is nearby Fruita.