The anniversary of the Woodstock Music & Art Fair—the massive 1969 rock concert that defined the hippie generation—has become more nostalgic lately.

More than one-third of the 32 acts that performed at the original Woodstock have lost members, including to drug overdoses, writes USA Today, and, let’s face it, the tie-dye-wearing boomers aren’t getting any younger.

The 40th anniversary spawned sentimental news stories across Colorado over the weekend, contrasting suburban bliss with images of a half-million mind-altered people rolling around in the mud. To Martha Slonim, a Long Island gal who’s now 60 and living in Colorado Springs, the festival remains “such a big fog.”

“I remember hearing Richie Havens,” she tells the Gazette.

After Woodstock, Slonim was inspired to backpack through Europe, as was John La Ferlita, then a 23-year-old from Brooklyn and now a Boulder resident who teaches online courses for Loyola Marymount University and Colorado School of Mines. (more…)

There’s no shortage of news about how much of a bummer the Fourth of July will be in some places. Cash-strapped cities are scaling back the big celebrations, or even canceling them altogether, as is the case in Colorado Springs (via The Associated Press). But there are still good places to be–or go. Take Loveland, which is billing its display–at 9:17 p.m. on Saturday over Lake Loveland–as the largest in northern Colorado, writes the Fort Collins Coloradoan.

If Loveland seems out of the way, The Denver Post provides a long list of fireworks displays and other activities taking place throughout the state. Just don’t try to put on your own show in Denver. Police and paramedics, tired of seeing mutilated arms and burned hands and faces, have zero tolerance for anything that ignites or explodes.

“The only things that are legal are non-ignitable items such as paper-wrapped, small poppers,” Denver Police technician Dean Christopherson says (via the Post.)

Data extracted from a list of Colorado’s 5,086,672 registered vehicles and analysis of zip codes provides an interesting commentary on our fine state. If you live between Aurora and Broomfield or Granby and Platteville, you probably own a Ford pickup truck, according to 7News. Go to Steamboat Springs or Boulder–80487 and 80301 zip codes–and you find that Subaru wagons are the dominant vehicle. Check out your area; the entire list is here.

Meanwhile, more than 1,100 cars were stolen in the Pikes Peak region last year, and one in three were never returned. That’s why several police departments in southern Colorado have invested in license-plate-reading technology that uses two cameras, similar to face-recognition software, according to 11 News in the Springs. Thousands of plates can be read from an officer’s cruiser in a single shift. If there’s a match, the officer will be alerted by the computer.

Back in September of 1945, farmer Lloyd Olson was going about his usual business, cutting the head off a Wyandotte rooster. Strangely, the bird survived without a head, living until March of 1947, becoming an oddity in Colorado farm lore and eventually spawning a festival at the source of the incident, in the tiny town of Fruita.

The rooster was dubbed Mike, and over the weekend Fruita residents invited gawkers of all ages to celebrate the “Mike the Headless Chicken Festival,” as The Los Angeles Times reports, noting that back in the day, headless Mike was a wonder because he would preen. How did Mike live so long? His brain stem remained attached to his spinal cord, and his throat and windpipe still worked, allowing old Lloyd to get water and ground grain into Mike’s gut.

Although it’s not clear if Mike and the festival are big in Japan, calls for radio interviews this year came from as far away as Venezuela and England, says Ture Nycum, Fruita’s recreation director (via the Grand Junction Sentinel), who adds that the theme of the festival was, strangely, ’70s disco.

Check out photos of headless Mike, farmer Lloyd, people in chicken hats, and an egg race.