New Indiana Jones Movie Expected to Renew Interest in Indy’s Boyhood Home of Antonito, Colorado

Tour the Jones’ Home, Ride a Steam Train, Visit a Reptilian Farm & UFO Tower, Climb Sand Dunes & Soak in Mystical Hot Springs for an Indy-Style Adventure…

ANTONITO, CO, USA, June 19, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ — The date June 30, 2023, will be a big day for Antonito, Colorado, because that’s the day the fifth and final movie about the town’s most famous resident – Indiana Jones — will be released nationwide, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

It’s a little known fact that Indiana Jones’ boyhood home is located in the very small Southern Colorado town of Antonito.

The opening scenes in the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade were filmed in Antonito and depict a young Indy (played by River Phoenix) who tussles with bad guys on a circus train, filmed on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, and escapes to a beige stucco house with green trim and a front yard mailbox that reads, “Jones,” where his father (Sean Connery) sits inside reading.

Today, the house looks identical to the way it appeared in the film although now it’s called the Indiana Jones Bed & Breakfast and its filled with Indiana Jones memorabilia from all over the world. Tours are offered on Sundays.

The Jones’ home is a short walk to the Antonito Depot of the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad, where, like Indy, travelers can embark on an exciting and adventurous steam railroad ride. It’s where many of the train scenes were filmed. And from late May – mid-October, the Cumbres & Toltec, which is the nation’s highest, longest and most authentic steam railroad, operates six days a week.

Locomotive No. 484 was featured in the film and continues to operate today. In the movie, 484 kept its number but was dressed as the Pueblo & Chama Railroad and pulled a consist of circus cars filled with giraffes (a hole was cut in the roof for their long necks), lions, alligators, snakes and even a rhino. Indy spent his time on the train escaping from bad guys by jumping from the top of one circus car to another, often falling through the roof with nearly disastrous results. It’s been called one of the most thrilling railroad sequences ever filmed, and the Cumbres & Toltec steams along the same tracks and even passes a watering station that was constructed specifically for the film.

Unlike Indy, passengers can’t ride on top of the cars. But they can ride on the platforms in between cars, or in the outdoor gondola car, where the train steams along at 12 mph in fresh Colorado and New Mexico sunshine through forests of aspens, over roaring rivers and into dark rock tunnels. Docents will explain the history of the railroad and point out filming locations. The sun can be strong, so an Indy-style hat is suggested.

There are all sorts of Indy-worthy nearby adventures to add to a Cumbres & Toltec train trip and enjoy the beauty and fun along the Colorado-New Mexico border, including:

• Colorado Gators – Indy developed a life-long phobia of snakes after his experience on the Cumbres & Toltec. While there are no snakes on board these days, after disembarking, passengers can take a short drive to a reptilian farm, Colorado Gators, to get up close and personal with hundreds of rescued reptilians.

• Mystic Hot Springs – After the train trip, visit Pagosa Springs, home to the world’s deepest geothermal hot springs. Or check out the legendary high desert healing waters at Ojo Caliente, one of the country’s oldest healing spas. Other nearby options are Hooper Hot Springs, Joyful Journey, Valley View Hot Springs.

• UFO Watchtower – Indiana Jones encountered aliens in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull film, and the San Luis Valley is home to an inordinate amount of UFO sightings and the UFO Watchtower, where visitors can stay, camp or even just drop by “for some interesting chit chat about ufos, aliens, abductions paranormal and just about anything in the cosmos!”

• Great Sand Dunes National Park – The tallest dunes in North America are the centerpiece in a diverse landscape of grasslands, wetlands, forests, alpine lakes, and tundra. Visitors will feel like Indy in the Last Crusade desert scenes climbing the sand dunes.

No one knows yet if Indy will mention his boyhood home in the fifth movie installment coming out June 30, but Indy-style railroad adventures await. For more info, visit: www.cumbrestoltec.com or call: 1-888-286-2737.

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About the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad

The Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad follows the original 64-miles of tracks first laid down in 1880, crossing the borders of Colorado and New Mexico 11 times, as it skirts along canyon walls through Toltec Gorge, burrows through tunnels, steams over Cascade Trestle (137-feet above a roaring river), and climbs to the top of 10,015-foot Cumbres Pass, the highest point reached by any steam railroad in North America.

The railroad has been featured in more than 40 motion pictures, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Hostiles and more. The railroad also has the country’s largest collection of narrow-gauge locomotives and cars.

Joy Meadows
Meadows PR
+1 303-522-9045
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