Day 18, July 24th
We had a great night’s sleep and got up early to discover an amazing complimentary breakfast. This was similar to the one in Carson City, but instead of eggs, bacon, and sausage, there were two waffle makers. Yummy! Lynnae made the first one, then Louie and I followed suit.
Our destination this morning is Cripple Creek, sight of historic town and gold mines in Colorado. The first thing that came to mind was the song by The Band: Up On Cripple Creek. According to Wikipedia, it’s possible the town inspired the song.
Our first stop in town was the Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad. This is a four mile track travelled by a steam engine train and educating the riders on the gold mining history in the area. There were a few stops to view abandoned mines and towns.
After the train ride, we toured the Cripple Creek District museum. This included three buildings with six floors of mining memorabilia, maps, paintings, glass and china, children’s items, furnishings, an assay office, a photograph gallery, Indian artifacts, mineral displays and two Victorian apartments. It was a great view into what life was like at the time.
The most amazing thing we learned about Cripple Creek was that it almost became the capitol of Colorado. A statewide vote proclaimed the city of Denver the state capitol in 1881 by one vote. Looking at the town now, it’s hard to believe there were enough people there to swing the vote.
As we drove through town, I noticed an excessive amount of casinos. There were a couple large ones, but mostly they were little ones, maybe the size of a bar or tavern. Apparently the state voted to allow Cripple Creek to establish legalized gambling around 1990. Prior to that, it was almost a ghost town. I spoke to one lady at the museum gift shop, and she loves living in town.
We headed to the American Eagles Scenic Overlook, where we drove up a gravel road to an abandoned gold mine. As soon as we left the car, it started to rain. Big gloopy drops that drenched one within a minute. We ran from building to building to avoid the rain, but when the lightening and thunder started, we opted to leave. As we made our way down the mountain, we had to cross the “highway” for the working gold mine where huge dumptrucks were moving back and forth carrying loads of crushed rock.
Moving back through the town of Victor and Cripple Creek, we stopped at the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine tour spot. Here is where the tour takes place 1000 feet under ground. Transportation is by skip (elevator) to the tour level. They crammed 7 of us into the skip before they sent us down to the mine. It was about a 45 minute tour, including demonstrations of the air powered mining equipment and how the mines were created and worked.
After getting back to the surface, we ran through the rain to get to the car. After hashing it out, we decided to travel up to Pike’s Peak. We were too late to ride the cog railway, so we started to drive. When we paid our entry fee, we noted the temperature at the Peak was 49 degrees and windy. Elevation, 14,100 feet. The road is 19 miles of curvy, twisty road and mostly gravel. It took almost an hour to reach summit. Seemed like we would never get there. Along the way we saw a few marmots, as well as passed snow banks.
At the top, it was raining and cold. We ran to the gift shop and looked out the window. If the weather had been clear, we could have seen for miles. We were able to see Colorado Springs down in the valley. As we walked around the gift shop, Louie and I noticed that we were dizzy, and Lynnae commented that she was getting a headache. Definitely symptoms of altitude sickness. We walked back to the car and headed back down the mountain. I dropped the car into 1st or 2nd gear, depending on the grade. By the time we were halfway down, the ranger at the brake checkpoint told us we had to pull over and cool down the brakes. So we sat there with the hood up (along with 3 other vehicles) for 30 minutes. While there we noticed quite the build up of mud on the car.
The rest of the trip down the mountain was smooth and slow. We made it back to the hotel by 8PM and got ready for bed after watching a little TV. It was very tiring and a bit stressful after that drive. We saw alot today, and took in alot of information. I bought a few books about the area and am looking forward to reading them when we get home.
Tags: Travel
Lisa
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