Colorado – Riveted

Stormy Afternoon

Laura Domela — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:35:00 +0000

Cherry Creek State Park – on the way to Denver International Airport to pick up Kevin today.

Enormous Campsites and Puffy Clouds

Laura Domela — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 23:42:10 +0000

Look how huge these spots at Cherry Creek are! We need to have a party here, just so we can utilize all the space!

What you can't see is that our neighbors are each about 40-50 feet from us. I'll try to get that photo tomorrow.

Also, look at these clouds!!:

Aerial Shots from This Morning’s Hexacopter Flight

Laura Domela — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 16:47:45 +0000

Black dot at the clearing where the roads meet is us. (Click images to enlarge)

Looking toward our campground (light spot at the base of the trees toward the top of the picture, below Mt. Elbert):

Arkansas River:

Cripple Creek and Victor – Colorado

Laura Domela — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 20:07:11 +0000

Today after we finished most of our work we headed out for some lunch a little exploring. We backtracked a few miles to Divide, CO to check out a spot we'd seen on our way to Mueller State Park. The place is tiny — called Smokin' Q, and advertises smoked trout tacos and barbeque. Tough to pass up, so we didn't. We had a smoked trout taco and some pulled pork but the smoked trout taco was the clear winner. Tortilla filled with smoked trout, slaw, pickles, jalapenos, and some cilantro/tomatillo salsa. Delicious.

Then we headed to Cripple Creek.

This is a place Kevin's family used to come visit (from Texas) when he was a kid. They'd stay in Woodland Park in their camper and drive in with friends to Cripple Creek to explore a bit, check out the mining stuff, and go to a melodrama at the Imperial Hotel. Boy have things changed since then. It's really mainly a casino town now, and although it still has the look of an old mining town, almost every single storefront houses a casino inside. There were only a very few shops and restaurants. We walked around a little bit and took some photos to show Kevin's mom (and you, of course):

We continued on to Victor (apparently both Cripple Creek and Victor have started gold mining again) and I took these shots of the mining area on the way to Victor:

Kevin said Victor (today) is much more the way he remembers Cripple Creek being (when he was a kid): dirt roads, antique shops, mining stuff, no casinos:

And look what I found:

When we left this afternoon, it looked like this:

But just as we were getting back to the Airstream, there was a bit of thunder and some rain. No matter: we're cozy and have more work to do.

Mueller State Park – Divide, CO

Laura Domela — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 19:56:09 +0000

We left Alumafandango this morning and headed south a bit. We are now at Mueller State Park with a cool view of Pike's Peak. Gorgeous park! This is our new spot:

We have no AT&T cell service, medium weak Verizon data service, and no Sprint, so we'll see if we can work successfully from here. If not, we'll head into Divide or Cripple Creek and find a cafe to hang out in since we've reserved four nights here. We have some new and improved gear in our future: better outside antennas, better signal booster, etc. Will of course let you know "What When & Where" when we get it.

RV Park Quiet Hours

Laura Domela — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 10:44:48 +0000

We arrived here (Dakota Ridge RV Park) after the office was closed. They have a board with available sites on it that you can pick from when you come in late. We chose a back-in site, along "Scenic Rock Loop" that was away from the main road where you enter the park. When we got to the site, it was a little odd (very narrow, and the hookups are right in the middle of the lawn that you'd assume was the neighbor's space…and probably 8 or 10 feet away from the side of the trailer). They didn't seem to be bothered that we had to hookup our sewer connection right next to the suitcase they were repacking on the lawn — the one with the "Moose Crossing" sign on top of a bunch of souvenir T-shirts they're taking back to Bavaria with them.

We cooked some dinner, watched Breaking Bad (using the iPad and Slingbox to play it from our home DVR, because although this place says it has cable, there are only 9 channels and they are CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox, and a couple weather and local stations. That's not cable, that's just regular t.v.)

Sunrise over PVC cutter

Anyway, we went to bed fairly early, and it's a good thing we did, because right past these trees is some kind of warehouse and there's a guy cutting long pieces of PVC and then putting them on a trolly. Zzzreeeeeeh – one quick cut, 20 seconds, clack, zzzreeeeeeh one quick cut, 20 seconds, clack, repeat forever. Starting at 6am. Apparently he does not need to follow the 10pm to 8am quiet hours.

Also, a big flatbed truck just drove in with a load of rebar. Hope that's not for the cutter.

ATVing in the San Juan Mountains

Laura Domela — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 18:56:33 +0000

Airstream in the early morning light

We got up early this morning and headed downtown to meet up with our ATVs and our guide, Larry, at San Juan Backcountry. We highly recommend this place. The owners (Jessica and Larry) are awesome and we had SUCH a great time. Definitely will be doing this again next time we're in town (and probably sooner, in another town!). We had some breakfast next door at the Brown Bear Cafe, then went back to get outfitted with helmets, goggles, and gloves. We headed out from the staging area near the campground where we're staying. Streams, mountains, mines, alpine lakes, a couple of marmots, and here are a whole bunch of shots from along the way:

Here's the GPS track of our ride:

The stats (which aren't quite accurate, because Kevin started the GPS after about 9 miles in…so we went more like 27 miles total). Look at that max altitude!

And here's a link to the interactive map.

I think we should do MUCH MUCH more of this. It was such a blast. (But first, my throttle thumb muscles need to get a little stronger.)

Brass Band, Beer, and Burgers

Laura Domela — Sat, 18 Aug 2012 17:38:38 +0000

Last night we went to the 31st Annual Great Western Rocky Mountain Brass Band Festival in Silverton, CO. It was a blast. All of the musicians dressed in period outfits and played a variety of Sousa marches and other band standards.

This is Dennis Kurtz (below). He plays xylophone, and he tap dances (both separate from and while he's playing the xylophone). We heard that he's also the town plumber and that his wife used to be and may still be the mayor of Silverton.

The concert started at 7pm and was over around 9:30pm. We didn't have dinner before the show so we thought we'd see if anything was still open in town. Hah.

The Silverton Brewery looked to be open so we thought we'd just see if by chance they might have some food in addition to beer. We parked and walked up to the front door and asked if they were open (there was only one table with a couple people at it) and whether they still had food. The guy working there said they didn't, and walked out front with us to see if he could see/think of any places in town that might still be open with food. Then, he said "Y'know what? If you don't mind waiting a few minutes, I'll just fire up the grill and cook you something here. Come on in." He said no, he didn't mind at all, so we went took him up on his really nice offer.

We sat at the bar and had a beer and he made us some chili and burgers and fries and everything was great. After a few minutes, several more people wandered in and ordered some food as well, so I think it ended up worth the double cleaning on the grill. We left him a good tip to help.

Around Silverton

Laura Domela — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 21:08:03 +0000

We went in and walked around downtown Silverton this afternoon. Lots of little touristy shops and old buildings.

I stocked up on some cool rock jewelry — a turquoise pendant on an 18" cord:

An agate ring:

And another pendant to put on the same cord — I can't remember what the guy said this purple stuff was, but it's cool and hard to capture in a photo:

The guy in the gem shop gave us a couple of tips, and one of them we're going to follow on Saturday evening: Montagne Distillers in Silverton — a craft distiller of award-winning rum made from scratch by hand. Saturday evening they have live music and rum drinks and tapas, and they have a rooftop bar. We're there!

After exploring town a bit, we drove up to the Hillside Cemetery and looked around. We didn't do the full tombstone exploration mission we plan to, just a quick pass this time:

Here's a shot from the cemetery that gives you the whole picture of things:

Driving from Ouray to Silverton

Laura Domela — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 17:32:51 +0000

We made it. In case you were worried.

Here are some pics:

Okay and somewhere up way way way WAY up on the side of a cliff, I noticed a little cabin (or maybe two small structures). Here's the overall pic (tiny brown dot in the middle)…

And here's the fully zoomed in pic (click to enlarge):

Wonder how anyone would get up there!

We stopped and took a picture at the Red Mountain Pass summit (11,018 feet):

Here's the view from our new campsite (a mine off in the distance):

Behind us is the Hillside Cemetery which we fully plan to explore.

And now, more work!