8/21 to 8/27
We arrived on Sunday at Mountaindale Campground just west of Colorado Springs, Co in the foot hills of the Rockies. We will stay here a week. The Springs, as the city is called, is a big city but easy to get around in. We, of course, spent time at Walmart shopping and the mall. They actually have 2 malls, one on the north side and one on the south. On Tuesday we drove clear to the north side of town to get the passenger windshield, which got broke in Canada, replaced. They also fixed the chips on the drivers side. We can still see those chips but they are much less noticible than before. We took a side trip in the truck to the Cripple Creek area which is an old gold mine town from the 1800’s. The first time we were here was in 1967 and was the first vacation we ever took. We really didn’t have much money and probably shouldn’t have even taken a vacation but we had fun. That time we stayed at the Imperial Hotel in Cripple Creek. As I remember, the only place to eat in the little town was an expensive buffet at the hotel restaurant. It was late by then, the food was cold and the only meat left was very dried up chicken wings. It seemed like everything was flavored with nutmeg. It is a memory. Now the town is lined on both sides of the main street with casinos. The few gift shops they had are fronts for the casinos. In 1996, with the price of gold rising, mining resumed in the area. The surface mine, CC & V, is located between Cripple Creek and Victor. It is quite large. Information about it can be found at:
http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/gold.html We drove the Phantom Canyon Road back to the Springs. It s a gravel road and has some spectacular views. We found the Colorado State Fair in Pueblo starts on Friday. Since we are planning to stay in Pueblo Sunday and Monday nights we decided we should make sure we could find a campground to stay in. So we drove to Pueblo, about an hour’s drive from our campground, on Saturday to check it out. We will have no problem finding a spot. While in Pueblo we stopped to see our great granddaughter, Kaley, for a short time. It is to spend time with her that we are staying in Pueblo.