Travels with Beth, Part I

Tuesday, Sept 26…  

Today we went both over and under the Rockies. Weather forecasts had been iffy, but glorious sun and blue skies prevailed. And Beth was amazing. Still recovering from minor surgery, she enthusiastically chauffeured us for 8 hours or so (about 300 miles, all of it over a mile up).  The map is a terrible photo, but a few of our stops are visible.  NOTE: Most photos were taken from the car. ☹

The first pic (below) is the view as we headed 

out of Denver on I-70 toward Georgetown (above Mt. Evans on map).

Mt. Evans, snow covered at 14,265'

Lots of color on Main Street

Georgetown began as a silver mining camp shortly after the discovery of gold in the Pike’s Peak area. Like most mining towns, it thrived during the last decades of the 19th century. Once known as the “Silver Queen of Colorado,” today it’s a popular summer stop for tourists who enjoy both the scenery and the many preserved buildings from the town’s heyday. We watched a film about the community’s pride in achieving these restorations and then drove around to see for ourselves. 

Iconic Autumn Vista

Not important, just cool.

Stream above Georgetown

Guenella Pass (11,670'), above the treeline.

(Not a postcard. 😃)

"Gold" along the highway.

View across Park (County) South Valley
(On the map, we're probably due east of Mt. Lincoln, just leaving the nat'l forest.)

We continued south, eventually stopping for lunch at the Simple Eatery in Buena Vista (where I used to visit some of my extended family). Interesting choices (like carrot coconut soup) and wonderful paninis. Also interesting was the fact that the restaurant shared open building space with Spoon-It-Up (like Menchie's) and Trailhead Clothing. (Buena Vista is NE of the red inverted teardrop in the lower left hand corner of the map.)
After lunch we drove south paralleling the Collegiate Peaks (Mts Princeton, Harvard & Yale), then west along Chalk Creek, passing the upscale Princeton Hot Springs Resort and heading higher up toward an assortment of summer cabins. (One of these belonged to Beth's family for many years. Her dad was a serious rockhound who loved to spend weekends digging in the upper reaches of Mt Antero, 14,275'). Finally we reached St. Elmo (9961'), once a booming mine town (more than $60 million in gold from just one of the 4 mines), now an oft-visited ghost town famous for its chipmunks. Here's the visual story...

Chalk Cliffs, to the right.

Collegiate Peaks

Chalk Creek

(The chapel is out of sight, but God
 can't be far away when you're at 10,000'.)

We bought water here. (I would've
bought a t-shirt if I'd found anything
smaller than 2X. Must be end-of-season.)

Cute!

Unsinkable Molly Brown

After St. Elmo we backtracked to the main road, then headed north through Leadville (Rte 24), another iconic mining town. (And as I type, having now researched the town more thoroughly, I really wish we'd had time to stop here. Very colorful history - check it out!) Leaving Leadville, we continued north on 91, passing Copper Mountain and Dillon Reservoir before driving under the continental Divide through the 1.7-mile Eisenhower Tunnel and retracing our earlier outbound route on I-70. Beyond appreciating the beautiful scenery, we end the day somewhat overwhelmed by the scope of America's history and landscape. 

Delaware Hotel (1886), named after the
owners' home state and now sometimes
referred to as "the museum with pillows."

Abandoned Mine

Eisenhower-Edwin C Johnson Memorial Tunnel
(Johnson was a Colorado senator/gov who 
lobbied for an interstate across his state.)

BlogThought... Despite both my limited tech skills and ongoing frustration w/ Internet access, I am eternally grateful for the ability to have so much information at my fingertips. Yes, it would be nice to tour the Delaware Hotel and Molly Brown House (which is actually in Denver), bu when we do take these tours I still forget key points or dates and end up doing research anyway. And (though I admit this is both a blessing and a curse) I love the ease of related research just by clicking the link w/in my current topic. 

Can't leave this one out... I think we were climbing Guenella Pass when I shot it.