After a night in Pueblo we headed up to the golden hills of Cripple Creek. Cripple Creek is a classic former gold camp that experienced a huge boom in the late 19th century followed by a huge bust. Gina and I visited there in 2005 and took the tour of the Mollie Kathleen mine. For some reason we thought Abby would enjoy being 1,000 feet underground. To get into the mine, they stack you nine deep into this tiny miners cage. We got the privilege of touring with a Boy Scout troop. No evidence of farting was apparent on the elevator, but later during the tour, it seemed that one of the Scouts needed to get back to the surface before something awful happened.

It turned out that Abby did enjoy being 1,000 feet underground. It’s really an interesting tour. I recommend it. Cripple Creek also boasts a fantastic tour of a former brothel, which we went on the last time, it’s pretty graphic and we didn’t feel it would be appropriate for Abby. I also recommend it.

The Mollie Kathleen has a bunch of old equipment and vehicles sitting around on the property. I didn’t have much time to check them and the light was bad for photography, so I only shot this old truck. I gave it the HDR treatment because the light was so contrasty.

We took the short ride on the Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad. It’s pretty cool because the engine is powered by coal-fired steam. we sat up in the very front so we could watch the engineer do his work. He had to shovel coal, operate the engine controls and be a tour guide all at the same time.

The railroad operates two trains. The other one was painted to look just like Thomas the Tank Engine. Abby got a huge kick out of that.

We then drove a couple of miles to Cripple Creek’s sister town, Victor. In between, there’s a giant open pit gold mine that still produces millions in gold. Victor is little less tourist oriented (there are no casinos) and there’s a lot of historic structures just sitting out waiting to be explored. I found this collection of nails, all of which apparently failed at their job, on one of the abandoned head frames that dot the countryside.

Down on the main drag the museum was holding a gold panning fund-raiser. For $5 you got to pan in the wooden trough all you wanted. The museum owners said they bought some gold from a company and mixed it with sand and dumped it in the trough. They also added a bunch of colorful rocks and iron pyrite so that the kids wouldn’t go away empty handed. Abby seemed quite pleased with the “treasures” she got. Gina and I are big fan of the TV show Gold Fever, so we’ve seen a bunch of footage of Tom Massey panning gold. The museum’s co-owner, who also works for the giant open-pit gold mine, watched us and remarked, “You folks look like you know what you’re doing.” Damn right.

Victor offered some excellent late-afternoon-wall-porn shooting.

We left the sand dunes and headed out for Royal Gorge located on the other side of the Sangre de Cristos. We went over Poncha Pass out of the Rio Grande drainage and into the Arkansas River drainage. The highway runs right next to the river for miles, and we stopped a couple of times to watch rafters running the whitewater.

We had decided that this day would be an Abby day and we knew she’d like Royal Gorge because it’s basically a permanent county fair complete with carousel, petting zoo and funnel cakes. This would make the third trip to RG for Gina and me. We stopped there on our honeymoon in 1994 on the way out to Arches National Park and again in 1999 during a tour of the West. RG has changed quite a bit since our first visit. The main reason to visit used to be the bridge, which was once the highest bridge in the U.S. Now the bridge is just a means to get from the merry-go-round on the east side of the bridge to the fake Old West town on the west side. The bridge is supposedly the tallest in North America and was once the tallest in the world. Although some dispute over the actual height has arisen in recent years. An exhibit of elk and buffalo along with one of those giant three-man swings were new attractions since our last visit. The swing zooms out over the gorge for what must be a true pant-soiling thrill. We didn’t try it. The whole thing is crass and ridiculous and the perfect example of everything that is wrong with America and Americans.

Abby did the burro ride twice, riding a different burro each time. They were named Strawberry and Blueberry. The rules were that two grownups had to accompany the child on the burro, one to lead the animal and one to hold onto the kid to prevent a fall. I was leading Strawberry when I stopped to take a picture and the girl in charge started screaming at me to never let go of the lead rope. In mortal fear of shattering what sounded like the #1 rule of the burro ride, I grabbed the rope and wasn’t able to get a photo of Abby and the burro’s head in the same picture.

This trip to RG might have been the greatest experience of Abby’s life. She’s not big on showing joy. She doesn’t smile much normally, but she smiled nearly the entire time at the gorge.

We panned for gold and Abby tried to convince me of the utter folly of looking for gold in a wooden trough whose contents are controlled by the owners of an amusement park.

Then we rode the scary tram/elevator thing to the bottom of the gorge. While we were down there, Gina re-enacted a photo pose from our honeymoon trip.

A wag, while looking at our freshly developed honeymoon photos way back then, remarked that Gina looked as if she had been suddenly struck blind.

The park also boasts the highest tram in the world. We didn’t ride that thing either.

An older Asian gentleman with a loose grasp of English and I swapped cameras in front of the water-driven clock/calendar. I shot a photo of him and his family and he shot a photo of me and mine.

RG is also home to the most craptastic tourist-crap emporium that I’ve ever had the privilege to visit. Its crowning glory is this huge wall dedicated to displaying the crappiest possible useless crap to be found on the earth. This hideous collection of lame scenes laquered onto tree slices (which quite possibly are actually plastic) doesn’t even contain one example with the words Royal Gorge crappily painted or printed on it. I want to meet the person who hangs one of these on their wall and proudly boasts that they got it at Royal Gorge so I can see with my own eyes why we’re all doomed.