Eating at Fargo’s Pizza is a Colorado Springs tradition in my family. I think it goes back to childhood visits; I know I have a photograph from 1987.

The pizza’s not super-awesome, but I love the old-timey pizza parlor, with balconies, rows of incandescent lights, staff in lacy dresses, and more.

More? Chandeliers, a player piano, carved statues, and your order number lighting up behind one of a pair of mirrors.

I mentioned to Liz that we were going there and she said, “I was just there! The random statues creep me out and I would die if I had to wear that much lace, but the food is decent. The five-year-old I was with was rather excited, so I just let her be enthusiastic for me.”

Whatcha tryin’ to say about me, Liz?

After checking out of camp late this morning, we continued south on Colorado 67 to Cripple Creek to ride the Cripple Creek and Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad. Standard railroads have 4′ 8 1/2″ between the inner edges of the rails; narrow gauge designates any railroad with a smaller distance, and narrow gauge railroads were common in mountainous regions and mining operations where the lighter construction was a critical factor. The CCVNGRR gauge is 2′, the smallest common narrow gauge.

The tourist operation has two active coal-fired 0-4-0 steam locomotives running alternating round trips.

Our train engineer is a civil engineering student in New Mexico and did a very respectable job of both driving the train and narrating the trip.

Yup, I was really there.

Immediately outside Cripple Creek stands a bargain at any price! It is a wonder no one has snatched this up.

The far end of the ride is at the ghost town of Anaconda, Colorado, of which few buildings remain.

The former blacksmith shop is the best preserved.

Up the hillside is the collapsed head of an old gold mine.

Up the hillside are some of the massive piles of the Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine, Colorado’s largest gold producer and one of the world’s largest open-pit heap leaching operations. They dig ore-impregnated rock out of the ground, crush it down to 8″ or smaller rocks, make mountain-high piles on top of supposedly impermeable membranes, drip arsenic through the piles to extract the gold from the rocks, and collect and process the arsenic at the bottom of the piles.

The Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mining Company has gradually purchased all of the land in what used to be Anaconda and their operation is so successful that they’re preparing to take over the entire Anaconda valley for another leach heap. Highway 67 will be rerouted, the CCVNGRR will tear up its tracks and build new ones, and all of this area will be filled with more rock piles for heap leaching.

At the end of the ride, the train pulls onto a Y track to let the other train pass, then pulls back onto the main track and returns to the station.

Since coming here every summer of high school, I’ve been aware of the locked shaft into the hillside behind the campfire area, but I’ve never gone into it.

It’s the entrance to a mine that never produced gold, and the claim for which was purchased to establish the original camp.

The entrance has always been barred by a locked gate to keep guests from mischief or injury and animals from taking up residence.

Last night on the way back from Monkey Rock, I visited with a summer staff member who was putting out the third-grade camp’s campfire. She told me that the lock is mainly to keep young campers out and gave me the combination. This morning I let myself in to have a look around.

Inside the first, locked gate is a second gate that could be, but isn’t, locked as well.

Soon I was walking deep into the dark, with my toy flashlight to provide meager illumination and my camera flash to blind me occasionally. Even though the mine is level, I felt as though I was descending into a cave.

As far as I went, there were abandoned electrical cables on the floor that used to light the mine.

It’s just dark in there, and taking pictures ruined any chance of my eyes acclimating. I got a little further than this, at which point the floor had increasingly deep puddles of water and increasingly large piles of debris and I turned back, to return on another trip with more candlepower.

Zoomed to my camera’s maximum focal length, the exit doesn’t look that far away. But I could hear water dripping behind me, and my footsteps echoed, and turning your back to an unexplored dark shaft is far creepier than walking into it in the first place with your back to a lighted entrance.

A good view of the double gate.

And out the exit, back to civilization.

The short path to the campfire and gold mine has my favorite view of the chapel.

I spotted these pink wildflowers beside the path last night in the dark and was glad to come back to them this morning.

But I do so love looking down on the welcoming glow of shelter after dark.

I said, Raspberry it is.

It’s a hike I’ve done many times and the trail isn’t terribly steep, though altitude acclimation demands a conservative pace.

The path is inviting

and as Raspberry stands apart from other peaks, the views from the top are grand even though it’s not particularly tall.

The sharp peak on the right is Sentinel Point and the taller range to the left is the Pikes Peak summit approach.

Proof I was really there.

I tend to watch the trail pretty closely, so I saw different things on the way down than I had on the way up.

Looking down toward camp at Emmental.

I don’t think I’d taken a picture of this particular kind of purple flower yet.

After leaving the Da Vinci exhibit, we took US-285 and CO-67 from Denver into Woodland Park from the north, then on to camp for the reunion.

North Fork, Colorado Forest Fire Area

There’s been a lot of publicity about the Waldo Canyon forest fire between Colorado Springs and Woodland Park. I haven’t seen post-fire photos, and it’s hard to imagine what the area must look like, but here’s an idea.

The North Fork area had a forest fire this spring. The only surviving trees in the area are those uphill of clearings where the fire didn’t naturally jump. Grass is regrowing, but the trees are dead and it will be decades before they regrow. I question whether the conifers will even come back or whether aspen will regrow faster and take over.

We saw a lot of cut trees in the burned areas. It wasn’t clear whether the burned trees have been cut down or whether the trees were cut when the fire was coming in an attempt to establish a fireblock.

The Waldo Canyon area will look like this for a long time to come.

CO-67 to Woodland Park

I’m not sure whether this is a stream or a river, but I love the way it winds through the lowlands.

Rocky Mountain Mennonite Camp

The entrance to camp, off of CO-67 south of Divide.

Yeah, sorry, just can’t resist taking pictures of flowers.

The main lodge. I love Colorado rustic construction.

The dining room reserved for the Bartel reunion this weekend. We’re an ever smaller group — we used to fill the room and now we only fill four tables.

This morning we went downtown to Denver’s Pavilions mall to see the Da Vinci Machines Exhibition.

While waiting for the exhibit to open, we were serenaded by this pianist — quite talented — outdoors on the 16th Avenue Mall.

The Da Vinci Machines Exhibition is a realization in wood, metal, and canvas of numerous machines drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci. All of them are operable and many are hands-on.

A few of my favorites:

Catapult with ratcheting tensioner

An anemometer, which though simple, is quantitative

All-mechanical animated figurine

My favorite — a bridge made of notched logs with no fasteners

A bearing with captive balls

My second-favorite — a machine for safely raising posts to vertical to drop into postholes

Mom questioned that decision when paved Flagstaff Road gave way to unpaved Gross Dam Road, we were already lost in the wilderness, we had less than a quarter tank of gas left, and we were driving further into the wilderness. And frequently — one might even say continually — thereafter.

We persisted.

The payoff was worth it.

Gross Dam and Reservoir

I could see from the GPS that we were approaching a large lake, but I didn’t yet know it had a dam. This was our first view, through the trees looking down from the road.

Completed in 1954, Gross Dam stores and regulates water for Denver.

It fascinates me to think of how much solid concrete you must travel through to get to this spillway shack … and how far below the reservoir’s water surface you are while doing so.

The red floats, I believe, were installed to give the water birds a place to sit whilst waiting for a meal.

The dam creates Gross Reservoir, open seasonally for boating, fishing, and hiking, but not for swimming. Given the amazing views on the way there and the extremely pleasant climate, it looks like somewhere I’d enjoy spending a few days.

(More) Wildflowers

The leaves on the last bush look very like currant and gooseberry, but the berries were small to be currants. And also very red.

Union Pacific Railroad

Nearing Highway 72 toward the end of our drive, we suddenly came upon this Union Pacific rail line — clearly the railroad at the top of the world.

A fitting end to a day of travel.

We arrived in Boulder from the west early in the afternoon without specific plans other than to get to our hotel in Westminster later in the day. Dad thought he remembered a driving trail to the Flatirons, a set of flat, steep rock features on the mountainside; but it was actually paid parking for hiking trails that we didn’t feel like taking. We were right by Flagstaff Road, though, and figured we’d take at least a short drive through Boulder Mountain Park.

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The Panorama Point lookout had a nice view of Boulder, though a bit hazy.

And more opportunities to test my camera’s macro capabilities and autofocus.

Yesterday we left Estes Park for Boulder, heading out of town on scenic Highway 7 toward Nederland.

The route paid off quickly, with the road climbing above Estes and cutting through rocks it couldn’t as easily go around.

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Soon the road leveled to give us this view of the Long’s Peak range to the west.

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Rounding another bend brought us to St. Catherine of Siena’s Chapel, which I’d only previously approached from the southern direction. Pro tip: If you want to stitch photographs together into a panorama, make sure you have overlapping coverage.

St. Catherine’s Chapel is part of what used to be the St. Malo Retreat Center. Last winter, the retreat tragically burned in an uncontrollable fire and is closed, probably permanently. The chapel was untouched by the fire and remains.

Whistler’s Cafe, Nederland, Colorado

In Nederland, we stopped for lunch at a restaurant I remembered from three years ago. Whistler’s Cafe has a quaint appearance,

like my parents,

though it’s chock-full of signs for different brews and bands (unlike my parents).

But the real draw is the W.C. burger: Beef (medium = cool grey center?), crisp bacon, cheddar, and green chiles on a toasted bagel with cream cheese.

Boulder Falls

Almost immediately after leaving Nederland, we reached Boulder Falls, a very accessible waterfall.

It’s a short walk up the trail to the lowest falls. It used to be a much longer hike to higher falls, but that area is now closed for safety.