Colorado 2016 - Part I

Everyone has "that" special childhood memory of what summer vacations were to them. Mine has always been Colorado Springs. Every summer we would load up in the Winnebago with it's brown and orange stripes and 3-person front passenger seat and drive west heading for the mountains.

I've always told the boys about my summer vacations as a girl. I didn't get to go on a cruise ship or play in the turquoise ocean water. No. Instead we would catch fireflies, watch the lightning roll in over the mountains, or boy-watch wherever we went (most catches were attempted at "Fun Valley Rec Hall").

Nevertheless, they sat and listened to endless stories of "Colorado Times". Thats why when the opportunity arose to meet my Dad and Jo there and revisit some of the things I did as a kid, I pounced.

Thursday: Victor was an old Ghost Town we used to go to every summer. It's filled with old mines from the Gold Mining days and the town itself was a bit more bustling than I remember.

Kids were on the street corners mining for gold outside of the museum in an old gold cart, people were walking their dogs, and there was even a diner open attached to an old tavern. What I found funny is that the history of the diner/tavern was on the front of the menus.

It was outlined that prostitution was a big deal during the gold days and that this tavern (after burning down a few times) ran a ring out of the main floor up to a second "action" floor. The door that led up stairs sat right there, with an old crank-style door bell next to it. Oh the stories it held.

Historically, there is a giant line you had to wait in to enter the gates to Seven Falls. As we cringed heading that way, we noticed that this was now "Shuttles Only" and people were to park down in a lot, and shuttle up. I get the idea, but thought of another shuttle was not on my "I really want to do this" list. The van in front of us turned around to go to the parking lot and I saw my opportunity: right in front of us, a shuttle was entering through the automatic "shuttle only" gate. I joined him. The look on the gate attendant's face was priceless but she didn't say a word and we proceeded past her and all the poor people who had chosen to walk up instead of shuttle in.

Dad also was proud that he figured out that the piping system actually fed water back up to the top of the falls and that this likely wasn't a natural running waterfall (to the extent it was running). This was sort of a bummer, but I guess it wouldn't be much of an attraction if this was literally "Sometimes Running Seven Falls" or "Trickling, Look Close, Seven Falls".

It could also legitimately be named "Seven Heart Attacks Falls" because the series of 1,594 stairs that you could opt to climb look like a heart-attack waiting to happen. The boys (Nate included) figured that at the top of the falls, there HAD to be a rare Pokemon (Pokemon Go is a retarded web-based game ridiculously popular right now), so they climbed to the top but were let down when Griffin turned the phone off and when it turned back on, the rare Pokemon was gone. Bummer.