Blog Archives

Greetings from Colorado XIII

7/31/2024

Dear Friends,

We're making our way into through mountain passes and across the Continental Divide. We had to stop roadside to see these wonderful cascades at Berthoud. The rivers and creeks in the mountains move so rapidly as gravity pulls them down the mountain. Unlike the gentle sounds of a stream back home, these waters cry out loud as they fall down the incline. They truly are a treasure to behold.

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Quote: Character

7/30/2024

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“Character is like a tree
and reputation like its shadow.
The shadow is what we think of it;
the tree is the real thing.”
(Abraham Lincoln)

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Greetings from Colorado XII

7/29/2024

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Dear Friend,

Just a hop, skip, and a jump from the Dinosaur trail is Red Rocks. It is strange how the terrain can change in the blink of an eye from one place to another. These red formations jut out from the surrounding landscape, seemingly for no reason.

For some reason, somebody got the idea that this would be a good location for a concert venue. The outdoor stage is positioned in between the two largest formations, and the place hosts performers for sell-out crowds. There is a museum indoors that displays posters and artifacts from some of the past performances, including James Taylor, the Beatles, and several others.

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Quote: Character

7/28/2024

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“The law of harvest is to reap more than you sow. Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
sow a habit, and you reap a character;
sow character and reap a destiny.”
(George D. Boardman)

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Greetings from Colorado XI

7/27/2024

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Dear Friends,

We took a short trek to an area that has a concentration of dinosaur tracks, but it was so hot that we couldn't stand to make the entirety of the climbing trail. It you're looking at the pictures I've enclosed, pay particular attention to the one with a red circle. That, the experts say, is the track of a velociraptor (I'm not sure I see it.). There is one place in the rock wall where it looks like a giant dinosaur egg (I do see that.), but according to the sign, it's really nothing but an anomalous formation. I would not make a good geologist or paleontologist.

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Quote: Character

7/26/2024

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“Be more concerned with your character
than with your reputation.
Your character is what you really are,
while your reputation is merely
what others think about you.”
(John Wooden)

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Greetings from Colorado X

7/25/2024

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Dear Friends,

We're headed back to home base after a big day of exploring mines. The drive through Pike National Forest was beautiful, but I couldn't get many pictures (I was driving.). We did manage to stop at one place to capture the cloud shadows on the landscape. We also noticed the regrowing forest after a wildfire some time in the past.

People like to leave their marks - carving into trees, painting graffiti, etc. - so I guess leaving stickers on the guard rail is a little less destructive. It's a shame that it removes us from the pristine setting when we notice these things.

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Greetings from Colorado IX

7/24/2024

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Dear Friends,

Here, high in the gold fields, is a smattering of God's beauty - small flowers and grasses that take on a whole new emphasis in the rocky soil. Nothing grows in abundance here, but what does grow becomes more meaningful when you see it.

This was also our first sighting of bighorn sheep.

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Greetings from Colorado VIII

7/23/2024

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Dear Friends,

Can you see the low cloud that snuck in on us as we explored some of this old mining location? It just helped set the mood for some more photos. We felt like we were the only people in the world.

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Greetings from Colorado VII

7/22/2024

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Dear Friends,

We made it to the top and found our trail. This trail takes hikers past some really cool mining equipment and buildings. These were large operations that would have taken a number of men and boys working together to locate and extract gold ore. Some of that ore was likely also processed at this property.

While we were there (We didn't take the whole hike.), a cloud descended on our mountain. We loved the ethereal atmosphere. These old structures are so photogenic that I could have remained all day snapping away. I'll send you some more shots of the area tomorrow.

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Greetings from Colorado VI

7/21/2024

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Dear Friends,

We're headed to a hiking trail that will take us by and through a bunch of old mining operations and equipment, but on the way, we stopped on the side of the road to see this one. It looked a little too cleaned up to give us an idea of what it looked like when the facility was being used, but it still posed for some pictures.

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Quote: Character

7/20/2024

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“Within the character of the citizens
lies the welfare of the republic.”
(Cicero)

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Greetings from Colorado V

7/19/2024

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Dear Friends,

Right outside the historic Mollie Kathleen Mine is a modern gold mining operation. This one doesn't just penetrate the mountain; it just carves everything out it huge swaths.

This operation removes millions of dollars worth of gold from the ground every single day. The viewing area is the dumper portion of one huge vehicle (otherwise used on the property when attached to the vehicle). A staircase allows visitors to extend over the edge of the giant opening to get unobstructed pictures (It is counter-weighted by large stones in the other end.). The old mines in the area can still be seen in the area, and it makes one wonder which is the uglier, which is the most respectful of the land - the old mines with the old, unused equipment rusting into the atmosphere or the big crater left where a mountain once was.

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Greetings from Colorado IV

7/18/2024

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Dear Friend,

I took some very short videos of the operation demonstration from the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine near Cripple Creek, Colorado. I thought you might be interested in hearing how loud the mechanical tools would have been in the old mine. It was quite the operation, with men and boys getting paid next to nothing to lose their hearing and perhaps their lives. By the way, riding in the little train vehicle was both slow and interesting.

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Greetings from Colorado III

7/17/2024

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Dear Friends,

We finally ventured into mining country, just outside of Cripple Creek, Colorado. The old mine here - the Mollie Kathleen - is 1,000 feet below the surface. It is the only tourable gold mine with a vertical entry shaft. It's a dinky little elevator with wire walls into which we packed way too many people. Descending was an intimate affair with strangers packed together in a small space like sardines, literally squeezed together as to make it difficult to breathe.

It's not like the salt mine in Hutchinson, Kansas, and it's not like any of the natural caves we've toured. The gold mine here is packed with old, rusty equipment, some of which still works in the loudest of manners.

The walls are leaching copper, epsom salt, and who knows what, and we were told to stay between the rails of the original mining carts. In places, we looked up into an opening, and in others, we looked down.

They used to have mules down here. The noise and the darkness made the mules deaf and blind. When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the operations and saw the condition of the animals, he made it his business to inspire legislation to remove them from the mines. Those mules were set free and settled in nearby Cripple Creek - where their descendants still roam freely through the town.

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