Staying in a great little town called Cripple Creek. An old gold mining town which still has a huge open caste mine in the mountain behind the town.

Before we arrived we traveled around a spectacular canyon in the Gunnison National Park. 2000 feet deep and narrow. Drove on to Snowmass [stayed there last night], an alpine village near Aspen, Colorado. Don’t know if I’d like all the snow in winter. Aspen was a picture postcard town, as well as exclusive! Prada, Dior, Burberry, etc were every where. Not even winning the BIG lotto prize would be enough to live here, US3.5 million for an apartment plus $10,000 per year in taxes.

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Travelled over a 12000′ pass. on our way to Cripple Creek.

12000' Independence Pass

Cripple Creek is a great casino town near Colorado Springs. Had a delicious meal of 1/2 a duck, considering the size it was very reasonably priced. Went into a couple of saloons to play a $ or two and settled down in one where the waiter kept bringing drinks. Only had to pay for the drinks with a tip, a dollar at a time! We played a Poker pokie for an hour and a half for $2 and had a few drinks along the way. They were giving out tickets to encourage the punters to stay, if the drinks weren’t enough. After an hour they’d call out the ticket number to spin the wheel. Well, $60 later we were very happy!!!!! The most you could win was $100 so I could have done better, BUT, I gave Shelley $1 to play the pokies and she won $20 so it was a pretty good night!!! Especially since we don’t normally gamble.

Cripple Creek

Shelley has to hold onto the post after all those Margaritas. I’m going to get into soooo much trouble for that comment!!!!!!!!!!!!!