Raton and Colorado Springs

Tuesday, September 13, 2010

I'm sorry there has been such a long delay in blogging.

The last I wrote we were to meet up with friends in Trinidad, CO for Memorial Day Weekend. Windsor, and his wife have a cabin in the mountains, but sadly, Windsor's Dad passed so our plans were canceled.  Tommy and I camped out in a town Raton. It was cute. Nothing to write home about but we survived it.

From Raton we drove to Colorado Springs. We arrived on Tuesday and set up camp. I hated the RV park. Hated it.   As soon as we were all set, we headed into town (which is huge!) 414,000 people live here. We searched out another park on the other side of town. At the bottom of Pike's Peak. It was, and is, a whole lot better. I did the stats on CO Spngs, and came to find out - The Bloods, and The Crips are extremely present here. And the first park we were in was in 'their' territory. I was totally freaked out and was not Tommy's best friend, until we moved.

The following day, Helen arrived at 3:30pm and Kaitlyn at 8:05pm. Helen stayed in a hotel, and Kaitlyn stayed in a cottage that is just on the other side of the fence to our RV Park. Our RV park is backed up to the Garden of the Gods Park. It is beautiful!

On our first adventure out  we toured the Miramont Castle. It was very interesting. It was built in 1895 by Father Jean Baptiste Francolon as a home for himself and his mother. It was taken over by the Sisters of Mercy in 1904 when Father Jean became sickly and returned back home to France. In 1946 it was sold to various private individuals who subdivided it into 10 apartments for WWII returning soldiers. Again in 1976, it changed hands. The Historical society bought it and thousands of volunteers gave hours of their time and energy for restoration. It is over 14,000 square feet and 4 floors.

On the end of your tour, instead of being shuffled through a 'gift shop', as in every other tourist trap you experience, you are directed to the 'Tea Room'. It was the 'sun room' when people lived there and today is a place for lunch. We had a ball. Tommy, not so much! They offer big hats for all the ladies to wear while having lunch and drinking tea. Of course we engaged. We placed a gentlemen's hat on Tommy but as he put it - I have never been, and probably never will be.....a gentlemen! We snatched a photo as quickly as we could and it returned to the hat stand promptly! Nor did he drink tea!

From the castle tour we headed out to the Caves of the Wind. This was really cool. There were 15 of us in the tour and our guide was extremely witty. (sorry Kim, you weren't there, we asked for you but they said you had the day off).  At one point in the tour our guide shut every available amount of light off and it was creepy. They offer a candlelit tour and we wanted to do it but we were running out of time.
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We wanted to go by the 'Cave Dwellers to finish out the day. W did but we were very disappointed. It was original, and they tell a good story about the Anasazi Indians but there were only 4 homes left to tour. They are extremely small and baron. The scenery from the point at which they are located is beautiful but its by no means the Ritz.

I have so many pictures from the last week that I am going to break these blogs in pieces. I hope you can keep up. Thanks for reading.