Central City, Colorado

As I mentioned last time, we didn't realize how far away the Denver campground would be from the actual things we wanted to see so we only stayed one night there and then moved over to the KOA's Denver West location. Unfortunately, we soon discovered it was just as far away from Denver as the first campground AND it was 9,000 feet up in the mountains!

Once we made it up there, I wasn't in any hurry to go anywhere else for a few days, at least not in the RV!

Let's just say, travelling through the mountains in an RV has not been my favorite experience on this trip. I know the scenery is gorgeous and once you get where you want to go, it's worth it but, seriously, would it kill the drivers in Colorado to yield and merge properly?!? And why can't there be more tunnels? Forget this driving up and down 5%, 7% and even 8% grade roads! Tunnel through the mountains are a good thing. Just sayin'.

Tom and the kids in the Rocky Mountains.

Luckily for us, there were a lot a unique things to see and do in the Central City/Idaho Springs area. We passed on the Coors Brewery tour in Golden even though several people told us it was an interesting thing to do. Too bad we didn't want to gamble because there are 35 casino's in the area!

On the first day, we checked out Lookout Mountain and hiked around the Lookout Mountain Nature Center. Lots of ponderosa pines to see and a plethora of info about bears, snakes, mountain lions and wildfires. Not necessarily a reassuring experience when you are surrounded by the forest.

Kait & Andrew (aka "Ms. I'm So Hot" and "Mr. My Feet Hurt")
resting on a hike at the Lookout Mountain Nature Center.

Just up the road was Buffalo Bill Cody's grave and museum. The kids didn't have any idea who Buffalo Bill was but now they know more than most. Disclaimer: I make no guarantees and do not have any delusions that they will retain any of this information by the time we get back to Ohio. So if you ask them if what they know about Buffalo Bill and they say, "Who?" all I can say is I have the pictures to prove they were there.

Buffalo Bill's grave.

There was a book that had all of the dates and locations that Buffalo Bill's Wild West show toured around the country. I can confirm that the show did visit little old Newark, Ohio back in the day:

Buffalo Bill visited Newark several times.

Kaitlyn tried to rope the calf but got Andrew instead.

We spent the second day in town exploring the Argo Gold Mine and Mill. The explained how the gold was pulled out of the mountain and the different ways it was extracted from the rock. Tom took lots of pictures of the inside of the mill if you want to see the old machinery, I'm sure he'll be glad to show you. LOL

At the end of the tour, we learned how to pan for gold. Andrew was convinced he was going to strike it rich from the little bag of dirt they gave each of us. Most of us found a few specks of gold except Andrew who was so disappointed that there wasn't a huge nugget in the bag and he just didn't have the patience to separate the dirt from the gold. Shocking, I know.

The Argo Gold Mine and Mill

We walked back into this mine. Creepy.

Learning how to pan for gold.

Central City was a beautiful place to spend a few days. In town, the weather was sunny and warm. Up at the campground, it was sunny and cold but it was still beautiful. Here are just a few more pics of the scenery.

The view from the campground.

Denver (Strasburg), Colorado

We actually stayed in a campground in Strasburg, Colorado (KOA's Denver East location) which is on the far east side of Denver. We didn't realize how far away the campground would be from the actual things we wanted to see so we only stayed one night here and then decided to move over to the KOA's Denver West location (see our next post for Central City, Colorado).

While we were in Strasburg, we decided to make the drive into downtown Denver and check out the aquarium.

First, we grabbed dinner at the aquarium restaurant. The food was good and the tables were surrounded by huge floor-to-ceiling aquariums. We really enjoyed a relaxing dinner, watching the fish swim by.

Inside the restaurant at the Denver Downtown Aquarium

This aquarium had really nice exhibits and an excellent variety of fish. They even had some tigers but they must have already been down for the night because we couldn't find them in their enclosure.

Kaitlyn playing with a giant grouper.

Kelly & Kaitlyn trying to touch the sting rays.

When we were through the aquarium and had petted (?) the sting rays, they rolled some mermaids into the area and invited the kids to meet the mermaids.

Kaitlyn sat and chatted with these mermaids and when she was done getting her picture taken, she told us there was a mermaid show at 7:00 p.m. that night. I had noticed one of the tanks we walked by had seating for the mermaid show so I thought that would be fun to go back and see.

It was 6:30 so we wandered back to the tank with the mermaid show, sat down and waited. Then we waited some more. It was 7:05 before we began to question Kaitlyn about what she heard (or should I say what she thought she heard!) It also finally occurred to us to look more closely at the tiny sign that said "Mermaid Show here." In small print at the bottom it read, "Shows daily at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m."

Nice. We just sat there for the past 30 minutes for nothing. So what was Kaitlyn's defense? "Oh, I thought they said 7, they must have said 11!"

Classic Kaitlyn. As Marge would say, "Bless her heart!"