Cripple Creek and Victor – Colorado

Today after we finished most of our work we headed out for some lunch a little exploring. We backtracked a few miles to Divide, CO to check out a spot we'd seen on our way to Mueller State Park. The place is tiny — called Smokin' Q, and advertises smoked trout tacos and barbeque. Tough to pass up, so we didn't. We had a smoked trout taco and some pulled pork but the smoked trout taco was the clear winner. Tortilla filled with smoked trout, slaw, pickles, jalapenos, and some cilantro/tomatillo salsa. Delicious.

Then we headed to Cripple Creek.

This is a place Kevin's family used to come visit (from Texas) when he was a kid. They'd stay in Woodland Park in their camper and drive in with friends to Cripple Creek to explore a bit, check out the mining stuff, and go to a melodrama at the Imperial Hotel. Boy have things changed since then. It's really mainly a casino town now, and although it still has the look of an old mining town, almost every single storefront houses a casino inside. There were only a very few shops and restaurants. We walked around a little bit and took some photos to show Kevin's mom (and you, of course):

We continued on to Victor (apparently both Cripple Creek and Victor have started gold mining again) and I took these shots of the mining area on the way to Victor:

Kevin said Victor (today) is much more the way he remembers Cripple Creek being (when he was a kid): dirt roads, antique shops, mining stuff, no casinos:

And look what I found:

When we left this afternoon, it looked like this:

But just as we were getting back to the Airstream, there was a bit of thunder and some rain. No matter: we're cozy and have more work to do.