Buena Vista Sept. 9 Winter Wonderland and Ghost towns

 Good morning and good grief!!!

This mornings view out the window. We woke up to 12" of heavy wet snow.

After scraping off the truck we played a couple of games, had lunch and took off to explore. 

First stop Salida. A beautiful little town outside Buena Vista about 30 miles. It was a winter wonderland drive. I fought the urge to play Christmas music. Aw, just one maybe. "It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas" by Bing Crosby. Thankfully, I have a very agreeable husband.

Think of a salad bowl. The town at the bottom and mountains all around the sides. That's Salida. We bought a fresh ground coffee and walked around a bit. It was the best tasting coffee I've had in awhile. Then at the advice of the barista we drove up a road called Spiral Drive. It wound around the mountain in a spiral, hence Spiral Drive! We got up a little over half way up and stopped. The snow was rather slushy and Evan decided not to go any father. But the VIEW!!! 

Evan stands looking 365 degrees around. The mountain tops are above the clouds.

On the way back to the RV park we decided to visit St. Elmo. A deserted ghost town near the top of Mt. Princeton, which stands over 14,000 feet. It was an 1860's gold mine town. At one time 2,000 people lived up there. Now, it is a Historical Site. A lot of the buildings are still standing. It was so cool. We were the only ones up there. A bit spooky, but cool. I tried to imagine what it was like to live up there, but had a hard time; it was so remote. It was 14 miles up a windy road, 5 or so of it gravel. At that time the only access was horse and wagon. At least they didn't have to worry about running out of toilet paper...there was NONE.

We came back to Buena Vista, had a fire roasted pizza in town and called it a day. And a good Charles Martin book saves the night! This little trailer seems to be getting smaller. Could that be a real thing???

I pray tomorrow we can head out to Gunnison for a couple of days. It totally depends on the road conditions.