Criipple Creek

One day we took the back roads to Cripple Creek.

The first few times we ever went there it was a quaint old dying town with a few shops. It has "suffered' a rebirth in that it has been taken over by casinos. While there are a few new casinos that have been built, most are in the old stores downtown.

Cripple Creek is at an elevation of about 10,000 feet and is situated in a vast meadow.

One of our favorite things to do in Cripple Creek is to go on a search for the wild burros. Seems like it is about every other year that we find these fellows. These burros are descendants of the burros used by the gold minors in the late 1800's in this valley.

This time we found the burros in front of this very old log cabin one block south of Main Street. They were napping in the front yard.

One of the places that we visited was the new Pike's Peak Heritage Center that had opened since we were last here. The Center told the story of the gold rush in the Cripple Creek area.

It was a good preview for the train ride that we next went on. It was a narrow gauge train that took us through the fields of the old abandoned mines.

Before we left town, we once again went looking for the burros. When we went by the house where they were earlier, a guy was sitting on the front porch. I am sure he chased the burros off when he came home. So we circled the block and sure enough down the block were the burros grazing in a vacant lot. So more pictures were taken!

Mother and daughter....