Jan and David, Cripple Creek, CO

The wedding (the party we couldn’t crash) was on Saturday, and we had already planned to have Jan and David stay a couple nights with us in the RV. They are planning to do much the same kind of RV retirement, except in Australia. They showed up in the late afternoon, and we had our own little wedding reception, just the four of us. Lei had chili in the crock-pot, and there were lots of, uh, beverages. We had a twelve-pack of a local beer, and a couple bottles of wine. Jan and David arrived with more beer, four bottles of wine, and a bottle of Dom Perignon. We spent a few hours around the campfire sharing stories and drinking champagne out of paper cups. Then we stayed up late finishing off the chili and drinking more beer.

In the morning Jan had several suggestions on places to go for a drive. Her brothers thought it would be nice to take us out to her old family homestead, about an hour east from Pueblo. Jan had already nixed that idea, since there wasn’t much left to the town. Her family had already been away from there for many years, and Jan didn’t really think there was much to show off anyway. Her preference was to head into the mountains for some sightseeing. We piled into their car and took a winding dirt road that followed a creek through the mountains. It was a beautiful drive between the canyon walls, and we marveled at the cliffs and crags of the mountains all around us. There were even a couple of short tunnels cut out of the rocky cliffs. We came to an old gold mining town in its last days of existence. There were a few businesses left open, a volunteer fire station and an Elks’ Lodge. There was some funny stuff floating around in the air, like ash from a fireplace. It was snow!! Amazing for a Hawai’I girl like me, but it meant it was too cold outside to step out and play. It was actually just light flurries, not a snowflake reached the ground.

We continued on to the next old mining town, called Cripple Creek. Yes, really, you can hum the song now. This old town is in the midst of a revival, due to a special law that was passed in Colorado to allow gambling in six specific mining towns that were about to cease to exist. So the town has a four block main street lined with casinos, big and small. Tour buses make the climb up the mountain to bring the city folk up here to gamble. We parked at the top of the street and walked down one side, trying our luck at the slot machines. Lei made $80 on a nickel slot machine, we stopped for lunch, then walked up the other side of the street to the car.

We drove back down the mountains into Colorado Springs, and then took another local road back to the campground. There was more beer and conversation, chips and salsa, and then we threw together some sandwiches for dinner.

There’s never enough time spent with Jan and David. We talk for hours, and never seem to get caught up with everything. We see them about once a year, no small feat considering that they live in Australia and we live on the road.