Encampment, WY

Our last full day in the Saratoga, WY area took us to the Grand Encampment Museum about 20 miles south of Saratoga. Fascinating collections of a dozen or more buildings from the mining era all loaded with artifacts. We ventured to an Encampment River Wilderness trailhead and hiked for about 30 minutes when we stumbled onto a pelt on the trail and a fellow returning hiker told us of a fresh carcass in the river. We turned back. Some ice cream at SunnyCup (very kid friendly) in Saratoga soothed the soul as did lunch at the Hotel Wolf - finally! All the day's photos start here.

A 2-story outhouse! Can you guess why?

Lynn is in her element.

Saratoga and Encampment Railway

Famous team of white horses in Saratoga.

Accordions!

Lynn's grandma made her a shirt in this style.

Encampment River Trail

SunnyCup

Hotel Wolf

Found on the trail. It made us uneasy.

Saratoga, WY

Lynn finally got her shot at driving a golf cart - on a golf course! Don't ask, we didn't keep score. We had a pretty good sandwich at Saratoga Sandwich Company. Next, we explored the Saratoga Museum which happened to be right across the street from the airport - which had an unusually large ratio of large private jets. Dinner at Bella's Bistro! All the day's photos start here.

Saratoga Sandwich Company

Saratoga Museum

Saratoga Hot Springs

A toilet building

On final to Saratoga airport.

Another good time at Malt.

Bella's Bistro

To Saratoga, Wyoming

After dropping Matteo at his driver's ed class, Nana and Papa headed off on their Wyoming trip. Today's destination was Saratoga, Wyoming. The first stop came early in Castle Rock at the Pegasus on Plum Creek restaurant. Not sure how we've missed this one, it's just around the corner from one of our faves, Scileppis at the Old Stone Church. Now we have another fave. Our next stop was Laramie, WY for ice cream at the Big Dipper Ice Cream Shop. We spotted an interesting church building there as well. We found that Centennial, WY was, in fact, as small as we thought. But, it had a museum in a railroad depot (Nici Self Historical Museum)! Heading on west, Medicine Bow National Forest comes up fast and looks to be an area well worth exploring, hiking, etc. We stopped at a few places in Medicine Bow on our way to our day's destination, Saratoga, WY. First order of business in Saratoga was a drink at The Malt, after which we walked around a few blocks downtown, then went to our room at the Copperline Lodge. Dinner at Snowy Mountain Pub and Brewery was all we could handle for the rest of the day. The day's photos start here.

Pegasus restaurant in Castle Rock, CO

Big Dipper Ice Cream in Laramie, WY

 

Laramie, WY

Museum/Railroad Depot in Centennial, WY

Medicine Bow National Forest

Old Wolf Hotel, Saratoga, WY

The Malt (Saratoga)

On the porch at Copperline Lodge

Along the street to Copperline Lodge

Snowy Mountain Pub and Brewery

Tornado!

As we were leaving the Club and headed for a store, both our phones went off with a Tornado Warning. We immediately started looking around, and sure enough, a funnel cloud was developing to the north. We took this photo at about 2:05pm from Interquest and I-25 looking north-ish. So it's really true, we are in Tornado Alley, albeit on the far west side. As far as we know, it never touched down.

Cog Railway

Papa, Griffen, and AJ took the Broadmoor Manitou & Pikes Peak Cog Railway to the summit of Pikes Peak this afternoon!  Turned out to be two trips in one. On the way up, the weather was quite nasty: rain, a little hail, foggy, etc. While we were at the summit (14,115 feet), the weather cleared entirely. It became a beautiful sunny day! We topped off the trip with dinner at Kneaders. All the photos are here.

It rained and hailed on the way up.

And the rainbow came out at the top!

Hail

A fighter buzzed us twice while at the summit.

Pipe Falls

Diamond Rock

Birthday and a Theatre's New Location

We celebrated Brahm's birthday this week! When asked about his favorite cake flavor, he had no answer. So, the only thing to do was get a bunch of cake flavors for him to try. That evening, Papa attended the announcement of Springs Ensemble Theatre's (SET's) 14th Season - in a new home! SET is setting up and will open this Fall in the Fifty-Niner Speakeasy which is in the back of the Dice-Guys Game Store in Old Colorado City.

Earlier, Nana caught a good photo of Lexi and Fina.