Cripple Creek
Trip Start
Jul 12, 2006
1
34
230
Trip End
Jun 18, 2007
Cripple Creek, Colorado, United States
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
We're both still bitten and itchy which isn't that great, but it did mean i was up early enough to check the internet for accomodation in Cripple Creek. If you didn't know, Cripple Creek (http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/) is where the gold rush was in the 1890's. There's still alot of mining activity going on at the moment and the town of Victor next door is known as the town of Mines.
The town is tiny, with one main street that looks like it belongs to days gone by. It's quite hilly and it's known for it's casinos which are everywhere. But these aren't Vegas style casinos, these are like shops that have been converted to Casinos. It's got great character to it.
Our accomodation is slap bang in the middle of the main street, at a Casino. Lee and I are still ID'd everywhere we go, which is quite flattering really considering I'm 30 this year. One lady said to me in the lift - "you don't look old enough to gamble", she was quite surprised when I told her my age. :)
There are loads of laws here as well. It's illegal to have an open container of alcohol anywhere in public, but they'll gladly dish it out free in the casinos if you're gambling. I put a total of $10 in a slot machine and came away with over $50. :) so that's when I stopped.
We're staying here two nights so that we can go on the steam train that takes you to the gold mines.
Cripple Creek is almost two miles above sea level; 9,494 feet to be exact. So it's pretty cold up here and the highest it got was 67f today. Brrrrrrrrrrrr! If you click on this link, you can see the weather cam (you might spot us as well!) http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/weather.htm
The funniest thing I saw today, and also possibly the saddest - as in tragic sad not tearful sad, was a women trying to buy something in the cafe for a $1 with a credit card!!! Not only that though, she was rather loudly complaining about not being able to buy a can of Coke in Cripple Creek. You can only get Pepsi products here and she just was not happy about it one bit. The guy behind the counter gave her directions up the hill to the grocery store to see if she could get a can there! I mean, is it really worth it? She managed to hold the queue up for a while why she made the poor bloke take her credit card for her $1 purchase. I thought I'd have to wait till LA for a show like this but obviously not! Folk are funny!
While I'm writing, I'll have to apologise for the wonky map pins, I can't work out how you reset them so they're going all over the place. It should be one straight line joining them but it looks abit of a mess -although I'm sure you can get some idea where we're going. I also apologies if I've repeated myself. I've been writing some of these entries retrospectively so if they don't make sense then that's why! Hopefully from now i can keep up to date a bit more. :)
