Labor Day Weekend

We had a great weekend. Kevin planned some fun activities for Saturday and wouldn't tell us what we were doing so we were completely surprised. We left the house around 10am and drove down to Colorado City which is about two hours south of here. Out east of there we went to a caslte called Bishop's Castle. It's this castle this man is building all by himself. Apparently his dad started building it 20+ years ago and now he trying to complete it all by himself. It's actually a pretty cool place but at the same time it's a little scary too. He is building this castle without any permits and is taking all the stone from state forests. He doesn't believe in the government and justifies his actions by saying he lives in a free country and can do whatever he wants. So he is a bit of a nut job, but the castle is still pretty cool. It is completely free and always open to the public. There are signs all over the place absolving Bishop of any liability.

There are staircases and turrets all over that you can walk on. I've been on the walkways and they don't feel that safe.

Kevin took Sarah up to the top of one of the towers.




This chair was out in the front of the castle. It's hard to tell from the picture but it's about five feet tall!

Sarah waving hi.

You can buy a pane of stained glass and put a dedication on it. There were windows like this one all throughout the castle.


The detail on the ironwork is incredible.

Standing on one of those "unsafe" walkways. It just feels unsafe because the flooring on the walkway is a wire mesh rather than a solid surface.

After we left the castle we continued driving east until we got to the Sangre de Cristo mountain range then we turned north and followed the mountain range up to Cripple Creek. On the way there we passed a bunch of horse back riders out on a three day trail ride. They stopped and let Sarah pet the horses. They were a group of people out raising money for a local pregnancy shelter. Sarah loved it and kept neighing as she petted the horse.

When we got to Cripple Creek we went to the Molly Kathleen Gold Mine. We had to put on hard hats and jackets then they put us in the verticle lifts they use for the miners. It was so cool. The lifts were like enclosed cages and were pulled up and down the shaft with a belt drive. The mine is 1,000 feet underground and we got to the bottom of it in 1 minute 42 second. Our guide said that the Empire State Building is 1,000 feet high so we were pretty impressed with how short it took us to get to the bottom of the mine. They had mining equipment from the early days and our guide demonstrated how it worked. It was fascinating learning how they used to do mining and how far it has come since then.

This was an old rail car they are converting into a diner.

Sarah having fun with the hard-hat.

After we left the mine we drove 20 minutes up the road to Mueller State Park. It was dinner time and Kevin brought hot dogs and smores to roast. We set up our camping chairs and enjoyed being in the outdoors while we ate our dinner and dessert. Sarah loved being outside in the mountains.

After we ate we went home and got there around 10pm. It was a long day but it sure was fun. We did so much and we didn't have to travel very far for it. I love Colorado!

On Sunday we slept in to recover from the day before. That evening we were invited over to a friends house to hang out and have dessert. Monday we did a ton of yard and house work then in the evening we had a barbecue at our house and invited a bunch of people over. The kids had fun playing in the backyard and the adults had fun eating and talking. It was a great weekend and nice break.