A stop along the way....

We left Rifle for Leadville around 8:30 this morning, taking lots of curvy, climbing roads to get there, (it's situated at an elevation of 10,152 feet [3,109 meters]), with many stops along the way. This is one of them. We couldn't resist the snow, both on the ground in the distance as well as on the mountains, and the crystal clear blue of the water. Leadville started out as a gold mining settlement, but then became, for a time, one of the world's greatest silver mining camps. Once we reached Leadville we went to the National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum, spending lots of time looking at the exhibits about the mining history. They even had a re-creation of an underground mine with "workers" (mannequins) doing their jobs that we could walk through. Really interesting. After that we went to the Silver Dollar Saloon, built in 1879, where we had lunch and beers (root beer, that is) then walked around to look at all the old buildings that are still there--the old Church, the Opera House, Hotel, etc.
We drove half a mile out of town to see the buildings (repaired around 1953) from the famous Matchless Mine, but it doesn't open until after Memorial Day and was all fenced off. Mary was all for breaking and entering to snoop around, but I pointed out that in order to do that she'd have to walk in the snow with her flip-flops, so we scuttled that idea. It was already around 3:30 or 4, so we drove on to Denver where we're planning on going to the Botanical Gardens tomorrow. :)