Creede!!

Scenes from the past...

Remnants of lives long ago...

Beautiful erosion...

Glorious growth...

Happy haunts...

 Tailings of tales...

Cunning craftsmanship...

 Cliff side crossings...

Inspiring spires.

Creede, Colorado

An amazing mountain town with so much history.

 Jim, Sam & Me

We left for a quick trip to Creede this past weekend to catch our friend Sam in her first play, "Stealing Home".   What a wonderful production!!  Jim and I enjoyed an evening with Sam and the next day we set out about the town.  Creede is primarily a summer town, so not much was open.  However, a lovely lady at the local filling station recommended we drive up the canyon and check out the old mines.  What a neat trip back in history!!  We got down, back into town to catch the Sunday matinee performance.  Way to go,Sam!! 

It was only 26 hours away from home (Sat - Sun) but sometimes that's all it takes!!

Girls Weekend!!!

At the beginning of March I took a couple days to visit my friend in Creede Colorado, which is just over two hours east of Durango over Wolf Creek pass. Wolf Creek is also home to one of the highest ski areas.

Due to the steep mountain terrain the road goes through the mountain - such a beautiful drive!

Main Street, Creede (pardon the window glare - it's not the sun)

Atlas, I arrived in Creede. This itty bitty mountain mining town sits at the base of a canyon. The town kind of dead ends where the canyon gets narrow. The road is sort of paved sort of dirt and not much is open in the off season.....

Sam!

...but leave it to Sam to find a Mardi Gras fundraiser going on that night. We partied in the underground community center with live music and $4 hurricanes! Sam was a gracious hostess and offered to be the designated driver so I could enjoy those hurricanes. We moved the festivities to her house and stayed up way too late talkin' girl stuff.

Delia tried to seek refuse under the coffee table but my camera found her - she seemed less than thrilled with the flash.

Me & Sam

We finally made it up to Wolf Creek mid-morning the next day. True to the picture, I was feeling a bit upside down from the night before.

With over 18 inches of fresh snow in the last two days, we decided to hike to fresh uncrowded powder. Breaking a sweat definitely helped break the hang over.

The top of the world!!

Hey Sam, Look over here!!

What a great day! We rode the open slopes, played in the trees and hiked for epic runs. We didn't take many pictures, I guess we were too busy playing. Isn't that always the case?

We may have arrived mid-morning but we were some of the last to leave. We caught the last lift chair and were the last off the slopes.

The next morning I went back to take pictures of the town. The community center is in the side of the mountain in a series of old mining caves. It made for amazing acoustics for the band during the fundraiser.

Creede's Fire Department is also located in a cave.

"Even though Mother Earth News called Creede one of the best places to live in North America, only 300 or so folks have taken them up on the offer. With a tax base like that, city planners knew it wasn't going to be easy to raise the money for a new fire station. Still, since the entire town burned to the ground just three years after it was established in 1889, it was something they felt forced to propose.



Luckily, the innovative little town lifted itself above convention and came up with the novel idea of building their fire station into the side of a cliff. Using explosives rather than lumber, they blasted out 45 - degree-angle rock stalls for the volunteer fire department's two fire trucks and inadvertently opened up a whole new trickle of revenue. In fact, so many tourists came to see the World's Only Underground Firehouse ( the local 4-H Club gives tours) that they eventually decided to blast another tourist attraction - an underground mining museum." **

"Multiplying loaves and fishes is one thing. But in Creede, with a population of less than 800, the world famous repertory theater manages to sell 19,000 tickets every season. How do they do that? By winning kudos from everyone from USA Today (their reviewer dubbed Creede Repertory Theater "one of the 10 greatest places to see lights way off Broadway") to Rocky Mountain News, who said, "No wonder the Denver Post calls it a 'a miracle in the mountains.'"**

I can't wait until summer when we can go back as a family to visit Sam and take in some of the amazing sights of this adorable little mountain hideaway.


**Quoted from Colorado Curiosities by Pam Grout 2006




Sometimes you just gotta get away and have a little girly time!!

Flashbacks.....

Sam

Sam came to visit a few weeks back. She once lived here and worked at the Post Office with me but then received an amazing promotion and is now the Post Master in Creede. (I miss her dearly.) She brought her dogs and we went for a hike in the beautiful fall colors.

While we hiked we failed to take many pictures. Oh well. We had fun and so did all the dogs.

Congrats on the move Sam!!

Mountain Biking With Sam

Okay, I tried to upload this picture 4 times in the flipped right side up corrected format and every time it gave me the uncorrected version. I'm over it. Use your imagination and deal with the goofiness of us being upside down.

So, here we are in all our silliness at Phil's World (a maze of single track trails created for mountain biking) east of Cortez Colorado. Sam and I decided to embark on a girl's ride this past Monday. Being it was Columbus Day and we both had the day off work, which almost never happens (holiday for the Post Office), we thought it would be fun to go ride. We met at my house, sipped tea, leisurely loaded up the bikes and finally hit the road for a day of trails. Now, I hadn't been on my bike in sometime and Sam is a crazy kick ass kind of rider; so it was preplanned that she was allowed to push me and test my skills but had to bring me back in one piece. Bleeding, cut or scrapped was acceptable but I needed to be in working order for taking time off work would not be acceptable.

We stopped at the top of the plateau for a photo shoot. Sam was leading me on a wonderful trail ride while chatting with out ever being out of breath. Now, some will say that if you can talk you're not riding hard enough. This is probably true because she was going pretty slow so that I could keep up with her. Climbing single track over rocks and fallen logs, I don't think she ever broke a sweat.

This was the only picture of me taken on the ride. I'm sure it was because I had the camera or perhaps after this I was sweaty, dusty and not very picture worthy after this point in the day. I will admit to getting off to walk, jabbing my pedal into rocks and coming unclipped, riding the brakes until the dust squealed and cursing out loud on more than one occasion. By the middle of the ride I had found my groove again and things went pretty smooth. I finished unscathed and hungry. Before reaching the truck, which was packed with a cooler of post ride goodies, we stopped for another photo shoot.

The fall season brings the tarantula migration to the high desert. Sam whizzed by this little guy narrowly missing him with her big knobby tires. I saw him scoot off the trail, so of course, I had to stop to play and get a few shots. This was the best picture as you can get an idea of his true size. He was a bit defensive but that's what gloves are for. He was also on the smaller side of others I have seen.

We had a great afternoon on two wheels. Sam didn't kill me and I didn't end up slowing her down too much... or at least I don't think. She did agree to having fun and offered to ride with me again.


Ride it if you got it!!