Leaving Denver. Going down.

Today we are leaving Denver. But before we do we have to have breakfast. The guide book says Racines is a Denver institution so we have decided to got there. Off we go.
Later: What a loadofcodslowop. We we thought it was just around the corner, and it wasn’t but rather up the road a bit. The problem with America is that up the road a bit can be a couple of miles. Since nobody walks here, you can quickly get caught out, and that is what happened to us. Eventually we found Racines, or rather where Racines used to be, they have moved. Slogging on for a mile or two to the new Racines we discovered that the whole of Denver goes there on Sunday mornings for breakfast, which means a reservation, which we didn’t have. No worries, we had to wait a half an hour, but we were so hungry at that stage we didn’t care, and eventually we got a table. But why bother? Since the menu is the same where ever you go. No really. Farmers omelette, Denver omelette, etc, two eggs anyway you want, etc, etc , so why bother going out of your way to some place? I mean Racines was great, large, loud, full of atmosphere and all of that but the food is the same as you will get anywhere, so why go to all the bother? I prefer the small places, where you just might get talking to the owner.
Later still: Eventually we got out of Denver, but very late and the mood was a bit low. A bit annoyed about the wasted hours, but eventually we headed out of Denver. We headed west on HW70 as far as Dillon and turned south on HW91, through the heart of Colorado, and the Rocky Mountains. Denver is a mile high so all day long we were travelling down hill. It is a funny feeling to be driving for hours down hill.



The weather was terrible. Cold, snowy, over cast, and getting darker all the time. This had the effect of pulling us down, since we were getting nervous of getting stuck somewhere. Bbut being intrepid explorers we headed on in to the unknown.



Sometime in the afternoon we arrived in Leadville. Wow this is one strange place. Looked run down, lots of empty shops on the high street, and I mean lots of empty shops, like nearly all of them. It is an old mining town from the turn of the centuary that held great promise, but didn’t deliver and eventually faded away into what it is today, very nearly a ghost town. In the middle is an old saloon from the late 1800s which is also an Irish Pub??? Most peculiar mama. Some Irish chappie arrived there in 1932 and bought it and turned it into a sort of Irish pub/saloon. It is very much a cowboy saloon like you see in the flicks, but also an Irish Pub full of tacky Irish signs and things. Irish expressions all over the gaff. Funny and fun to be in. Meet some funny folk here. Maybe I will write about them later.


Later still: The weather really closed in and the snow started to really chuck it down. And then I got stopped for speeding. Doing jail-time over the limit. Lucky to have go off with a warning.
Eventually we made it to Manitou Springs.