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| Like Alice, we should have just gone back to bed! |
(Tuesday August 20, 2013, I decided Tina and I just hadn't seen each other because of the three weeks of rain and I texted her to go out with me. I picked the day of the week that was supposed to have the least chance of rain -Thursday, only 30% chance, and I kept watching the news to make sure. We were going to go to the Manitou Springs cemetery, the Woodland Park cemetery and then up to Cripple Creek with my mother-in-law to the Jail Museum up there, and swing by the Mt. Pisgah cemetery to grab a letterbox.)
On Thursday August 22, 2013 our adventure began with a telephone call. Courtney was having car trouble she’d be running late. We had big plans to go out. We were going to go the haunted cemetery in Manitou Springs and then go check out the cemetery in Woodland Park then meet Courtney’s mother-in-law Arlette and go to Cripple Creek to see the haunted Jail and maybe if we had time we’d check out a cemetery in Cripple Creek and then come home. Simple plans, something we’d been trying to plan all summer and now due to her cars battery we were probably going to miss out on this adventure.
(I was supposed to pick Tina up at 10... and that's where this story stared to go wrong. I was leaving at 9:30 A.M. to go pick her up, got the dog, dog's kennel, all our stuff packed in the car. I had to bring the dog if I was going up to Cripple Creek; it's like an hour and a half from where I live and I couldn't leave my dog at home all day. (Turns out not leaving her locked in the yard was a good thing...)
My car wouldn't start. Battery dead. I had to wake up my husband and help get it jumped(He works 3rd shift, so he's at work 3:30 P.M. to 1 or 2 A.M. depending on parts he's running). So I get him up at the butt crack of dawn(well for us at least!) spend half an hour getting my battery running. Call Tina, tell her I'll be late - finally get to her house and...)
A short while later she came over to my house to pick me up. We could still hang out just wouldn't be having such an awesome adventure. She and her dog Alice came in to say her hello’s to my parents. She told my Dad she thought the problem was the car battery and true to form my Dad was breaking out some tools and doing his own evaluation of her car. Conclusion was the battery needed replacing. Courtney called her husband Chris relaying the information he said he’d pick up a new battery and meet us at their house. So off we did go driving to Courtney’s house and hanging out as her husband installed the new battery.
The wait was a pleasant one. Courtney introduced me to a new delicious hard candy called Tea Candy (very tasty) she brought out her laptop and showed me some awesome new developments in her family history research.(Found out my g-g-g-great grandmother is buried in Canon City! I never knew that!) She’s also helping a friend uncover his family tree and they have some fascinating people in their family tree.(I went out to the Canon City cemetery to get photos for him of his ancestor's graves and I found a TARANTULA!!! NO! I will NEVER get over it!) He was even kind enough to send her pictures of his relatives so she could put a face to a name. Courtney really enjoys researching family histories. [If any of our readers are interested in her help, feel free to leave a comment or drop us an email.] Our wait ended as Chris announced the car was good to go and we could go up to Cripple Creek since we had a new battery we didn't have to worry about breaking down somewhere.
(Now it's getting close to noon, and it's hot outside. We had almost considered just staying in town, but with a new battery we knew we could go to Cripple Creek, we just couldn't go to the Manitou Springs cemetery. No time. Weird thing is - every time I try to go to that cemetery, something happens. In high school I drove around for 2 hours with a former boyfriend looking for it, and he had been there a hundred times! I must not be meant to go.)
He didn't have to tell us twice! We grabbed Alice and hopped in the car and drove out of Colorado Springs down highway 24 and into Woodland Park. She showed me the Woodland Park cemetery somewhere we’ll have to visit when more time allows but at that moment all I could think of was lunch.(Umm, I showed you the cemetery AFTER lunch remember? The McDonald's is on the other side of the Highway from the Subway. The cemetery is right behind the McDonald's. You should have seen Tina's face when I gave her a little driving tour, it was awesome.) I was super hungry. We ate at Subway, yum!(I had a gift card!) During which Arlette called and said she was on her way home and we told her we’d be there shortly. We took our leftovers with us. And continued on our drive up into the beautiful spacious Colorado landscape. Arlette lives in a beautiful little mountain town of Florissant.(A 30 minute drive from Woodland Park.) Not far from the Florissant Fossil Beds.(Yea, like right friken next to it!) The drive was very nice and one I haven’t taken in years. There’s comfort in how those little mountain towns rarely change. Florissant looked the same as I remembered it. Turning off the main road and heading toward our destination Courtney pointed out an old homestead(It's called the Adeline Hornbeck Homestead. You can google it. Also, I do have a picture of Adeline Hornbeck's grave!) by the side of the road “does it look familiar to you?” she asked me. I said yes I just couldn't place why and then she told me two words that jogged my memory. “High Trails.” High Trails was a week long camping adventure that all 6th graders embarked upon and that homestead was the one they took all us campers too and told us it was haunted. They would tell us the tale of the haunted tricycle and how it would move around the room. Creepy but I never saw the tricycle move.(and for some of us, we got to experience High Trails in the middle of fricken winter! I mean come on, a bunch of 11 year olds running around in the MOUNTAINS in the middle of winter! The snow was knee deep in some places. My hands, feet and nose were numb for a week straight!)
We drove a bit further and arrived at a sweet little A-Frame house. Sky blue in color with white trim and a picture perfect view. Pretty as a postcard. Arlette was waiting for us greeting us with big hugs and much happiness. Alice was happy to see Arlette too and very grateful for the hugs and big bowl of water. We chatted as we set up Alice’s kennel and then we left her there to snooze and enjoy the coolness of the house as we went on to Cripple Creek.
Arlette drove us along the winding Colorado roads leading to the mining town of Cripple Creek. Another scenic view and wonderful conversation too. Cripple Creek was once a mining boom town, became a ghost town and now has been revived by casinos and gambling. Despite all the new additions, Cripple Creek clings to its mining heritage and pays honor to it daily in the preservation of many historic landmarks and buildings. (Ride the train! It's awesome!) The jail being one of them. We pulled into the parking lot of the jail and it was completely deserted, not a single car besides our own. Abandoned and not a soul in sight we grabbed our camera’s got out and walked up the steps only to see the sigh on the door reading “we’re open.” and the doors locked. They were closed. (Open 10-5, 7 days a week. Pshaw! It wasn't even 3!!) The one day we get there and they’re unexpectedly closed. We were disappointed but Arlette was not discouraged peering into the glass door and pointing out the jail cells where the women prisoners were kept and were the men were kept and how nine men were assigned to each cell. Living conditions were terrible. There was even a nine year old girl incarcerated for being incorrigible. Arlette continued the tour of this closed jail by walking around the side of the building pointing out the morgue in the basement and how its off limits to the general public. However if the Ghost Busting team is staying in the jail you can pay 40 dollars and spend the night in the morgue if your brave enough. Our tour of this closed jail concluded with the iron door that was part of the cremation system of the morgue. I have never experienced such an enlightening and informative tour of a closed jail in all my life.(Arlette still told us many things about the jail and we must have looked silly with our faces pressed to the glass in the door looking in, but that was our tour of the inside!) I felt like I learned more about this jail in its closed state than I do in some museums that are open. I guess it all depends on your tour guide and we had the best in the whole world.
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| Tina & the Teddy Bear! |
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| Haha - all three of our shadows are in this photo! |
This little Tupperware container was Arlette’s first letterbox and she was super excited to see how this little hobby is played.(Oh the joy on Arlette's face can only be compared to the surprise on Tina's when I showed her the Woodland Park cemetery!) Courtney explained as all three of us balanced ink pads and stamps. Arlette was truly smitten with the idea and very happy we included her in our search for the letterbox. Her passion and enthusiasm regarding something as simply as a stamp in a Tupperware container is one we know very well. We experience the same thing each time we find a letterbox. We were happy to share our hobby with her and hopefully in the future we can include her in the search for more letterboxes. I returned the box to whence it came. I rejoined Arlette and Courtney and after putting our letterboxing gear in the car we went on a further exploration of the cemetery.
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| Arlette and the grave of Pearl de Vere. |
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| Fred E. Krueger See - I told you so! |
Back in the car we drove to Arlette’s home. Talking of Jesus and God and all the blessing they have given us over the years along with other ghost stories. The drive was a lovely one. We arrived at Arlette’s and spent some time visiting with her husband Robby. Arlette not only gave me a tour of her beautiful home but shared some family photo’s with me. All to soon it was time for Courtney, Alice and I to make our way to our own home. In the distance we could see storm clouds but feared nothing more than some light rain. After all the weatherman had said there was a 30 percent chance of rain for today. (Robby told us if it looked bad we could come back and stay there for the night. Arlette got all excited and said if we did, we could try the museum again! At this point in the day, it's a little after 5 P.M. and Highway 24 was open, which we have to drive to get from Colorado Springs to Woodland Park and back.) We thanked Arlette for all the fun and said our goodbyes and got in our car and headed on our way.
The road was clear the sky okay we drove for awhile; all was clear then we found some light rain and then the heavens opened!(We were in Divide, it's the only town between Woodland Park and Florissant on Highway 24. There are two stop lights in Divide, we hit the second one and it became winter in about 3 seconds.) The rain decided to mix with hail and come down all at once! Fast and furious the rain and hail turned the streets into small rivers. (We drove out of nothing right into winter! There were rivers of rain and hail! We got up the first hill and pull over with a line of cars and wait. The hail is hammering down and then it quiets, so we follow the line of cars again and then it gets worse.) Courtney’s phone let out a large siren of a wail alerting us the emergency alert that this area was a possible flood zone and not to be here. Too late! We’re committed to the road and the weather. Oddly before us in the dark sky was a rainbow. Despite all the rain and hail there was a rainbow which did escort us back to Woodland Park. Though our way turned out to be treacherous. The storm was moving in fierce waves of hail so intense that we pulled off the road four separate times. When we could drive progress was slow with our flashers on as other drivers were also doing. We utilized each of our pull over on the shoulder of the road and wait moments. The first time we became more familiar with the windshield wipers and their various speeds, the second I ate some of my leftovers from lunch and we received a call from Arlette informing us of the storm and that highway 24 was closed. Despite that news we didn't turn around we were closer to Woodland Park and didn't want to fight that violent storm a second time. (We were getting close to Woodland Park, pulled over for about the 4th time, the hail is so bad, you can't see, it's piling up on my windshield(I had to get out of the car and scoop it off the windshield. I was standing on about 6 inches of hail) , it's so loud that Tina and I have to scream at each other just to be heard, dog is in the back shaking so violently she looks like she's seizing.)
We closed the distance to Woodland Park little by little and the storm gave up its fierce battle cry and decided to just rain on our parade as much as possible. We pulled into the Wal-Mart parking lot desperate for bathrooms and anxious for news.(Usually a 30 minute drive from Florissant to Woodland Park took us over an hour!) Those we talked to were as surprised by the sudden storms as we were. Some were like us stranded waiting for the road to reopen. (At this point it's about 7:30 P.M., and the reports are the Highway will likely open around 9 P.M. So we figure it won't be that horrible waiting it out for a couple of hours.) We walked around some taking in the safety of Wal-Mart and calling Arlette, Chris and my Dad, informing them all of our whereabouts. We returned to the car the rain had let up a bit more coming constantly but relaxed. Courtney was able to let Alice get out and stretch her legs. We decided to go to Safeway and walk around killing time. Then returned to Wal-Mart. The road home was still closed. Arlette called again telling us not to come her way for the storm was upon them and quite intense. So between the storms we did sit. (Whoever we called told us another storm was coming from both directions. It's almost a nightmare. At almost 9 P.M. we got another emergency alert on the phone saying avoid flood zones until midnight!) My Dad informed us the road wouldn't be open until after midnight because another storm was building and causing a fuss down in Colorado Springs.
We decided to visit Courtney’s niece Sarah as she lives close to the Wal-Mart so over to Sarah’s we did go. We didn't stay long because she had to go to bed and get ready for school in the morning and we were fairly certain the road would be open in an hour or so. Still it was nice to bring Alice inside and give her a reprieve from the storm. Back to good ole Wal-Mart we did go. The rain was relaxing to listen to and watch through our fogged up car windows we chatted about the day and played tic-tac-toe on the fogged up sunroof. Around midnight or so we were in need of stretching our legs and getting some drinks. So into Wal-Mart to get the blood pumping and something to drink and while we were walking to the registers with our drinks we heard a wonderful announcement. Highway 24 was open! Yay! We could go home!(We only had to wait 6 hours!) We paid for our drinks and called my Dad from the car confirming the good news we told him we’d be home soon.
Our final leg of our journey was the dark and twisting very wet stretch of Highway 24 followed by a spooky drive though town where we were the only ones on the road. It was like everyone knew something we didn't. We did see one other truck and two car but that was it. Everyone else was inside sound asleep out of the rain. Happily we arrived at my house. My Dad was waiting. He gave Courtney a big hug for getting us home safely. Alice and Courtney had a little more driving to do to get to their own home and so they left to do just that. I personally talked with my parents about the storm and then jumped into a nice hot shower. After I received a text from Courtney saying she was home safe and sound, I went to bed. It was well after two am. I hugged my pillow and thanked God for the adventure and guiding us home safely.
Moral of the story:
If your car battery dies in the morning, go back to bed!!
