Treasure Hunting in a Mining Town

Saturday is one of the only days that Nicole and I really get to spend time together, we see each other every day but this is really the only day we get to actually do "something". Originally we were going to spend the day with some friends from church, but things didn't work out. Last minute Nicole and I were thinking of either going to Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes Park, or Historic Georgetown. After weighing the options and debating on what would be the best way to spend our Saturday we decided upon Historic Georgetown. It ended up being the best decision because we literally found a treasure.

Our first stop was Georgetown's City Park, it had the coolest playground. Made me wish I was 6 so I could go play in it. After eating lunch in the park we headed to the Georgetown Energy Museum. It is the 2nd oldest operating hydroelectric power plant in Colorado, built in 1900 and has been running for over a 100 years!

It was originally built because it cost to much to haul coal into the mountains and it was used to power the mines and the towns street lamps. Inside the museum we were able to see some of the old electric appliances that people would have run from the electricity a power plant like this would have supplied. The tour guide operated an original luxury electric washing machine (I forgot to take a picture of this), it was really loud and vibrated heavily. They even had Nicole's dream oven/stove.

After the museum we walked the historic downtown 6th Street shops (this is where we found the treasure).

We found a delicious homemade ice cream and candy shop, I had Rainbow Sherbet and Nicole had Turtle Fudge. I also found what may be my future bike replacement, a Penny Farthing. Nicole took her favorite postcard like photo outside one of the many cool old buildings.

Although Old Buildings, Homemade Ice Cream, and a cool Bike are great treasures they are not the real treasure that we found.

After exploring Historic Georgetown we took a drive up the Guanella Pass. We were unable to drive the entire 23 mile historic byway due to time and potential weather, the pass connects the mining town of Georgetown and Grant and passes through the Pike and Arapaho National Forests. Along this route we came across some nice scenic views and close encounters;

This deer was strolling down the road when we came across it, Nicole got a few pictures right before it ducked back into the woods.

This picture was taken a few seconds after hearing the rattle of a nearby Rattlesnake (Nicole was freaking out while I was trying to get a picture of us and the mountain behind us). A Rattlesnake's rattle is definitely a scary sound, although we didn't see the snake it sounded like it was right next to us.

We did get in a good view of Georgetown and a mountain stream while driving up the Guanella Pass.

Now to reveal the treasure that we found in this old mining town! Many of you may know about Nicole's mild obsession with playing games (this obsession has become something that I really love about her). Well there is a particular game that she really likes that is no longer in production anymore, on Amazon and E-bay this game sells for up $250. Well we came across this little trinket shop and to our surprise they had 2 copies of....

We are still trying to decide what we will do with these games, obviously we are going to keep one. But the other copy could either end up in the hands of the highest bidder, mailed to family, or saved for a Christmas gift. Any thoughts on what we should do with our treasure?

-Brian