Are You Ready to Rock?!

Fall is my second favorite time of year. I'm quite sentimental at this time of year because I love the crisp air, the colors and the fact that Christmas is right around the corner.

Last weekend we went back to Cripple Creek and Victor so that we could see the Aspens. There is a limited time frame to see the Aspens change color before the leaves fall to the ground. Dead. Brown and Dead. 

Here is the view looking over the town of Cripple Creek. I wanted this picture the last time we were there a few weeks ago but Jason wouldn't pull over. So this time I climbed out of the car window while we were driving.

 Before the little tour de Aspen (I just made that up. That's pretty clever). First we took two starving children to eat a restaurant located on top of a casino. This caused many old people to stare in displeasure. I assured them all that our children were not going to move in on their slot machines and take their money. I would do that.

Afterward, we took the boys to the park. Evan calls this playground "Space". "I wanna see space" he yells to me in order make me let him see this picture.

 While Evan was busy playing in space, Dawson was on the verge of a take down.

Dawson is having his life turned upside while Jason is daydreaming of unicorns.

 

 And... done. 

 Dawson got up and went about his merry way and I decided now was as good a time as ever for a photo op.

Jason thought he was toothpick Popeye.

 So I said "no" and shot again. I will take this time to say that I can't stand that piece of hair by my ear that isn't long enought to stay in my ponytail.

 And then we were off for the Tour de Trees. Not nearly as clever.

 Jason worked up the courage to drive me to my favorite truck in Victor.

 Of course my favorite part about Victor is the old dilapidated buildings so I encouraged Jason to allow me to get as many pictures as possible of these buildings at any cost. Such as stopping in the middle of the road and pushing him against his seat to get the picture. 

This is my future house. 

I believe this building is available if anyone wants to be my neighbor.

And then we were back on the road with the tour of color.

 You may be wondering what pictures of the Aspens has anything to do with my post title. It doesn't. I couldn't very well waste a whole blog post on a video when I had perfectly good mountain aspen fall colors to share. 

Before I move on, does anyone believe that the font on this blog needs to be bigger? Or is it just me? Because I have horrible eyesight. No lie.

Now on to the Rock. 

Evan is rather entertaining. And Dawson is rather invasive.

Welcome to our chaos:

Cripple Creek, CO

On Saturday we went to Cripple Creek.

In case you decide to click on that link, I may as well go ahead and tell you that Cripple Creek is a gambling town. But it sure is pretty!

I had 2 quarters ready to make me at least $333.92. That's a joke. There's a train in Cripple Creek that we wanted to take the boys on.

Here's us in the car on the way. Evan didn't understand what I was doing the first time around.

By the second shot, he was somewhat clued in but I gave up.

It's about an hour drive from our house to Cripple Creek. So we arrived at the train station soon enough.

Here we are! Train number 2.

The train only goes 4 miles (which is why it was cheap which is why we were able to go) but it lasts about 2 hours because we stop several times and the conductor gives a bit of history about the land. It's an old mining town.

Jason is upset because his eyes were closed in both pictures. I told him then he should start opening his eyes when people are taking pictures of him. Or wear sunglasses.

There's the conductor. An interesting fellow.

Evan remained rather cordial through the entire ride. When I say that word "cordial" I always think of the scene in Anne of Green Gables when Anne gets Diana drunk on Marilla's raspberry cordial by mistake. The end.

Cripple Creek is a really pretty area, in case you ever come visit us and ask us to take you there and we do.

It's also a rather small town.

As part of our history lesson on the ride, we were told that most of the trees in the area were cut down in the mining days to be used for housing and such. And at one point, because the town was made of wood the entire town burnt to the ground in a matter of weeks because of a few accidents involving fire. Which is why you should build a city of brick. In my own humble opinion.

Mid-point during our trip. we stopped at the spot called "echo canyon" or something with the word echo in it because the train whistle echoes and can be heard for 10 miles. When I yell outside really loud Jason thinks I can be heard for 11 miles. So.

One of the stunning views.

If I get pretty good at craps, I might move here.

Dawson was enthralled with this large flag.

I sat by some funny and endearing ladies from Texas. They used toothpicks to clean their teeth for nearly half the ride. I think it was the popcorn we all had.

These trains nearly killed us from black soot. I should sue and spend the money on

 texas hold 'em.

At the end of the trip our train passed these 2 old beat up cars. Picture worthy, I think.

Annnd.. that ended up being the last picture I took of our lovely train ride. So. Bye.

Don't Bet On It.

Last weekend was sunny, here in Colorado Springs. So we decided to take off on a road trip. I just accidentally wrote the word "tirp" for trip and I thought it was funny. Maybe that will be the name of our next kid, "Tirp Wilkins" only it sounds like a bully. And it's too close to the word twerp.

Now, I love ghost towns, so I wanted to visit this little town called Victor. However, in order to get to Victor, you have to go through this town called Cripple Creek.

Everyone in this town is crippled. Not really. And that was an awful joke. For real though, Cripple Creek is a famous gambling town. Actually, if you are reading this right now and you are a recovering gambling addict, don't go to Cripple Creek. Although you'll be pleasantly surprised at your winnings. So, we decided to stop in Cripple Creek because we were starving and I had to pee like nobodies business. We had Dawson with us, so we were trying to find the first family friendly place to enter and get food and pee without getting Dawson arrested for underage gambling. We stopped in this little restaurant called "Parrot Dice Grill" and there were teenagers working the grill. That's the first red flag for me. No offense teenagers who cook. But these were all guys. Next, I couldn't see a bathroom because directly attached to this restaurant was a casino. A gentleman who was seated must have noticed my discomfort (I think I was standing with my legs crossed, bouncing up and down) and came over to me to ask me if he could help me find anything. So I told him I needed a restroom. Pronto. He pointed to the restrooms which I would to get to by walking through the casino. Then he asked me if I was 21. I said "I'm 32, thank you very much!" Only, I didn't have my driver's license on me, because I didn't bring my purse. I was willing to be arrested for the sake of my bladder. I ran to the bathroom which was guarded by a security guard. Took care of business and walked out and we left. I'm gonna bet you were all hoping that I was going to gamble and tell this great story about how I dropped a quarter in the slot machine and won hundreds, and then got arrested by the security guard because I didn't have my license. And now, I'm really wishing I could tell that story. I did gamble on our cruise way back in 2004 and won $50.00 even though I started out with $11.00 in quarters. And then I lost it all because I thought the slot machines were so cute. And that is the true story of our stop in Cripple Creek.

The drive to Victor is pretty scenic:

On the way I found my first ghost town representative:

Jason and I both noticed a house we love:

This shot is mainly to give you a glimpse of the awesome scenery we'd have. Now I'll zoom in so that you can get a good look at the house:

I'm fairly certain it's a repo so we should get a good deal on it. I have so much vision to make this a home.

2 skips and hop... and we're in Victor.

I will say Jason wouldn't let me out of the car in Victor to take pictures because he feels this town is ghetto so I had to do drive by shooting. Get it?!

I love this old truck. It reminds me of Tuh-Mater without the "tuh".

And look at this quaint old church:

Not very ghost-townish, but very haunting. If I were a gambling addict, I'd go to church there.

And that ends our non-gambling, ghost town road trip we took last weekend.

Now I'll leave you with a few pictures I took just this morning of Dawson:

He received these green teeth at his daycare yesterday. He tells me "Mommy, they're not scary, they're just real!

And check out this bling:

A spider ring. I told him it'd save him a ton of money to hold on to that and use it for an engagement ring someday