Work ended early today. The weather has been great this week, warm Spring time temps, with just a few patches of snow here and there, so I felt that an early day plus holiday weekend equalled an adventure!
My co-pilot doggo, Opal, joined me for this excursion and she was very happy to not be left behind this time.

I made sure I had downloaded at least 3 episodes of my murdery/kidnappery podcast and a quick stop for lunch, and I was on my way!

I was headed to Nederland, Colorado. The robot in my dashboard told me it was 28 miles and that I would be there in 40 minutes. The robot was wrong. (One of these days, she is going find out I talk behind her back). I needed lunch and apparently the McDonalds was the wrong way. The robot made SEVERAL attempts to stop me from a fish sandwich and sweet tea, but my misturn lead to a cool thing on the drive. (Take That, Robot!) The Peak to Peak Highway! It is a 55 mile stretch of highway through the Rocky Mountains and it goes through 4 or 5 national forests and parks. The part I drove through was the Roosevelt National Forests, it was established in 1918 and is Colorado’s first scenic byway. Today, I drove on part of that. I have added the entire drive to my list of “new things”

I would have gotten more pictures, but I there were some spots on this road that were just full of cars and there was road work in some areas, so it slowed me down and given that the weather was changing on me very quickly, I didn’t want to tempt fate and gods of tickets by taking

pictures while driving in those areas.
I leave my not-so-safe-picture-taking when

I am less apt to get caught!

I have heard of the town Nederland, it comes up on weather reports, but I didn’t really know too much about the area except that it is on the Peak to Peak Highway and that was about it. So I looked it up and found that it was started as a mill site for silver from the near by Caribou Mine, which is now a ghost town. (I think I will have to explore this for myself). During WWI, it processed tungsten ore from the neighboring mines.
I checked various websites before I left to make sure that it was not bad weather up there and to make sure the things I wanted to see were open today. But I have found, over the years, that weather just does what it wants. It does not care about plans or events, it just brings whatever and does whatever with not one thought for brides, proms, park picnics, or adventures.

I found that Nederland was the processing site for the Caribou Mine and it was referred to as Middle Boulder for a number of years. However, the miners called it “Netherlands” which means “Low Lands”. When you are leaving Caribou at an elevation of over 10,000 feet and make it to the mill at about 8200 feet, it is the “low lands”. The town changed its name form Middle Boulder to Nederland in 1874.

I also learned that there is this incredible carousel in the town, one from the 1890s, that has been refurbished and has some hand carved animals. The restoration and the hand carved animals were done by a Vietnam veteran, a Marine (hitting very close to home there, reminds me of my dad). The place is The Carousel Of Happiness and I am already planning a trip with my granddaughter. Happiness is in the title! C’mon, you have to go when you get a sign like that! Sadly, they appeared to be closed when I went by today, so I will have more pictures then.

Next door to the carousel, there were these old train cars, they were fantastic! Its called The Train Cars Coffee & Yogurt Company, the train cars advertise a circus too, apparently the cars and the circus were owned by the publishers of Denver Post in 1906. Unfortunately, I was not able to stop inside and get pictures, but since I’m going back, perhaps I could do a follow up to this adventure post. I did get some pictures of the cars themselves.

For such a small town, there was a lot to see, there is also a mining museum! Its called Nederland Mining Museum. Because Nederland was a mill to process the silver ore from the Caribou Mine, it makes sense that Nederland would have a museum dedicated to mines and mining. Originally, the town was a trading post for European settlers and the Ute Tribe in the early 1800s. Before that, it was it was used for hunting and foraging by some of the original inhabitants, The Ute and Arapahoe tribes.

The steamshovel shown above is one of the few remaining steam shovels that was used to dig Panama Canal. In this little town! The moment I saw it, I thought of Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. (If you haven’t read this book in a while or ever, I cannot recommend it enough and the child in your life will love it too!)

You might be thinking to yourself, How in the world is she still writing about stuff about this little town, and my friend, I am too! In the words of the old infomercial host,
“But Wait! There’s more!!!” And here is the more! The Barker Meadow Reservoir is here and it provides drinking water for the area and surrounding areas as well as providing water for a hydroelectric power plant. When it is not covered with snow and ice, the lake is beautiful, (I saw pictures online) and there are all sorts of activities that you can take part in at various times of the year. Today, the reservoir was covered in snow and looking very “Courier & Ives” minus the horse drawn sleigh, but I’m sure there is one somewhere!

Oh, and I did not try to walk on the ice. That is against my code, the code of no more broken bones!

Heading back home, I had to make a little side trip to Eldora, Colorado. This small town is the only ski resort on the “front range” side of the Rocky Mountains. Supposedly it is known as Colorado’s best place to learn snow sports. And very family friendly and very low key. Eldora was called Eldorado and was sometimes called Camp Eldorado but due to misdirected mail and miner payroll (YIKES!) to other Eldorado towns across the US, the post office suggested a change in its name, and they simply dropped the “do” at the end in 1898, because even back then, people want to get paid!

In 1875, gold was discovered and the town began to change. There were so much happening back then, and some of the buildings I saw represented that time. I don’t know if they are original miner cabins, or if they are small cabins for the resort, but everything was so quaint, I had to take pictures. Forgive the “soft focus” but the snow had started to come down in earnest.

I enjoyed my impromptu adventure today. As I drove back down to my house, listening to the murders, kidnapping, and criminals and hosts, I thought about all the roadtrips I had been on with my parents and my mother reading aloud to us. She read stories about love, orphans, bad guys, good guys, elves, hobbits, demi-gods, quests, prizes, and home. That memory made the day’s adventure perfect.

The goal is 60 new things before I turn 60 and I have 54 more to go and I can’t wait!