Mushrooms, Marble,and Crystal Mill

Fall is a'comin.The signs are all around. The deer are turning gray, and the aspen leaves are starting to turn. It's coming waaay tooo fast. This is one of our resident bucks who takes advantage of the Adams deer spa under the deck. It's crazy, we have a pile of does and bucks taking a snooze under the deck almost every day for hours.

Chanterelles

dirt brushed off

rinsed

Mushroom hunting! Good friends took us to their secret mushroom locations. Shhh, there will be no names or locations given. Mushroom hunting is serious business around here. So we newbies had great success, with help of course. 4 lbs of Chanterelles to bring home. Marvelous. They are magic if you haven't had any. We had them in two meals and froze the rest. Great fun - thank you B & W!!

There's an upside down car way down there - caution is the word of the day

Next up a big adventure jeep trip over to Crystal Mill.It took all day with regular roads first, going over Kebler Pass and then the jeeping from Marble to Crystal Mill. Crystal Mill was built in 1892, shut down with the silver mines in 1917, added to the registry of National Historic Places in 1985 with some restoring, and sits on private property.

Wow how things have changed. Tons of ATVs, jeeps, trucks, bikes, and hikers. The poor hikers had to jump off the road with every passing vehicle. And of course, these days there's gonna be a drone. Crazy! The hope is that it's a holiday weekend, so would be much quieter if we come again "off-time".

Cutthroat trout - not found often

Mark had some excellent fishing time in the Crystal River. He caught a ton in the pristine, clear as glass river. No, didn't keep any. Maybe next time. I had to tear him out of the river to get something to eat.

Lunch was at Slow Groovin BBQ the only restaurant in town. Jammed of course, but worth the wait. Everything is smoked on site, and that is one giant smoker. Great food!

This is what is done with marble from Marble, CO these days. Beautiful but I'm thinking back to the time where marble was used to build the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. Mostly a ghost town these days, population is 136.

Tis all for now. Enjoy your end of summer!