Started our day unpacking the cabin and got out in time for checkout at 10am. The plan was to rip the hike (the continental divide trail) we had started the day before.

We hiked for 6.5 miles and here is a view of the lake and mountains!

Facts:

• The lakes in Twin lakes serve as a reservoir for the Arkansas river as a part of the frying Pan-Arkansas Project of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
• The lakes are close to the tallest 14,000 foot mountains in Colorado, Mt. Elbert, and it’s shorter twin Mt. Massive
• Twin lakes is a 2 hour drive to Denver, but the elevation loss is an intensive 5000 ft.

After the hike, we drove 25 miles to Leadville where we housed a burger and sweet potato fries each. We stopped at the National Mining Museum in Leadville and spent roughly an hour learning about Horace Tabor.

Tabor was a huge silver mining tycoon in the 1880s. Amidst his rise to wealth and success he divorced his wife of 20 years, Augusta Tabor, to marry Elizabeth McCourt, better known as “Baby Doe”. Baby Doe was 25 years his younger at the time of their marriage in Washington, DC. The respectable ladies in DC protested his wedding by not attending because of the threat that younger women represented to their status. The marriage was a nationwide scandal that ruined Tabor’s aspiring political career. 10 years on, in 1893, silver prices dropped dramatically and the Tabors went bankrupt. Horace died in 1896 and Baby Doe lived out the rest of her life (a whopping 40 more years) in a cabin near the mines that had made them rich. She was a recluse and a beggar and probably went insane due to malnutrition and chemical exposure. On the other hand, Augusta (wife #1) founded a girls school in Denver, continued to be a prominent member in Denver Society and shrewdly invested her earnings in Singer Sewing Machines. Unlike her ex-husband, Augusta passed away as a wealthy woman and local philanthropist.

We continued on the Denver, a nose pinching 5000 feet of elevation change, and met up with my (Nick’s) friend from college at a beer garden. Remembering, of course, to write the substack at a starbucks first. Denver is a cool city and my friend is doing well. Emily couldn’t stop looking at the house prices.

After that, we continued on to my aunts, had some chinese food, and crashed.

Night night,

Nicholas and Em