Tea Time in Boulder, and Home Again

69°f/20.5°C, cloudy all day after severe storms last night. Very humid, more storms on the way. A lot of localized flooding in our area. Can you tell we are home again?

Yes, we are back in West Virginia today, resting and regrouping and petting the dogs a LOT. We arrived about 11pm last night, with some spectacular lightning chasing us all the way. Fortunately the storms held off until the wee hours, and we slept so soundly I guess we missed it all!

But, our last day in Colorado was pretty special. We spent the night in Boulder again at Sarah's parents' home, to make the trip to the airport easier. Her Dad arrived during the night from his trip to Scotland so we were able ro have a nice visit with him before we left. Her mom is still on Scotland,  visiting a friend in Ayr (which made me think of you, gz!). 

But the afternoon before we left, we went to lunch at the most amazing restaurant I have ever seen. The Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse was gifted to the city by their sister city in Tajikistan. What a gift! I believe it took seven years of work by master craftsmen to complete,  then was shipped to Boulder. 

Just look at this place! The city took years to decide what to do with the gift and it just sat, disassembled,  in storage. Finally it was decided to use it as a teahouse, which was the givers' intention anyway I think, and a vendor was chosen to operate it.

Photo from the internet

It was truly breathtaking to see, and there was so much for the eyes to take in.

There were several of these stunning handcarved wood columns and a fountain which I unfortunately did not get a photo of.

The food was simply delicious. Sarah had a Korean noodle dish which was quite spicy.

I had the "Uruguay Chivito Sandwich:

churrasco steak, bacon, ham, provolone, tomatoes, Boston lettuce, herb-aioli, roasted peppers, olives, fries". This is the description from the teahouse website, and my goodness was it delicious. And huge! I had to take half of it home, and left most of the fries too. Larry had the Cuban sandwich and said it was the best he had ever had.

  

Oh, and the tea-- I cannot even begin to tell you how good it was. The tea menu was actually a whole notebook, including black, green, fermented, etc. Probably at least 50 kinds, but I think more than that. I chose Forest Berry, a black tea with blackberry and elderberry. I bought some to bring home and will have a cup as soon as I finish this post. Such a treat.

The walkway to the teahouse was lined with fragrant roses.

I doubt I will ever get back to the teahouse, but I know if I lived in Boulder I would probably be there every day. And also probably go broke!

We had a light supper that night at a British pub called The Hungry Toad. We opted for a dish of fish and chips, which we shared since we weren't very hungry, and Larry enjoyed a beer called milk stout. He said it was very good. Both of us ended up with a tummy issue in the night, and I think it was the fish, as that was the only thing we both ate that day. Luckily the bug was short-lived.

Before we left yesterday we drove by the building that houses eTown Hall, a public radio program I listen to regularly.  Their weekly broadcast is a musical variety show hosted by Nick and Helen Forster very like West Virginia's Mountain Stage, and features a special guest who has done something to benefit the planet or society. 

I had hoped we might catch a show there but it didn't fit our schedule,  unfortunately.  Maybe next time. It was fun just to see the building, as i will be able to picture it next time I tune in. The building is completely powered by solar energy.

And then it was off to the airport. I hated to leave, honestly, but Sarah will soon be here for a few weeks to work on her cabin, so we are looking forward to that.

At home, these happy faces greeted us. 

Buddy

and Pip 

were very well taken care of by our son and a few neighbors! Derek said they were right spoiled by all the attention. I was very pleased and relieved that all went well with our boys.

And now, back to normal life. I still have photos to share, so there may be one or two more Colorado posts.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Wordless Wednesday: Train Ride

Our ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad last Sunday:

Across the Continental Divide, and the Silver Plume Mine

We have crossed the eastern Continental Divide many times, as it crosses over the eastern part of West Virginia, but I never really expected to stand on the western divide!

On our way to the railroad and silver mine on Sunday, we took a route that led us right over the divide. (Interstate 70 goes under the mountain here instead of over it, through a very long tunnel.)

Incredible views up here! And one beautiful granddaughter too. 😉

Bad Sarah! 

We took the train ride first, then it was into the mine!

Our tour guide, Brent, did an excellent, thorough job of explaining both the history and the hardships of the early silver-mining days. Larry was completely into this, as so many aspects of silver mining were exactly like coal mining. He grew up in a coal camp so he knew a lot about it, and he and Brent had some good conversations.  At the end Brent gave him a beautiful arrowhead, which he had found in the creek that ran through the mine site.

Looking inside the mine, where the roof was shored up with large timbers, then pieces of railroad track iron rails were hammered above the top beam to provide solid support. Every few feet of tunnel took months to complete, as of course all the work was done with hand tools and muscle.

Hardhat Larry!

An area called a drift, where miners followed a vein.

A system of cables, pulleys, and a big bucket called a kibble (a Cornish term) were used to lower miners into the deeper tunnels. Men hung on the bucket by putting one leg inside and one outside the bucket, so 4 could fit, tightly into the space--- with all their tools too. Sometimes a miner would lose his hold and fall of, or lose a leg or other body part on the way down. 

At this point, we were several hundred feet underground, and Interstate 70 was right over top of us! 

Can you imagine crawling back into this deep hole? 

Brent explaining the mine workings, and telling us about tommyknockers. Most of the early gold and silver miners in the US at this time were from Cornwall in England, and brought that superstition with them. (We heard tommyknocker stories when we were in Cornwall. The mines there were silver, tin, and coal mines, so the men knew the work.)

When this drill was introduced,  it sped up the drilling process significantly,  but produced a lot of dust.  Men who worked in the mine at that time had an average life expectancy of about 35 years. So sad! And all for a few other men to get very rich. Millions of dollars worth of silver came out of this mine, and would have been worth billions today. But the men who mined it were paid very little, and these mine companies paid in scrip, which had to be spent at the company's store. Goods were way overpriced, so miners were constantly in debt. No way out with a system like that!

This slimy substance on the rock below was called dragon snot by the Cornish miners, and it actually had some good health uses, such as curing dtomach aches. I am not sure what it actually is. There were, however, stalactites formed from the dripping water, so my guess is that it contained calcium, just like antacids like Tums. These miners called the mist that often came out of the mouth odmf the mine "dragon breath", and the walls of the mine were called dragon ribs. Makes sense, since dragons are common in Cornish and Welsh folklore.

It was good to get back outside!

We panned for gold at the end of the tour, but not in a creek.  All it was was some large animal feed troughs with water and sand in them. You scooped up the sand, then swished the sand out of one rubber pan into another, until all that was left was the gold bits. The gold was actual Colorado gold, and every person ended up with at least $10-12 worth of gold in the end, according to the guides. Here's Larry holding his tiny vial of water and gold kernels. The whole thing was rushed, but it was fun, especially when you saw the gold start to appear in your pan.

We didn't keep our gold--we gave it to Sarah's boyfriend's daughter, who was completely thrilled with the whole mine experience. 

We ended the day in a German restaurant, eating some amazing sausages--some made from wild boar meat, some from venison, some with Guinness beer, and the house recipe. These were accompanied by potato salad, pickled red cabbage, and sauerkraut, along with some really good mustard.

And then it was home to bed and a very good night's sleep.

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.