School begins next week, and I would like to tell you about my
first vacation. In June I went to Indiana to visit my cousins. When
I came home I crossed the Mississippi and Missouri rivers for the
fourteenth time. In two weeks papa and mamma and I started for
Denver. We left Lincoln at noon, and the next morning I saw the
mountains for the first time. How strange to see snow in July! We
spent a few days in Denver, and then such a wild ride as we had
through the mountains to Georgetown, where I can't tell you half of
the fun I had. I fed the fish, and had a lovely row on Green Lake.
I went one-third of a mile into the Colorado Mine in a little car,
then down a shaft 250 feet, in a bucket with a miner, to see the
men at work; but I did not buy a mine like the other little
"tenderfoot" I read about in HARPER'S. But it was the most fun to
ride on a burro. There were ten children and seven burros, and we
had a fine ride on the mountain, and then had our pictures taken.
The cutest picture was a burro with four children on his back.
We went to Central over a queer railroad that runs almost up to the
town at the foot of the mountain, then makes a loop and runs back a
mile on the side of the mountain over the tops of the houses, then
turns again and runs into the town--oh, ever so high up! And we
went to the Bobtail Mine, and into the mill where they crush the
ore and wash the gold out of it. It was very interesting. I had a
nice play with a little new friend, Ethel S., whose papa owns lots
of mines.
And now I must tell you about our going up Pike's Peak. We left
Manitou at seven in the morning on horses, and such a wild,
beautiful ride I never had before. We had to go on a narrow path
just wide enough for a horse to go, very carefully winding around
the mountain-side, and we could hardly ever see to the top, and not
to the bottom, it was so far down. The bright little creek that
came splashing down through the rocks made the sweetest music that
mamma ever heard. The flowers, too, were very bright. When we were
near the top, papa let me pass him, and I was the first to get
there. Then we had coffee made from the snow-bank near the house.
But the going down! So tired we were, we were fit to fall.
And now I am too tired to tell you about the Garden of the Gods,
the Cave of the Winds, and the Denver Exposition. I am eight years
old.