St. Elmo

Susan left on Monday leaving Sandy and I with the kids.  We took a day trip up to Buena Vista, a town we have been visiting off and on for almost 20 years now.  Not far from Buena Vista is a ghost town called St. Elmo.

Leaving Buena Vista and driving toward Mt. Princeton where St. Elmo sits.

I have visited many ghost towns in Colorado and I have to say this one was impressive.  Both for it's size and restoration.  The other surprising thing is how easily it is accessed.  Most ghost towns can only be visited by a long bumpy 4-wheel drive road.  This one was 30 minutes off the highway on a mostly paved road.

The town is quite large, consisting of several streets.

Some buildings are more restored than others.

St. Elmo is a jumping off point for a lot of off-roading and historic trails that lead to many more ghost towns and abandoned mines.  Above is the start of Tincup Pass.  It's next on the Jeeping bucket list.  Maybe next year.

Classic log cabins in beautiful scenery.

The odd part of St. Elmo was that some new buildings had been built and were being used as summer cabins.  The above is an example.

Being a tourist attraction, one building remains open for business - that is the general store.  They have souvenirs for sale alongside antiques.  The yard beside it looked like an American Pickers episode.  As the day went on, more and more people arrived.

The General Store sold sunflower seeds.  You could cross the road and feed the chipmunks and squirrels.  They would come up and eat right out of your hand.  You can imagine how the kids loved this!  I tried really hard to not sanitize their hands every 2 minutes.

Phoebe.