A Visit to St. Elmo

The resident odds right now are 7 adults and eight children. Still, it seems to take us forever to get organized and get out in the mornings. We packed a (large) picnic lunch, gathered all the warm clothes we could find, stopped at the City Market for lunch meat, then (finally) headed out for our "Adventure of the Day." We made our first stop about 5 miles down the road, when W barfed in the lead car and our convoy came to a screeching halt. The diagnosis was "too much OJ at breakfast." A quick clean-up and we were off again.

DH and I had visited St Elmo, Colorado, a couple of times, but always in the summer. This is winter and there is snow everywhere. It will be interesting to go back and compare the summer photos with these winter ones. Today, we were assured the road would be clear, and it was. I was very comfortable driving on the hard packed snow, although not as fast as the locals(?) were traveling to and fro.

St Elmo is an old mining town. It looks as if people just walked out one day and left it, intact.

There is still merchandise in the General Store and "stuff" in several other buildings.

The little schoolhouse has been refurbished.

There are several private residences in the town and, although there has been restoration, some of the buildings date from the late 1800's. The fence sets some of the residential area apart.

The undisturbed snow was quite deep and signs requested we remain on the street. Fortunately, there were not too many visitors, so the children took their sleds to the street and had quite a hilarious time.

Junior kept trying to improve on the age-old methods of sledding. Chas tried to perfect the running start.Twelve year-old Em figured she had the biggest snowball ever, even though she was not allowed to use it.
For some reason, Abs liked to be "one" with the snow - packing it around her.....

...and making snow angels.

Lacking picnic facilities, we had a tailgate party. No one wanted to take off all those snow clothes, climb back in the car, drive to some unknown possible picnic spot, get out and re-dress, for lunch, then repeat the whole procedure.
But Ky had the best seat in the house.

Afterward, we wended our way back to THOJAL, hot chocolate, and home made cookies.