Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Georgetown

We went to Georgetown last Saturday and I have to tell you I'm in *love* with Georgetown!  It's so stinkin' cute!


We drove up Guanella Pass to Clear Lake for a picnic lunch. The lake was nothing too exciting but the scenery around was fabulous and the drive, while full of switchbacks, was gorgeous. Thank goodness for my seabands or I'd get sick every time we go up the mountain! We started to have lunch and the wind was blowing and it was C-O-L-D!


We ate in a hurry because, well, it was cold. Just as we were heading back to the car it started to rain. Before we left that morning we said "maybe we should bring jackets" but then we forgot. Lesson learned! It's late August - we need jackets. We should probably always have them in the car anyway.

After lunch we went into Georgetown. It was cool in Georgetown but substantially warmer than up the hill aways!

One thing I love about Georgetown is that it sits in this little valley and any direction you look is a towering mountain covered in pine trees. Love!

We walked around the main street area for awhile then went to the Hotel de Paris Museum. The poor volunteer who was taking care of admission that day was an older lady and she was so frazzled that she had to run a credit card charge through because we didn't have cash. Lesson #2 learned for this trip - bring cash! Some of these small places deal better with that and some only take cash.




It was a fun tour that even takes you into the cellar. That wasn't so good for my tall husband but it was still interesting to see. Something like 90% of what you see there was original to the first or second owners - very unusual for a museum so I was pretty excited about that.

We also did the tour of the Hamill House museum - that was an excellent tour!



The house is gorgeous and the tour guide was great. We were the only ones on that tour and that always makes me happy because then you can go at your own pace and ask questions and really get the info on whatever interests you. The guide also gave us good information on Georgetown in general which always helps put things in context.

One thing he told us was that while most mountain mining towns had one decent fire department Georgetown had four (4!) excellent fire departments and because of that it's the only mountain town in the state that has never burned to the ground. This also explains why I love this town so much - seriously there were old houses and buildings everywhere with their little plaques "1875," "1888" and so on. No wonder it's so adorable!! There were two houses (adorable houses) for sale right across the street from the Hamill House but Dave wouldn't let me buy one. Well, actually he said I would really hate the commute. I said that's ok, I'll quit my job and stay right there in Georgetown...  ;)


This little mountain town is a gem and it's only about 45 minutes away from home. We both loved it and we'll definitely be back!! Next time we'll stay overnight so we can take more time exploring Guanella Pass.

2 comments:

Mandy said...

45 minutes isn't a bad commute, right? someday we need to stop there when we're driving out.

Becky said...

That's so fun - I can't wait to go there for their Christmas thing! :)