Karen and Jeff's World

We decided to go back to the Cripple Creek Ice Festival on February 12th and stay at the  Whispering Pines Bed and Breakfast. This is a nice B&B that is on a hilltop outside of town. The location provides a very quiet atmosphere and some terrific views.

Peggy and Mark were great hosts (as usual, this was our second time), and Peggy made a very nice breakfast (Peaches and Cream French Toast).

Pictures of the Ice Festival are at: Cripple Creek Ice Festival 2011.

Here’s a link to a pano from the deck.

We had some time to kill before checking into our B&B while staying in Cripple Creek for its annual Ice Festival on February 12th, and decided to trek the 7 miles to Victor to check it out. Victor is an old mining town west of Colorado Springs (Cripple Creek is as well). Unfortunately, time and the economy have not be kind to Victor. There are about 500 residents today. Many of the homes we saw were for sale, and many store fronts were vacant. We did go into a really nice little antique shop. You can stroll around downtown Victor in about 10 minutes. There’s only about 4 blocks to downtown.

On February 12th we headed up to Cripple Creek for its annual Ice Festival. We we got there around 10 a.m. and they were still setting up to carve ice blocks into large (and some small) sculptures. It was interesting to see them getting the ice ready for carving. Some of the sculptors had drawings on display of work to come.
We wandered around taking pictures of the sculptures and sculptors, then we found a place for lunch. After lunch we took a quick drive to Victor, CO (photos are at: Victor, Colorado) to kill some time before we could check into our B&B (photos at: Whispering Pines Bed and Breakfast).

After the trip to Victor, we checked on the progress of the sculptors. We were really surprised at the increase in number of people at the festival. There was probably four times as many people as when we left. Jeff was really surprised at how fast the sculptures were taking shape. I guess ice is easy to work with chain saws and hot chisels.
We did another check on the progress after we checked into our B&B and ate dinner at a nice pizza place (the newest restaurant in Cripple Creek–or so the flyer said). Some of the sculptures were really pretty at night.