A Golden Autumn

It was a very laid back afternoon yesterday along Clear Creek in downtown Golden, Colorado. It was hot and sunny, and not surprisingly, since it was mid-week, most of the people on the Clear Creek Trail were made up of Colorado School of Mines students, dog walkers, and senior citizens. There weren't too many tubers on the creek, either, as seen in the photograph on the left. Golden is a beautiful old town, founded in 1859, with lots of homes and businesses dating from the late 19th Century. Just for fun, I looked up homes for sale in the most historic part of town, which includes the Golden History Park, the 12th Street Historic District, and the Colorado School of Mines, and found there were none.  Which is not a surprise - why move if you are living in a perfect little city next to the foothills, in a restored Victorian, a short walk from a beautiful river path that leads into the mountains and a very pleasant downtown with lots of shops and restaurants. Not to mention having the Golden City Brewery located right in the middle of the neighborhood, in the backyard of an 1870s era home.

One side of the Clear Creek Trail goes right along the river, with plenty of spots to sit along the water, while the other side runs past the Golden Historic Park, as seen in the photo on the right. That park contains 1800s era cabins and other buildings from the Pearce Ranch in Golden Gate Canyon, as well as the 1876 Guy Hill schoolhouse. It gives you a good idea of what it was like to live on the frontier when people first started to settle in Colorado starting in the late 1850s. As far as I can tell, it must have been miserable. I myself once spent a night in a Victorian in Denver when my ex-wife Lisa was housesitting for a friend. Talk about cold, and don't even mention the bathroom, which I think was all original equipment. I assume those Victorians in Golden have been completely updated. Otherwise, all those people walking around town would be much more surly, like I was after spending the night at that Victorian horror.