2015 Trip in the Open Air Cars
In the summer of 2015 my friends and I visited Georgetown, Colorado and rode the Georgetown Loop Railroad and took a Mining Tour. While there, we read about the Christmas festivities that Georgetown puts on every year and we couldn’t wait to come back and see it.
We finally made it in December 2018 (yes this video is a year old when I finally posted it). Georgetown has a Christmas Outdoor Market 4 weekends of the year, but we unfortunately couldn’t make it in time for that and instead came over New Years Eve. Fortunately the Christmas Train was still rolling strong.
Georgetown does 2 different holiday train events. During the day they have Santa’s North Pole Adventure that is directed towards a younger crowd with a special visit from Santa Clause. At night, it switches over to Santa’s Lighted Forest, which is what we rode.
At Christmas time they also put on the special Presidential Car. It costs more, but they give you appetizers, deserts and the option to purchase special holiday drinks. Since we were coming specifically for this train ride, that’s what we chose. While we were at it, we figured we should really get into the Olde Towne feel and dress up in historical attire.
Georgetown’s Main Street
Fortunately Georgetown had an excellent hat shop and Seth, Tami, and myself were able to find some hats to complete our outfits. I was really looking for a Bowler hat, as I figured that would be the perfect old timey look for me, but fate had a different plan. The hat shop was limited on their sizes and I have an extra large head so that left me with 1 choice, a Stove Pipe Hat. It took a bit to get used to it, but the more I wore it, the more it felt right. It definitely gets you attention in a crowd, but with Seth and Tami’s excellent outfits, we all looked like we belonged together.
(We were having a great time. We just thought it would be fun to take pictures like the old days when they didn’t smile)
My Stove Pipe Hat
Seth and Tami in their Presidential Best
The Bowler hat ended up fitting perfectly on Seth’s head while Tami found a Fascinator that complimented her dress perfectly. The townsfolk and crowd all treated us really well and several people told us they were really happy to see young people find excuses to get dressed up and go out. I still wear my stove pipe hat whenever I can, the last time being to a showing of “The Phantom of the Opera”.
The appetizers and drinks on the train were pretty good. We were a bit disappointed in the deserts. First, because we came hungry, we were sad to see there was only 1 of each per table and we had 3 scrunched together on a table. Second, because the chocolate lava cake was frozen, which kind of defeats the point of calling it lava cake.
Below are the Instant Pictures we (mostly Seth) took with Seth’s Fujifilm Instax Wide camera
You might be wondering about 2 photos in particular. Well, well there is an interesting story about that. First, let’s talk about Seth’s TieDie Onesie. We were eating lunch at an excellent pizza joint in Idaho Springs called Beau Jo’s Pizza. With some time to kill, we visited a few shops in the area and one of them was a very hippie-esque shop that happened to make hand made tie-die clothes among other things. Seth fell in love with them and the rest is history.
As for the poses. First, you can thank our friend the instant camera again for giving inspiration everywhere we looked. The mantle just screamed to be put on an instant picture with someone posing. The clothing choices were simply because the AirBnB house that we rented had a memories wall. We had to leave something that would make people wonder just what went on here. I think it’s mission accomplished.
If you’re curious about the 2 advertisements in the video, the Gentleman’s Single Use Monocle and Boston Barnaby’s Electrical Wire keep reading.
Yes, the Monocle is a real product. The advertising video they made for it is really good. I’d meant to wear it while out on the train. I wanted to record a bit where I would say to one of the others that my fancy was falling and I needed to bring it back, or I’d be chatting up Wendy and she’d say I wasn’t fancy enough or something. Then I’d pull out my Single Use Monocle and win the day, but we were so distracted by everything else going on that it slipped my mind.
Boston Barnaby’s Poster
Boston Barnaby’s was just a funny little idea I had while editing this video. I think in a different take of that part in the car I said I was from Boston so that’s where the idea came from. The poster definitely defines the essence of Barnaby though.
As far as the Burns-Moore Mine is concerned, that was a wonderful find. It was really hard not to walk into it, but we respected the law and stayed out. People from Colorado may not think finding an abandoned 100 year old mine is anything special, there are hundreds of them, but we’d never seen one so it was an exciting discovery. During the 8 hour ride home, I Googled and bought an ebook trying to track down what the name of the mine was. It wasn’t listed on the first layer of Colorado mines. I had to dig deeper (no pun intended) to find the exact listing and even then, it was like a needle in a haystack trying to find significant information about it, other than advertisements to buy stock and hopes and prayers that the mine would dig further.
During my research, I found a few stock certificates up for sale as well as a listing of a number of articles about it that had already been sold. I would have loved to get the articles because it looked to actually contain photos and information.
I keep a bookshelf full of memorabilia from trips I’ve been on and thought an authentic stock certificate would be a great way to remember this exciting part of the trip. I’ve uploaded a copy of my certificate for you to download should anyone be interested in an extremely high resolution scan of it. Download the Full Resolution PNGs and PDF copies here.
All in all, it was a great trip. I love Colorado and will never turn down an opportunity to spend some time in the mountains. If you’re in the mood for a getaway over your Christmas break, I’d definitely recommend the Georgetown/Idaho Springs area.
