Well, we went to Cave of the Winds last Friday, and it was pretty awesome. The only thing is that since the 1880s when the guy started the tours through those caves, so many people have been through there that it's not completely authentic anymore. Not only have the COTW people had to put in concrete floors, handrails, and lighting, but the tourists put their grubby hands on the walls and stuff. Because of the improvements, water no longer flows through there, making the caves "dead". There are some newer parts that they keep sealed off from people, though.
The best part? Making Gollum impressions in the dark! "PRECIOUSSSS..."
There's a 100+ year old Edison lightbulb hanging in one part of the cave. I couldn't tell if the element was still intact, but they cut the wires to it at some point so they don't power it.
But, I think I can start writing my story now... If I'm going to do it at all, I need to start writing.
8 comments:
Cool. I'm glad you had a good time.
ROFL...
My family and I once went to the "Tunnel of the winds" also.
What a joke.
It's hardly bigger than the elevator shaft that takes you down to the main cavern of Carlsbad Caverns, in which the entire Tunnel of the Winds could be placed in.
Waste of money, it was.
By the way...
When we went the light bulb was still working.
Whether or not it is - or ever was - a genuine article I cannot say. They would not allow a close examination of the thing.
@ Astrosmith:
Glad that the CotW worked out so well; hope it gave you some good ideas.
Also keep in mind that there is more than one side to Pike's Peak. The western slope is not settled at all, and has numerous topographical features that could help in your setting, such as mountain lakes and streams with fish, and numerous other larger forms of wildlife for food (deer, bear, bighorn sheep, mountain lions). I don't recall it ever having been settled by people at all; in fact, the City of Colorado Springs owns the entire mountain, and they are just now getting around to opening up the western side for limited hiking.
And if you are interested in other nearby underground spaces, I highly recommend that you take a tour of the old Mollie Kathleen gold mine up in Cripple Creek. It could provide some interesting possibilities for your book's antagonists. You'd probably have to play around with the timeline a little, but hey, isn't that what historical fiction does anyway?
They have group/school discounts if you're interested in selling the idea to your homeschool group, too; given that the general admission price is a little steep, this could save you all a few bucks to do it together.
You'll have to wait until they resume tour operations in May, but that isn't really that far off. Make sure everyone brings a warm jacket, too, because it's quite chilly at 1,000 ft underground.
Good luck with the writing!
@ Anonymous:
Can you be any more obviously spam? I'd like to find out some additional information about your real webpage and spam it back.
Don't click the link, as if you didn't already know.
Yeah, boy am I getting hit with the spam lately. I don't know what they think they're accomplishing with all of that, but at least it's not too difficult to go in and delete it. Blogger has a "report as spam" option, so I just keep clicking on that hoping that their spam recognition algorithm catches on.
Oh, and I'm still banned from Google Adsense. It's like, once you're banned, you're banned for life, sucker! No appeal.
"Blogger has a "report as spam" option, so I just keep clicking on that hoping that their spam recognition algorithm catches on."
It does, but it seems to be blog specific. Mine is working great after 3 months of tagging everything, including old posts.
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