Cave of the Winds: Historical Colorado Cave & Giveaway! Part 3 Click HERE if you missed part 1, and HERE if you missed Part 2. Okay, in this last part of the Cave of the Winds series, we're going into the different formations found in the cave. This is one of my favorite formations. They call it "Cave Bacon." Formally, it is a curtain formation of flowstone. The iron and calcium that are prevalent in Cave of the Winds give it the red and white coloring. The stalactites in Cave of the Winds are tubular, meaning they are hollow in the middle when they're first formed, and then fill in later. Here you can see the different coloring of the center of the formation, this is due to the tubular formation process. There are a lot of these "soda straw" formations in Cave of the Winds. This is the only cavern in Cave of the Winds that is still forming. The rest of the cave is dormant. The above formations are known as Cave Coral, or P...

Cave of the Winds: Historical Colorado Cave & Giveaway! Part 2 If you missed part one of the Cave of the Winds trip, be sure to check it out HERE. As mentioned in the last post, Cave of the Winds became a tourist attraction in 1881. You would be surprised at how many of these early cave explorers were women. In skirts, mind you. ;) There were two such women visiting the cave, who were old maids of 20 & 21 years old. At a certain point in the cave, the two ladies removed their decorative hair pins and left them on the wall of the cave. Two years later, these two women returned to Cave of the Winds, but this time they were married off to healthy, and wealthy men. Since then, visitors have left hair bands, pennies, any shiny or hair-related object in hopes that they will have the same good fortune. (Pictured at left) Legend has it that if the object lands on top of the pile and stays, you'll be happily married, BUT if it falls, you're in for a divorce. For all...

Coming over the mountain into the Steamboat Springs valley Last weekend, my family and I took a mini vacation to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. Nestled in a lush valley surrounded by the majestic mountains, Steamboat has a great climate and rich history. This town was formed by rugged pioneers who had to put up with outlaws, mountain winters, and the fact that Steamboat is pretty far from any large city. While there, we visited with a couple of my good friends. I stopped to discuss the Declaration of Independence Series with Benjamin Franklin and he posed for a picture with my siblings and me. I also got to pose with Mark Twain. How cool is that? While in Steamboat, we visited the Tread of Pioneers museum. It was filled with interesting facts about the area, as well as the Victorian era. They also had an interesting display about the 10th Mountain Division during WWII which is a special division that was trained in the harsh mountain climate and was able to accomplish...

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book! You never know when I might play a wild card on you! Today's Wild Card author is: Donna F. Crow and the book: A Jane Austin Encounter StoneHouse Ink (February 2014) ***Special thanks to author Donna F. Crow for sending me a review copy.*** ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donna Fletcher Crow, who lives in Idaho with her husband of 46 years, is the mother of four adult children, grandmother of 10 and author of thirty-some books, mostly novels dealing with British history. Her best known book is t...