06_12_to_15_2014 Final day of Anniversary weekend - Monitor Rock

Last day of our long weekend.  We left camp and headed on the same path as yesterday, except this time in the camper. It was nice to be able to grab some photos of the scenery. We didn't stop much yesterday to do so except at the top.

Check out the views!

The Twin Lakes area is quite beautiful

I should have mentioned, for both rides, the shoulder for about 80% of the time was really nice. 

Here Larry enjoys the ride into Twin Lakes.

More of the same....

The Twin Lakes General Store. The white box on the side should look familiar as the place we were crouched and hiding from the storm the day before.

Heading up....

And finally at the  mighty Monitor Rock!  Approach time - 10 minutes.

It is a bit chunk of granite.

Dave consults his electronic guidebook. The sun was sort of out and the winds were only blowing at 200 miles an hour this day. What is with the winds?

The cool temps and wind made for a very cold time. After belaying Dave, I decided no climbing. My hands were already freezing.

Dave ended up climbing three routes before calling it as well. In his words, the conditions were "marginal".  I suppose if bricks were flying out of the sky the conditions would be "bad". :)

He looks so warm here!

My perspective. Freezing. Wind. Misery.

We headed out toward Leadville, the highest incorporated town in the USA. It's a quirky little place and perfect for a bite to eat.

We opted to eat at the Golden Burro Cafe before it has a lot of history associated with it. Leadville itself is just packed with history. If you've not read about it, you should. Pretty fascinating.

Note to self: If you ever sit at a restaurant with a sign describing why they have slow service, leave before you expire.

An hour later, we did not have our Turkey BLT or veggie burger. Ridiculous.

Here are some reviews from the Trip Advisor: Not the cleanest restaurant in town. Menus were huge which always gives me pause that they can actually cook everything on the menu and have it taste good. We didn't get the chance to find out. We ordered our drinks but no one ever came back to take our order. We tried getting our waitresses attention but no dice. It was like we were invisible. The table next to us said they had been waiting along time for their check. We finally gave up and decided to leave. We stopped at the counter to at least pay for our drinks and the girl said "but your food will be right out". We told her we hadn't even ordered yet. She did apologize and didn't charge for our soda. Maybe this was an off day or they didn't have someone show up but I wouldn't take the chance again.

First, the rude sign saying "corral your children" then the hostess was rude, though she was accurate about the 10min wait for a table. During that wait however, they proudly displayed a lighted marquis Bragging about slow service?? The menus were disgusting--they were in these dingy yellow gross binders and the food? Lots of choices but all just ordinary fried restaurant/bar food. We sat for a really long time before a server even approached our table. The final straw for me was the prominent note in the menu saying that an 18% tip is expected for POOR service & 25% for good service!!! Seriously it all adds up to a low class establishment. Avoid avoid avoid! 

Slow (more like 'no') service. Food?...Well, I guess you could call it that, but it's a stretch. If you like bad service and cold food, this is where you eat, if not, look for another place. There must be better places than this in Leadville.

Take our word for it - it was awful!!

Finally, we wrestled our marginal food from the incredibly incompetent staff at the Golden Burro and got the heck out of there. 

We stopped on the way home for one last look at a pretty view then it was home. It's always great to be home!