Knowflake Re/Union in Cripple Creek?

by Maria Barron
 

Knowflakes on the forum have been talking for a while about Rachel the Ram’s idea of a Knowflake Reunion, or I guess that would be a Union for those of us who haven’t met yet. I looked into possibilities in Cripple Creek for either the first weekend or second weekend of August 2003 and gathered up some information for consideration.

That first weekend, Friday the 1st through Sunday the 3rd, the county fair is held on the edge of town. Kids show off the livestock they raise and their plant projects and their quilts. The second weekend, Friday the 8th through Sunday the 10th, an art fair will be held on the main street in the center of town. Neither of those events would crowd us out like the events during the other August weekends.

People can fly into the Colorado Springs airport, and there are shuttle buses from there to Cripple Creek. Then there are free city shuttles (vans) within Cripple Creek to get to the lodging and meeting places, restaurants, etc. Amtrak can bring folks by train to Denver and then by Amtrak bus (like a Greyhound) to Colorado Springs, where again, you can connect with a shuttle bus to Cripple Creek. If some people want to drive here, we can carpool to see the old Isis Theater in Victor or drive out Phantom Canyon Road.

Linda Goodman’s first slipping-off-the-time-track house is now half of a six-bedroom inn, the Last Dollar Inn, owned and run by the very gracious Rick and Janice Wood. The other half of the inn they have added on as kind of a “next-door” but attached other side. I talked to Rick, and he said we could rent the whole inn - six guestrooms plus Linda’s living room to gather in - for $550 per night. The entire inn is available for either of the first two weekends in August, and we should let him know by about June 20 if we can. He usually starts getting bookings for August about then. Rick says the rate he’s offering is a little more than a 10 percent discount for taking the whole place, and the price includes breakfast.

The rooms at the inn are all different. One is Linda’s old bedroom left as she left it. Another two have been changed but were part of the house she lived in. Three more are brand new. One of the brand new ones has a two-person Jacuzzi. All the rooms have a bathtub, but only some have a shower. Each room sleeps two adults in one bed. So, we would have to figure out how to sort that out. Rick says when he does his mystery night group, all the guests pay the same amount and pull their room keys out of a hat. Otherwise, he said, he could figure the price differences between the rooms for us with the discount applied. Split evenly by six (for each of the six guestrooms) it would be $91.67 apiece per night.

Here is the link to the Last Dollar Inn’s website. The brownstone was Linda’s. The painted Victorian side is new.
Last Dollar Inn: <http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/lastdinn.htm>

I think it would be cool to reserve the whole house for whichever two nights make sense - Friday and Saturday? Or Saturday and Sunday? And which weekend?

If we have more people (or more couples) than six, there is a less expensive, similar inn in town, with a really good breakfast, called Angels Cathouse Bed & Breakfast. Pets are allowed there. That one has four guestrooms, one of which has two double beds, one has a double and a single, one is the Elvis room decorated in Elvis memorabilia with one King-size bed (of course, for the King of Rock ’n’ Roll) ... and then there’s a very small room with one king-size bed. That place charges the same price for each room, even though they’re so different, which is $75 a night, including breakfast. There is a big dining room we could gather in there, too.

So those would be the two cozy places we could pretty much take over and have the run of. There’s also a former Holiday Inn Express (now the Gold King Mountain Inn) with a pool. The Super 8 would be the very cheapest, but with nothing to offer but rooms to sleep in.

There are also lots of other places to stay in Cripple Creek too. The Hospitality House is a nice hotel made out of the old Cripple Creek Hospital, and they have something like 20 rooms ranging from about $65 to $95 a night, I think. There would be room for all of us there ... or at the Super 8 or the former Holiday Inn ... but it wouldn’t be Linda’s.

Would we want to fill up Linda’s and then anyone else scatter where they may? Or do we want to fill up Linda’s, then the smaller B&B (which together is 6+4=10 rooms), and then have a specific third place lined up - like the Hospitality House or the former Holiday Inn or Super 8 - for everyone beyond the first 10 rooms?

What do you all think? Do people still want to do this and have the time and money?

Linda’s friends and former next-door neighbors, Evelyn and Ed Stauffer, have said they probably would attend and reminisce about Linda if we do this. They would have to travel to do so, as they have moved out of state.

Let’s talk about this on the forum. I’ll start a new thread in the Linda Goodman forum.

Cripple Creek Links:
Cripple Creek tourism website:
<http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/>
Lodgings page from that site:
<http://www.cripple-creek.co.us/hotels.html>