Then Down into Manitou

Then in the late afternoon, with the light still good, I descended the from Cripple Creek and found the wide U.S. Highway that descends steeply from Woodland Park, the perfect surburbia, and got off in swift traffic onto the exit for Manitou Springs.

There was a lot of construction in the old part of town. Most of Manitou Springs is old, in fact. It's a preserve of the Colorado mid 20th Century tourism boom, probably the best such preserve of this culture remaining in the West.

Even within Colorado, it has protected status. If you're from the northern Front Range, like me, the area around Colorado Springs was sort of a no-go area, to be shunned. It makes it all the more fascinating to me now.