Albuquerque - Day 5

The town of Ouray was created as a mining town (with 30 different mining operations) about 125 years ago.

We visited the Bachelor-Syracuse Mine thinking that it might be a little scary, but the little kids would love riding a train cart into the mine.

No train cars. We walked through the muddy, dark mine on the old train tracks. Thankfully, the kids did great! It was amazing to see the beautiful rocks, but a little creepy too. 

Inside the mine, we sat in a little inlet where we listened to our tour guide talk about what life was like in a mining town and how the process of mining worked.

Our tour guide told us that in a mining town, a 5 year old would get his first set of mining tools and just carry them around all day to get used to the weight and to become comfortable with them. James is almost 5 so he was our example.

It was interesting to hear about life in the late 1800's. Children were put to work in the mine at a very young age. It was definitely a hard life.

That afternoon, the boys went swimming at the hotel pool while Beth took a nap. (Well, kind of swimming... James prefers the hot tub while Nate prefers anything with steps so he doesn't have to actually swim.)

And that night, we walked through the town and went to dinner. Nate and James wore the green and blue proudly.  ;-)