{"id":66,"date":"2013-01-22T18:24:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-22T18:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beltguy.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/22\/hello-from-black-hawk-co\/"},"modified":"2013-01-22T18:24:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-22T18:24:00","slug":"hello-from-black-hawk-co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/?p=66","title":{"rendered":"Hello from Black Hawk, CO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello from Black Hawk, CO<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday Morning&nbsp;&nbsp; January 22, 2013&nbsp;&nbsp; (First travelogue of this trip).<\/p>\n<p>Black Hawk, CO??????&nbsp; Yes, Pat and I are at the Ameristar Casino and Resort in Black Hawk <a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/?t=h&amp;q=39.799989,-105.489126%28Shepherd%29\">(map)<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>As was the case last week, I (and this time, Pat) are\/were close to home (less than 30 miles).&nbsp; Pat and her cousin, Linda, come up here every so often to feed the slot machines.&nbsp; Apparently AMERISTAR is reaching towards the bottom of the membership barrel and offering a free two night stay at their hotel.&nbsp; Who can pass up that offer?<\/p>\n<p>Pat and Linda have stayed up here at least once, using Linda&#8217;s points.&nbsp; She had told me many times how neat it was.&nbsp; I had to drop the hint that I would like to be her roommate {grin}.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>I have long been frustrated at the huge amount of \u201cdamage\u201d that the casinos did to this historic area of Colorado.&nbsp; Gold was discovered in 1859 in a gulch between the towns of Black Hawk and Central City. and that created a \u201cgold rush\u201d to the area.&nbsp; It became known as:&nbsp; &#8220;The Richest Square Mile On Earth&#8221;. Reasonably good documentation of the history of this area can be found here:&nbsp; http:\/\/www.centralcitycolorado.com\/history.php and here:&nbsp; http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Central_City,_Colorado.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>I spent a lot of my younger years touring&nbsp; and being immersed in the amazing history of the area.&nbsp; As a kid, I would drag my folks all over the two towns looking at mechanical relics of the past (mecca for me).<\/p>\n<p>For years I refused to come up here because of the loss of focus on what was a major part of Colorado history.&nbsp; But after 20 plus years, I guess I had better get over it {sheepish smile}<\/p>\n<p>This a fabulous casino\/resort.&nbsp; The room is the equivalent of&nbsp; a 4 or 5 star hotel.&nbsp; The casino is huge.&nbsp; The architecture and interior of the building are very well done in what I would call early American.&nbsp; The buffet is among the very best we have been in.&nbsp; With her points, we were able to have dinner last night for less than $5.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>This morning, I used our Starbucks cards to get oatmeal and scones.&nbsp; So far, a pretty inexpensive trip.<\/p>\n<p>As I write this, Pat is up a bit less than $100 playing the \u201cpenny\u201d slot machines.&nbsp; Me, that is another story.&nbsp; She still has a lot of playing to do and we will see how that all plays out at the end of our stay.<\/p>\n<p>That is all for now. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello from Black Hawk, CO Tuesday Morning&nbsp;&nbsp; January 22, 2013&nbsp;&nbsp; (First travelogue of this trip). Black Hawk, CO??????&nbsp; Yes, Pat and I are at the Ameristar Casino and Resort in Black Hawk (map). As was the case last week, I &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/?p=66\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beltguy.com\/Travelogue\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}