Well it is that time of year when people start rushing frantically around in search of the perfect (or something like it) Christmas present.   It used to start off at 6:00 am on the Friday after Thanksgiving, so that meant getting up insanely early (but not as insane as the people who camped out overnight).  Then it started at midnight after Thanksgiving, that was pretty do-able.  But this year it started at 6:00 pm Thanksgiving Day.   I used to like to go out and be part of the crowd, perhaps buying small things, perhaps buying nothing because I tried to have my shopping done before the madness started.  Friday was the big day of enticing sales from the large retailers, (and yes, I did succumb to a few choice things).   Saturday is for shopping at smaller stores, so I headed over to Manitou Springs and joined the hordes of tourists aimlessly milling about.

It’s a tourist place now, but the fallen sign on this building shows that it once had an ordinary business.

Manitou has a reputation for being weird, I think this face in the window confirms this.   😉

The business part with the tourist shops and restaurants is down by the creek, and many of the houses are up on the hills, reached by narrow winding roads.  I am a total flat-lander and driving on them makes me want to throw up.

For a long time Manitou was the sort of funky place full of old hippies.  Recreational marijuana is legal here, so now there are lots of pot shops (cash only) and plenty of young hippies.

I did go out, even though it was not the same to be shopping without my little buddy (especially at the Penny Arcade).  And it would have been her 13th birthday.