PCC Conference Day 3 (edited)

Today was supposed to be a half day. However, I was incredibly bored, and left around 1030-ish, to explore greener (or redder, as the case may be) territories.

First off, I went to the Molly Brown Museum. Margaret Tobin Brown was never "Molly" in her lifetime. The nickname came about with the musical, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." The daughter of poor Irish immigrants, she married JJ Brown for love despite having earlier deciding to marry for money. From the photos available, she does not appear to be a physically beautiful woman (at least to my 21st century sensibilities), but she was a good and strong women, one worth looking up to. And indeed, in a time when the average height for women hovered around 5 feet, she was a distinguished 5'8".

Mrs. Brown was a strong advocate for women's righs. She studied at the Carnegie Institute and became fluent in German, French and Russian. During the miners' strikes, she set up soup kitchens for the miners. She helped establish the country's first juvenile court. She ran for Congress twice. When the Titanic sunk, she shared the extra furs, blankets and stockings she'd thought to bring, and marshalled the women in the life boat to row for their lives. Once the survivors were aboard the Carpathia, she utilized her language skills to prepare survivor lists, and started raising money for the survivors. She was not allowed to testify before Congress, and published her accounts in the newspapers. During World War I, she was involved in relief and rebuilding efforts in France. She also enrolled at the Sorbonne in Paris for acting classes, following in the footsteps of Sarah Benrhardt.

I then jumped in the car to drive down to Royal Gorge. The idea of walking the world's highest suspension bridge, and riding the world's steepest inclined railway was too appealing to resist. And so I did. However, if I were to do it over again, I would come when it was warm, and also do some white water rafting as well. As it was, I had a very short time period in which to explore, and it was very cold. Ahhh, well ...

Stopped at Garden of the Gods on the way back. Spent most of the time driving through, although I did step out at a couple of spots. The rock formations look like red-hued stegasaurus plates sticking up out of the earth. At any moment, I expected the leviathan to rear its gigantic head.