Pikes Peak and Garden of the Gods

On September 15, 2017 and September 16, 2017 we visited Pikes Peak and did the train ride up the mountain to Pikes Peak.  We rode the COG railroad up the mountain. Description in the photos below.   Melanie, our sister in-law was with us and we enjoyed her company and the visit up the mountain.  The elevation is 14, 110 feet and when Bobby and Cindy got off the train they got altitude sickness and that was not much fun for them.  The ride is 3 1/2 hours with a 30 to 40 minute stop at the top of Pikes Peak.  From my perspective it was better than riding up in the truck because I would not have seen as much and Cindy does not like the height of the mountain road with no guard rail.  One thing is for sure it is cold and windy at the top of the peak.  We had jackets and it was still cold.  I needed long johns, remind me to pack a pair. 

The Garden of the Gods was ok, but there were a lot of people there and it was hard to find a parking place to take photos or to get out and walk the trails between the rock formations.  The park is free and belongs to the city of Colorado Springs having been gifted by one of the rich citizens in the 1880.  But it does not compare to Monument Valley and the other places we have seen.  After visiting these places we went back to watch the game, ROLL TIDE!!



























Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Shoshone Ice Caves

Image
On August 14th,  we went to the Shoshone Indian Ice Caves.  They were made from the lava tunnels and is the largest Lava Ice Cave known, created millions of years ago.  It descends 90 feet under the lava.  It is three blocks long and 30 feet wide and 40 feet high.  It holds over 20,000 tons of ice and is 1,000 feet long. T he temperatures inside vary from 28 to 33 degrees. The Ice Cave was discovered in the 1900's by a little boy looking for a lost goat.  He noticed that the ground was cool where the opening was and explored it further and found the ice covering the entire cave.  He told his family and they came to see the cave for themselves.  Then the government found out about the ice.  They sold the ice to the town people.  The government wanted to make more ice so they blew out the back wall of the cave to get more room.  This caused a change in the condensation of the air and the ice started to melt.  The air flow is compressed in the cave much like our refrigeration equipm
Read more

Royal Gorge

Image
On Thursday September 14, 2017, we went to the Royal Gorge which was located about 20 miles from Colorado Springs and our RV park.  The gorge is famous for the bridge that was build across it in the 1920's.  It is the longest span of bridge across a gorge in the world.  You can now cross the gorge on a tram or use the bridge.  It is about 950 feet tall and will hold a couple of ton.  It is about 1250 feet long.  They let vehicles cross the bridge, but it is not used as  a public vehicle crossing only Park equipment can cross.  Bobby loved the bridge so much that he ran across it looking at each board on the bridge to make sure that it was not going to break or fall while he crossed.  Most of the people cross on the tram and then walk across the bridge on the way back.  It saves walking up hill. The wind was so high that we had to reverse the travel and do the bridge first.  We did this and then they have a movie that last about 17 minutes and describes the building of the bridge
Read more

Sedona and surrounding area 2nd day

Image
We got early start the second day in order to sightsee before the heat got so bad.  We went to Montezuma Wells which is a natural fed lake in the middle of the desert.  The Native Americans used to live here millions of years ago and the made their  houses of mud bricks and had them under cliffs.  There is no fish in the lake but plenty of leeches, they say.  Also other animals such as the coyote and  fox visit the lake even now.  The depth of the lake is unknown and I think they said it was about 180 feet/yards across. After leaving Montezuma Wells went went to Red Rock Canyon State Park.  We have been there before but decided to go again and give the state of Arizona another 14 bucks to enter.  Thee is nothing there to do but walk and hike some trails.  There are places to have a picnic but we did neither.  We did get to see a free movie about Sedona's history which was interesting and it was cool in the building.  We road the Red Rock loop upper and lower and took photos of the
Read more