Garden of the Gods

Today Linda and I went to the Garden of the Gods, here in Colorado Springs. It amazes me how you can drive just to the outskirts of a town and find the most beautiful rock or land formations...seemingly just out of no where. It's like that with the Grand Canyon (no, not that one) outside of Wellsboro, PA. You drive outside of town, take a few turns and then come upon this huge ravine (not as big as the other Grand Canyon) but spectacular none the less.

 Today there was a high school band playing out front of the visitor center, which was nice. The land that the Garden of the Gods occupies was donated, to the city, by the Perkins family in 1909. Two of the provisions of the gift were that no buildings be built on the land, unless absolutely necessary and that it always be free for everyone to enjoy. How often can we say that an attraction is "free".....not too many come to mind.We picked up a map of the park and headed out. The entrance is directly across from the visitor center.

Driving into Garden of the Gods

Kissing Camels

We drove to the first parking area, where the one major trail starts, parked Bertha and headed out with Boomer to hike a ways. The rock formations are so magnificent to look at and it's neat how they have all sorts of hiking paths through the park, as well as a wide, paved path like the one we went on. It was pretty hot today...low 80's. There were lots of rock climbers out today, scampering up the sides of sheer walls or small rock formations. There were lots of folks out on horseback. You could see them on the ridges and coming out of the canyons. What a great view they must have from some of the areas in the park where there are no paths. We really enjoyed the day. At the end of the road, as you drive through the park, is the trading post. Such a neat place with tons of stuff to look at, a cafe, an art gallery and lots of neat gift ideas. We had a great time poking in the corners, looking at all of the cool things.

While we were at the visitor center, we called one of the men that we became friends with at the retirement community, back in Winston Salem. He was career Air Force, had lived in Denver for twenty some years so we thought he'd get a kick out of having us call him from his old stomping grounds. He was thrilled to hear from us ! He told us we need to go to the Air Force Academy, which is on our "to do" list. Lots to see and do here so hoping we can squeeze everything in. We have a conference call tomorrow afternoon or evening with our new boss so might squeeze in something to do tomorrow morning and then get back here for the call. Not sure what that "one thing" will be but I know that NASCAR is not on the agenda. Unless they insert it between Daniel Boone or Happy Days, on our one channel we get here, the Kansas Speedway will have to get by without me. SIGH.... That's OK....too much to see to be a couch potato. One more day to play before we get back to work....

See the Rock Climber...

Since we don't have TV here, if anything cataclysmic happens in the world, would someone let us know. Unless I see the missile silos open up down the road at NORAD or see a mushroom cloud over the campground, we're pretty much out of the loop. Some days that might not be such a bad thing but if there's anything you think we need to know, drop us a line. Till then, we're off to explore !

"Perseverance"

Doesn't this look like some sci-fi city from a distance?

Gorgeous cliff house near the trading post