Saturday: few miles traveled around town. Elevation: still the same as yesterday: too high for Kenny to sleep/breathe well.
My list of things to do today was short since hiking is not the best choice for us. So we slept in, and I did laundry. Then we took a drive over to the Garden of the Gods. It was less than two miles from our motel. It was going to involve some walking, but mostly on paved trails and hopefully pretty level. The nice thing about this park is that it is free!
Charles Elliott Perkins, the head of the Burlington Railroad, purchased two-hundred and forty acres in the Garden of the Gods for a summer home in 1879. He later added to the property but never built on it, preferring to leave his wonderland in its natural state for the enjoyment of the public. Perkins died in 1907 before he made arrangements for the land to become a public park, although it had been open to the public for years. In 1909, Perkins’ children, knowing their father’s feeling for the Garden of the Gods, conveyed his four-hundred eighty acres to the City of Colorado Springs. It would be known forever as the Garden of the Gods “where it shall remain free to the public, where no intoxicating liquors shall be manufactured, sold, or dispensed, where no building or structure shall be erected except those necessary to properly care for, protect, and maintain the area as a public park.”
We drove the scenic loop drive, and looked everywhere for a parking spot so that we could walk the Central Garden Trail. The dark gray areas on the map are the rock formations. This park was busy today! It’s Saturday, and after we started walking the park, it made sense. It is a great playground and place for families to come. Today’s weather was perfect. About 70 degrees with a breeze – very comfortable!
We finally found a spot as someone was leaving so we grabbed it and parked below the main trail in P12. We had to hoof it uphill to get back up to where I wanted to be. Whew! I did not make a friend of my husband today! Add to that the crazy bicyclists that don’t pay attention to the 20mph speed limit or the crowds of cars or the amount of people. 😠. But, we made it to the trail without clunking over from lack of oxygen. (I’m sure we’ll do better once we’re less than a mile up in the atmosphere.. in a few days!)
After spending time in the National Parks on remote trails, this felt pretty civilized. There were lots of other trails in the park, I just thought the paved one would be the easiest for us, assuming it would be the most level.
There are some really neat rocks, and people are allowed to climb all over them. Children were having a blast climbing all over and around them.
In fact, on some of these tall peaks, we saw rock climbers going all the way to the top. They had to have a permit and all the appropriate gear to be allowed to climb.
It was a beautiful day, and the park is really pretty. I can see why people love coming here.
We were actually a little bit disappointed – because of the crowds, and we’ve seen some magnificent huge rock formations in Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Zion National Park, Capitol Reef National Park, Natural Bridges National Monument. But, this was free and right in our backyard!
This was a pretty view, overlooking the valley. The entire park is surrounded by residential communities.
This is a view of Pikes Peak in the background, and the Manitou Incline… which is a line that goes straight up the dark green hill in about the middle of the picture. It is pretty much a stair case up the side of the mountain that goes up 2000’ in less than one mile. YIKES! We didn’t even get close to it, but our son & his girlfriend did it last year. Wowza!
We didn’t spend a lot of time at the park. It just wasn’t our day. I think a weekday with smaller crowds would have been more enjoyable. I certainly owed Kenny a beer. We were hungry since we didn’t have any breakfast, so we went and found Cerberus Brewing Co for refreshment. Unfortunately, this is the second place that we’ve been to lately that didn’t have any of their porter/stout beer left! Kenny tried a couple of others, and then we made our way to Trails End Taproom. Both of these places were recommended by our son. Trails End was neat because it’s all self pour, and you pay by the ounce. They even had cold brewed nitro coffee, which I tried. It was good!
I wasn’t feeling terrific – kind of light headed, and my heart was racing, so we didn’t stay long. I drank lots of water and we went back to the motel and just relaxed. I looked at what is still to come on our trip. Only a couple more days of high elevation – YAY!