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Garden of the GodsMay 5, 2009
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View from the Visitors Center
Did you know this?
Today was such a special day that I don’t think I can tell you all about it tonight. I will do this in stages and see how tired I get.We started out around 9:00 AM thinking that that would be plenty early but it sure wasn’t. After a quick stop at Starbucks our first destination was The Garden of the Gods. We missed this the last time we were here but wanted to see what it was all about. We started at the Visitors Center to learn as much as we could about this beautiful place. There was a video to watch just as we always do at all National Parks. This one was not a National Park and we were very surprised when they wanted to charge us $5.00 each to watch it. Well that got my attention and I decided we would read about it instead of watching….. We checked out the really nice gift shop, took a few pictures and with our map in hand we set out to see the area. Our first stop was at the main parking lot where trails led off in every direction. Wow. This was some place. The red and white rock formations were awesome. I haven’t seen anything like this outside of Arches NP or maybe Zion. The big difference here is that it is not a National Park. It is private land that was donated to Colorado Springs but only if they did not charge anyone to come here. The City is keeping this very costly promise but are trying to make up for it any way they can. Had I known that earlier, we would have been happy to pay the money to watch the video. We did make up for it later though but that will come later.When we parked at the main parking lot, about five young men walked by us with shorts on. I remember thinking that it was cold… Must be nice to be young. A short time later we saw a van pull out of the lot with the Olympic Logo on it. A women had just dropped on a team of Olympic hopefuls. Colorado Springs is where the US trains for the Olympics and we had hoped to get time to visit but not a chance this trip. It was awesome when I figured out who these kids were. I wanted top run after them and ask questions but they were a lot faster than this old gal so I settled for some very zoomed up photos. Had we had any idea of all the trails and beautiful scenery that was here we would have allowed so much more time. As it was we only hike about 1 ½ miles before we had to come back to the truck and continue on the automobile road. They did have some nice spots to pull over and take pictures but it was nothing like hiking right down in the middle of these beautiful formations.We left there about 11:30 and went to the neat little town of Manitou Springs where we found the neatest little place for lunch. We chose the Stage Coach Inn. What a neat placed. It was right on a creek and had both indoor and outdoor seating. It still hadn’t warmed up enough for these Floridians to sit outside but it was so cut inside that we didn’t care. Not being very hungry we each just had a bowl of Chile but the menu was very interesting. Soup of the day was made with pheasant and buffalo burgers were a big thing on the menu.We had just a short time to stroll the streets of Manitou Springs and browse their shops but it was enough time for me to find things that I couldn’t live without. Oh no, now what do I get rid of Bill’s? LOLWe had reservations on the Cog Wheel train to the summit of Pikes Peak and we made it just at the right time…… That is another whole nights story so I will stop now and put the pictures up of the first ½ of our day………Later………….
