Last year while on our way back from the beaches of Florida, Jay and I decided that although we loved the beach, we needed to see parts of the United States and show our kids their country. We quickly decided Colorado would be our first stop.
This was Lane's first experience on a plane and he loved it. Madolyn kept telling him over and over that the best part of this trip would be the plane. I hope we have proved her wrong. I'm indifferent to flying. Don't love it, don't hate it. Do love that it only took two hours and ten minutes to fly from St. Louis to Denver. The car ride down to St. Louis was longer than our flight.
The first words from airport personnel at the baggage check-in counter was, "Well, at least there aren't any tornadoes and hail in Denver today." Oh, yes, at least. Geesh, I wanted to scream, "Hey, my little guy has never flown before, let's not mention TORNADOES." I guess the day before in Denver it had hailed so bad, they had the snow plows out! I can't even imagine, but we were told it hailed for an hour. Crazy.
Everything went super well at the airport. I was totally unprepared as far as the TSA regulations and was pretty sure I would lose all of my "important" stuff...thankfully, a full-sized can of aerosol hairspray was the only casualty. It was a good kind too...I'm guessing the lady at the scanner is now the owner :) Oh well, it was minor.
We arrived at the airport, retrieved our baggage and got the keys to our rental car, a Toyota Camry, which is what we were going to be driving for the week. It is a very nice car and good on the gas mileage! The weather was very similar to home when we arrived in Denver. We stopped right away and ate a yummy Mexican lunch and bought Madolyn some new tennis shoes with some good tread for hiking and rocks. About this time, Jay looked over at me and said, "This is going too well." It was...that was unusual for us, but we welcomed it.
We then headed down the interstate for Colorado Springs, which was our destination for our first night. We had reservations at a Drury Inn (my favorite because of all the free food) and we wanted to see the sites. First stop, the very beautiful Garden of Gods. The Illinois version of Garden of Gods is beautiful, no question, but the Colorado version is spectacular. The rocks are bright orange and just sitting there. We got out and walked around on some trails and took a few pictures.
In the picture on the left, the light-blue t-shirt climbing up on the right is Jay. The kiddos are on the rock. I know it's hard to see, but trust me, it's my kids. Ha. There were all kinds of trails we could've taken, but we decided to forge ahead. We were only spending one night in Colorado Springs, so we felt like we had to keep moving. After we visited the museum and welcome center for the Garden of Gods and walked around some, we loaded up and continued on to the famous Pike's Peak. We had no idea what we were getting into. We (I) just knew it was a place we had to see. Jay had a much better idea of what was in store for us.
As soon as we pulled up, we saw that the last railway cog train would leave at 4:00. It was about 3:40. We ran to the ticket window and bought our tickets. We would leave at 4:00 and return at 7. Wow, that must be some trip. It was a whirlwind, we had no time to think, we went for it. We were told to drink lots of water on the way up so we bought three very large water bottles and a diet Pepsi. The ride up was pretty neat. The kids liked the first hour or so, and then it started getting cool and windy. We had nothing with us. We were wearing t-shirts and shorts. At one point before we left on the cog, I pointed to a sign that said something about it being much cooler at the top. Jay assured me we would be fine (turkey).
By the time we got to the tip-top of Pike's Peak, we were frozen. There are windows on the cog that you can put up, but most of the people liked them down...so we lived with it the best we could. We were told over and over to drink water and so I did...the rest of the family didn't drink so much. That was a problem by the time we made it to the summit, not just with my crew but for lots of folks. We saw a few EMT's assisting people at the top. Drinking water was crucial as the signs below had said, and it was much, much cooler just like the sign at the bottom said. Okay, we get it...they're not just trying to sell us sweatshirts and $3 bottles of water, they mean it. I didn't feel wonderful, but I was way better than Jay and the kids.They have these donuts that they make and sell at the summit, and they tell us that they're a special type of donut because of the altitude. They were tasty. We ate several. I was quite surprised that there was a mini restaurant and gift shop. There was also some snow alongside the north part of the building...I say north, it seemed north to me. They had all kinds of sweatshirts for sale, but I decided that the best deal was to buy the two for $20 Indiana blankets and that is what we did. So on the way down, we had some warmth. The kids laid their heads on our laps and slept all the way down. It really messed with them.
We got our car and headed to the Drury Inn for the night. We ordered some pretty good pizza from Fat Boys Pizza and went swimming (I stayed in the hot tub - felt pretty good on my sore back;). We ate a yummy breakfast at the Drury in the morning and headed out for day two. It was hard to believe we had been in Colorado less than 24 hours and had already seen so much.
No comments:
Post a Comment