My Life As a Farm Girl: Colorado Honeymoon (Part 2)

Monday (6/4/18)
Let's pick up where I left off. The good news is that the remainder of our trip had very few additional calamities! After enjoying our hotel breakfast (which was surprisingly delicious), we headed to our first stop of the day--Garden of the Gods. We started off by going into the visitor's center, where we located some trail maps. One of the nice park rangers helped us create a good hike that allowed us to see lots of great sights while remaining within our ability levels. (Let's be real, we didn't train a lot for the hiking!) We found out that there was a shuttle bus to take us to the trailhead, which we used so we didn't have to mess around with parking again.

Waiting for the shuttle

Our hike was great, although I realized that the altitude was affecting me more than I realized. I would hike for a little bit, then feel incredibly winded. Thankfully we witnessed some amazing views to give us great excuses for stopping.

Pikes Peak in the background

At the conclusion of our hike, I was so happy to see the shuttle bus, because I was starving and ready to chow down on our picnic lunch that we packed. Since we had to wait a little bit to eat our lunch, I ended up devouring some peanut butter crackers like a wild animal! On our way out of the park, we stopped off to see one last spot, the balancing rock. Somehow on our way there, we took a wrong turn that led us onto some narrow, winding dirt road with very few (if any) side rails. I was not okay with that, because I saw no immediate way for us to safely turn around. We should probably just be glad that Thomas was driving instead of me. Eventually we were able to head in the correct direction and locate the balancing rock. I was hot, sweaty, tired, and beyond hungry, not to mention that I had a little bit of altitude sickness (which mostly manifested itself as an excruciating headache). Thomas did most of the climbing and exploring at the balancing rock, and I sat on a rock across the road and took pictures of him being adventurous.

Oh look! There's parking lot 15...

Balancing rock!

We finally left and headed to the nearby Manitou Springs cliff dwellings. The initial highlight of our visit was that we found a picnic table and chowed down on our lunch. I was exhausted, and having some food in my stomach pushed me over the edge. I dozed intermittently for about 5-10 minutes before I finally felt like I had enough energy to move forward. We visited the gift shop for a bit to soak up some A/C before trekking over to the cliff dwellings. I was pleasantly surprised by how cool it was inside the dwellings. It was a welcome relief from the oppressive heat. There wasn't a lot to see while there, but we still enjoyed ourselves. We took one more stroll through the gift shop before heading back to the car. When we arrived, I really didn't anticipate wanting to do much when we finished. Thankfully, it was a different story when we actually did leave. I was energized and ready for a little more action!

We headed back towards our hotel and decided to peruse downtown Colorado Springs. While there, the most exciting thing we found was a Savory Spice Shop! Thomas has grown to love their spice blends (thanks again, Debra!) and had never been to one of their shops, so we decided to go in. He quickly fell in love with the store and found a couple of new blends that he wanted to try.

Afterwards, we walked around and saw more stores, but nothing that really caught our eye. We'd finally had enough of walking in the heat, so we went back to the hotel, showered, and made dinner in our room. It was a little depressing cooking dinner while on vacation, but we knew it was better that way. The rest of the night was pretty mellow for us, as we drove around and explored without much more excitement.

Tuesday (6/5/18)
The high point (literally) of our Tuesday was visiting Pikes Peak. I was quite nervous about this, as I quickly learned that the only way up was by driving through some treacherous hills, inclines, and switchbacks. If I'd learned anything about myself by this point of the trip, it was that I did not enjoy any of those things, especially in a car. But I also wanted to see the top, so I sucked it up and went. It was 19 miles to the top, which doesn't sound that far, but when you consider that the max speed limit most of the way is 25 mph, it took a good deal of time.

We were no more than a mile or two on the path when I started freaking out in the worst way. My palms were visibly sweaty, and I alternated between closing my eyes and trying to watch. Neither comforted me like I hoped they would. Finally Thomas had to give me his pocket rosary so I at least had a focus object. I could tell that we were steadily gaining altitude, which was about when I realized that we still had the can of spray paint in the back of the car. When I thought about the drastic pressure change, I immediately worried that the paint can was going to explode. It probably wouldn’t have, but when you’re already an anxious mess, your mind can go to some dark places, which included having blaze orange paint all over the interior of my car. Needless to say, we stopped at a pull off, found a trash can, and disposed of it. I felt a little better having it out of the car.

At mile 13, we were flagged down by a worker who asked if we’d like to take a shuttle bus up for the remainder of the trip (which was about to become even more treacherous) or go up for another 3 miles (where we’d be forced to take a shuttle anyway). Without waiting for Thomas’ response, I told him that we’d take the shuttle now. It was probably just as well.

View from Mile 13 pullout

The shuttle driver was a nice retired guy who didn’t talk a lot. We probably weren’t much safer going up, as we were in a 10-passenger Ford Econoline van, but I could at least hold Thomas' hand, so I wasn't quite as anxious. About 15 minutes later, we reached the peak! We had amazing views while up there!

Looking all pensive, and what not...

If I thought that I was out of breath earlier in our trip due to altitude, I had no idea how it would affect me at Pikes Peak, where the altitude was a little over 14,000 feet. I would slowly walk about 25 feet, and I would have to stop to catch my breath. It took a lot of patience on my part to adjust.

We spent a little bit of time in the gift shop, where we found a couple of things we couldn't live without and bought some of the donuts that people had raved about. Because I love donuts and wanted to partake in the tradition, we got a bag of them. Turns out that they were really greasy, bland, and nothing to get that excited about. Slightly disappointing, but so it goes. Not long after we caught the shuttle back to our car and started going back down. We stopped partway down to get a few more pictures that we didn't get on the way up.

After leaving Pikes Peak, we were both in desperate need of some lunch, so we quickly made our way to the next site of the day--Red Rock Canyon. To be fair, I don't think this is the Red Rock Canyon, but it was still a nice place. We started by being typical Subaru owners and eating our picnic lunch in the back of the car. (Because the place lacked picnic tables/shelters)

Ready for our hike!

We were both a little disappointed to see that they didn't have printed trail maps, but we opted to take a short hike through the park. So short that we didn't even bother taking water bottles, hats, or our day packs. (We did take trekking poles, however.) We planned to go straight in and straight out, even opting to take an easy trail. At some point, we decided that our easy trail had really boring views, so we looped over to an intermediate trail to see some more cool sights. I'll pause to say that because we didn't have a printed trail map, we had to rely on looking at the periodic trail maps located at trail junctions. The trails also weren't very clearly marked in between junctions. Needless to say, we must have made a wrong turn somewhere, as we came to a point where we saw 3 potential paths, none of which looked any too appealing. Much as we hated to admit it, we were lost. We ended up turning around and going back to the easy trail, which was quite welcome after the treacherous paths we met. We were really regretting not bringing at least a bottle of water at this point, so we were hustling to make it back to the car.

After getting back to the car, I realized that my hiking boots were giving me a lovely blister on the side of my big toe, so I was happy to have my Chacos to change into. Oh, and the water was great, too!

We ended our afternoon by journeying into nearby Manitou Springs, where we visited their historic downtown area. If you've never been, it reminded me a lot of the historic downtown area in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. It was cute, somewhat hippie-esque, and very touristy. Highlights of our afternoon there were visiting a brewhouse where we shared a flight of craft beers and wrote out postcards to family, ducking into some shops, visiting the Penny Arcade, and ending with some well-deserved ice cream! It's fair to say we were thoroughly exhausted by the time we made it back to the hotel that evening!