Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs CO

We made our final trip down Poudre River Canyon October 1, stopped in Ft Collins for a few supplies & gasoline, & headed south to Colorado Springs. It was a gorgeous day but “the storm” was coming in a few days. Whew, we already felt like we’d stayed in the Canyon a week too long as the weather wasn’t particularly matching our choice of clothing.

Sandy — I keep forgetting to mention that Marilyn & her husband DID actually make it to the Canyon Grill to meet me. Lovely couple, & thank you for following this humble little travel blog.

We stayed two nights at Garden of the Gods RV Park in Manitou Springs. Their winter rates of $26/night had just started. It’s a very large RV park with units squeezed in fairly close but it had a nice balance of tall trees & open space, with pinkish gravel around all the sites & a concrete picnic table area. We totally LOVED having trees near us again. AND. . .I finally got my 3 loads of backed up laundry washed. We had a little black squirrel running around too. I’ve only seen photos of black squirrels before this.

Wednesday we visited Garden of the Gods, just north of the RV park. Wow — not sure why I get so excited about BIG red rocks, but it sure reminded me of Utah. Here are a few of the sights, but click on any of these photos to see more in my Picasa album.

  

Then we headed west toward Pikes Peak. I went to the Peak decades ago, but Jeff had never seen it. However, we weren’t either one anxious to go to high elevation again, so we just drove to Woodland Park & got a look at Pike’s Peak from the northwestern side.

Heading back toward Colorado Springs, we stopped at a cliff dwelling. Very interesting & overall worth the $9.50 entrance fee. The gift shop had lots of different, interesting items that we passed on because of either weight, size, or usefulness. Our shopping habits/needs have SO changed living in a small trailer.

Thursday we packed up & headed east on Highway 94. That is one desolate stretch of highway with very few little towns along the way, no gas or convenience stores even. But we saw several herds of pronghorn antelope. Wow — never saw any in the wild before.

We stopped at a little café in Eads CO for a nice lunch. It is definitely cow country as three pickups with horse trailers, including horses with their saddles & bridals on, were parked around us when we left. We finally crossed the Colorado/Kansas border at 12:40 pm Mountain DST but other than a sign, you couldn’t tell the difference in the two states. Central time was several miles farther east. Woo-hoo, feeling a little more familiar & so happy to be back on the road!