Day Three - Salida and Twin Lakes (part 2)

This is the other view of the Arkansas river from the last post...

It got separated from its other half somehow.

Same with this one.
I just can't get over the gorgeous scenery!

Excuse the bird poop.  I scrubbed it, but alas, it hung on throughout our journeys...

Eventually we came to the town of Salida.

Nestled among the Rockies, it held the charm of an Old West Town.

Due to the super late (ie. after 5pm) hour, most of the town was vacant, so we were not able to learn the history of the beautiful old buildings like this one...

...or this one...

On the road again, we drove up and down and around hills of various sizes while the plant life grew increasingly greener.

Along the way were pull offs with fantastic views of the river winding its way through the mountain valleys.

Finally pulling into Twin Lakes, we were greeted with this view.

Wow, right?

I couldn't stop saying....."WOW!"

After stopping to photograph the wonders of God's creation, we set out to find our Bed & Breakfast....

And got terribly lost.

And ended up on this dirt road that followed the curve of the mountain. 

At one point is was one lane hugging a cliff.

I didn't get a picture of that.

I was far too busy hanging on to the door handle.

While the locals flew by...

Ahem. We did eventually find our destination (after literally walking around knocking on doors and then giving up and calling on the single bar signal we had).

To be continued....

Day Three - Canon City (part 1)

After enjoying our scrumptious breakfast at The Summit House Inn, we hit the road and traveled to Canon City.

The drive there was full of cloudy blue skies and wide open vistas...

One very scenic McDonalds!

In Canon City we hopped aboard The Royal Gorge Railroad for a train ride through the Royal Gorge.

The tracks followed the curve of the Arkansas River as it wound its way through the canyon.

It passed under the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, which we sadly didn't have enough time to explore.

Another marvel of engineering along the way was this old wooden water pipeline.

This was how many people in the area received water until the 1970's!!

Earl and I also spotted a little "fixer-upper" nestled along the rapids.  Vacation home, anyone?

This kamikaze helicopter buzzed over us, swooping sideways through the canyon.

We saw many rafters, kayakers, and boaters. 

On the way back we saw that one of this group somehow got separated from his ride.

We even spotted a flock of Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep.

I had pictured them as furrier.  To me they looked more closely related to donkeys.

Once on the road west the mountains again loomed before us. 

Like on the train, the road followed the Arkansas River.

At one point we were able to pull off and get an up close view of the rapids. 

Because of the higher-than-average snowfall over the winter, the rivers were running higher than usual, providing great entertainment to anyone adventurous enough to get in!

Day Two - Colorado Springs (part 2)

Due to Blogspot being stoopid technical difficulties, I haven't been able to upload any pictures for the last few days.  Frustrating stuff.  But it's working now, so I can go back to inundating the cyber world with pictures.

=)

I will warn you that more pictures of Garden of the Gods follow, so be warned....

Ahhh....such beauty...

This was the "strictly OFF LIMITS" section...

...definitely worth the risk!

Yes, I am pretending to climb a cliff...

....no I am not really falling off a cliff....

And last, but not least, the Kissing Camels!

Other oddities of Colorado Springs:

We met an IUP graduate at the park - small world!

While having dinner at one of the local restaurant we ran into a group hosting a birthday party for a very gender confused man woman individual.

We had a fantastic view of Pike's Peak from - of all places - the bathroom at our B&B.

Day Two - Colorado Springs (part 1)

On Friday we visited beautiful Colorado Springs!  Did you know Colorado looks like a desert?  That's what we were most surprised about - all the brown.  For some reason, I had always pictured the state as lush and green.  Not so much....but it is still so very, very beautiful!

Garden of the Gods , a city park (can you beleive it?!) in Colorado Springs was simply.....exquisite.  These pictures don't even do it justice.  We had planned on visiting the park, then seeing a few more places as well, but as it turned out, we spent the majority of the day just exploring and marveling over the awesome sights.

At the visitor's center there was this picture pointing out all the rock formations, as well as Pike's Peak in the background.

What we saw was this.....

Beautiful!  But no 14,000 foot mounatin to be seen.

Yes, our visit to Garden of the Gods, in the "desert" of Colorado, was full of rain.

It didn't matter too much.  We still took a trip on a Jeep to hear the history of two of the surrounding towns, Old Colorado City and Manitou Springs.  Er, we would have heard the history, but between the rain/hail and the wind flapping our ponchos around in the seat of the open Jeep, we didn't hear much.  Still, it was a nice drive!  Our tour guide was a lady who looked to be about 60 years old!  She had just taken another group 4x4 in the muddy hills.  She looked gleeful - they looked a bit traumatized.

The famous Pike's Peak is there somewhere!

The rain really started coming down after our tour - about the same time jetlag kicked in, so we went to our Bed & Breakfast, the Summit House Inn for some rest and relaxation.....and to find a good place to eat.

By the time the rain stopped we were ready to head out to the park again.

The sun hit the red rock formations, and the clouds made an impressive backdrop.

Our first glimpse of Pike's Peak!

We stayed on the trail mostly stayed on the trail, obeying (for the most part) the signs that warned of certain disablement or death.

There were only a few times we ignored it in the pursuit of more fantastic views.

When the sun started its descent we found a comfy rock to sit and watch.  Pike's Peak eventually came out to join us.