Denver to Colorado Springs

We left Denver at 11 a.m. today. We thought we'd be in Colorado Springs by about sunset. You know, check out Garden of the Gods at the best time of day to view it. Boy were we wrong! We took a little side trip up to Boulder, Estes Park, through the Rocky Mountain National Park along Trail Ridge Road, then to Winter Park, along Shadow Mountain Lake, back to Denver (by this time it was about 9 p.m.) and then to Colorado Springs. Talk about a side trip! While it was only about 170ish miles, our little side trip lasted most of the day!

When we left the hotel in Denver, it was beginning to get a little warm, maybe 85ish degrees and the Sun was shining. During our ascent, things definitely began to cool off. We could also see clouds on top of many of the mountains. Of course, we had no idea whether or not we were going to drive any of those peaks, as we didn't have any maps that should individual peaks. I did actually turn the heat on at one point!

Once above the tree line, we were in Arctic Tundra (this isn't a joke, that's what the landscape is called). It consists of some evergreen type ground cover and was dotted with some very colorful flowers. We were near the lava cliffs, almost at the highest point of our day when we ran across a herd of elk. This resulted in a major traffic jam, as all of the other cameras insisted on getting pictures, too. I would estimate there were probably more than a hundred but I didn't see the majority until we were pulling away.

It was about this time of our day that it began to rain. And sleet. I might have even seen a snowflake or two! We encountered some kind of precipitation, off and on, for the rest of the day, until we got down out of the mountains. It kept things cool and made for some fantastic views!

Just after we left our elk friends, we got to a place where we met our new traveling companion, Rocky. We made it to the Alpine Visitor's Center. Rocky called to us from the shelf in the gift shop and we had pity on him. He explained he has a wandering spirit and his soul was being crushed, looking out the windows each day, admiring distant peaks. We couldn't resist his cute face. You can check out Rocky's travels here. (He insisted on his own travel blog!)

After Rocky got in the car, it was all downhill. Not figuratively, we literally drove downhill the rest of the day. Not much further along the road is the Continental Divide. We stopped and got the requisite pictures. It was interesting to think about the path the water follows from that point, one side to the Atlantic and one to the Pacific.

We made it to Winter Park where we decided on a dinner break. It was leftovers from Jack-N-Grill for JC and I. Michelle and Jess decided on pimento cheese sandwiches. Yum!

We continued down, down, down. It was about dark when we got back to Denver, so now that we are in Colorado Springs, we have no idea what it looks like. We are excited to see what the day tomorrow (Friday) brings at Royal Gorge and Garden of the Gods. Rocky says he can't wait for all of the things he'll see from the top of the rearview mirror.