You would think we are on vacation.

The past few days have been full of getting up sort of early, leaving and not coming back to the camper until nearly bedtime.  There are more things to do in the Colorado Springs area than you can shake a stick at.  We have been trying to get in a few of them.

Right in Colorado Springs is the magnificent Garden of the Gods.  The rock formations are amazing and the park has constructed some great trails so that you can get down into the structures.



The start of our day in Garden of the Gods was foggy and rainy

It was not long before the skies started to clear and the cliffs revealed themselves

 

One of dozens of prominent natural features are the Kissing Camels



Cyndee taking in the sites of the Garden of the Gods

We also made a trip to the local Camping World.  Cyndee had a couple of small items she wanted to pick up for the camper.  And I have been looking for a new set of fittings for the sewer hose.  The ones we have now are awkward and time consuming to use.  Every use I have to put the hose ends on and then take them off again to store for traveling.  When using a dump station I take longer than normal and the line behind me grows.  The Rhino System is pretty highly regarded amongst the RV'ing crowd but I am left a little wanting.  At today's Camping World visit I saw a design that peaked my interest.  It was perfect, except for the price.  They wanted a pretty shiny nickel for that little hose.  I put it back on the shelf.  Cyndee to the rescue, she had been rat-holing an American Express gift card that our financial planner, Mark had given us.  She convinced me that this was a good way to put the card to use.  I put the hose back in our basket.  Thanks, Mark, and Cyndee.

We did a little quest for some low-priced diesel ($3.46 gallon, I've been paying closer to $4 in the last few towns) and an ATM and that was pretty much a full day.  Back at the campground we got out the camp chairs and watched the helicopters at Fort Carson do training maneuvers until it got too dark to see.  A nice finish to a Monday.

Nearby Cheyenne Mountain State Park is the community of Manitou Springs.  One of its most famous attractions is the Pikes Peak Cog Railway.  We took this toothed train to the summit of Pikes Peak on a family trip back in 2001.

It has been twelve years since this trip and the kids still talk about it.  The operator of our train was Drew, he was the engineer, conductor and tour guide as we ascended Colorado's most well known 14,000 footer.  As conductor, Drew explained what the rapid change in altitude may do to some people - a headache, dizziness and nausea.  Conductor Drew went on to explain that nausea for some people can become intense enough to bring on vomiting.  He said should that happen to anyone on "his" train that under no circumstances were they to throw up on "his" train.  You were to let him know if you were about to be sick and Conductor Drew would have Engineer Drew stop the train so you could step off the train and do your retching track-side.  At the time of the speech we passengers found this spiel amusing and didn't give it another thought as the train started rolling by beautiful views and Tour Guide Drew pointing out elk and marmots in the distance.

Our trip to the top was full of sensory input; gorgeous scenery, wildlife, significantly dropping temperatures, less oxygen, and the dizziness Drew warned us about.  We had our half hour at the top and reboarded the train for the descent back into Manitou Springs.  The ride down was quieter, people had been excitedly chattering on the way up but now maybe a little fatigued, were just enjoying the ride and view.  And then, from a few rows down, a voice sounded out; "Drew, Drew, I'm gonna hurl!"  The train jerked to a stop, Drew sprang into action and hustled a 30-something man to a position outside, where "Drew's train" wouldn't be made a mess.  Of all the things on this family trip, this is the story the kids most often recall.

But our trip to Manitou Springs this time was different, ancient cave dwellings were our destination.  The Manitou Cliff Dwellings are 700 year old Anasazi structures that were rescued and re-constructed in Manitou Springs in 1907.  We were not sure whether this would be a cheezy tourist trap or not but decided to give it a try.  We were glad we did.

This whole operation is because of a private conservator.  There have been several private owners since its 1907 opening and it is still privately owned and operated.

They grow gardens of traditional plants used by the Anasazi for food, medicine and pigment for paint.  The butterfly was not a prop, it was making the rounds through the garden and lingered on this plant from the salvia family.

The living space in these dwellings are divided into very tiny rooms.  Many of the openings that look like windows are actually doors.  You would have had to been somewhat of a contortionist to come and go.  I guess these people did not live long enough to get old and arthritic.

We had packed a picnic lunch in anticipation of a dinner with friends that would undoubtedly include food that was not on our "approved" list.  We were going from Garden of the Gods to Denver where ultimately we will go to Casa Bonita.  This is a full-on tourist trap but it is a family tradition that we go and have a plate of Mexican food with an endless supply of chips and sopapillas.  It is a little more than an hours drive from Colorado Springs to Denver.  Construction on I-25 made it longer than it should have been.  We enjoyed our picnic at the dwellings and then started moving north to Denver.

There is an air museum, Wings Over The Rockies, in a revitalized part of Denver we wanted to take a look at.  It was a former air base but had been decommissioned and the city had razed all the runways and support structures to build up-scale townhomes and shops, with the exception of two large hangars.  One hangar was converted into a collection of boutiques and restaurants and the other an air museum.

By the time we negotiated I-25 traffic and then five miles of narrow-laned, choked city traffic we arrived at the museum with only an hour before closing.  It was a high-speed viewing but we made it around to all the exhibits.

Even though I have an 18mm wide angle lens it was a chore to get these birds in frame all at once.  The F-111, above, is not even one of the larger planes on display but it is the only modern plane on display that I could fit in one shot.  The below picture of a B-1 Bomber is about all I could get in one shot, unless you are a real airplane buff, you could not even tell that is what it is.

 If you look closely (you can click on the picture to enlarge it), you can just make out Cyndee standing below the fuselage in the shadows.  That big cylinder she is standing in front of is a 10-megaton thermonuclear bomb.

As big as the B-1 is, at least it fit in the hangar.  The B-52 they have on display is outdoors on a plaza in front of the hangar.  There are picnic tables under the wings.  Those tiny little specks under the wing a full-grown adults.  This is one big bird.

Our time at the air museum was up and we needed to get on the way to Casa Bonita so we would not keep Scott and Liz waiting.  Rush hour traffic was in full swing and the 30 minute drive took an hour.  But we rolled in to the parking lot a couple minutes before six and met our friends in the lobby.  The restaurant's food was everything I remembered it to be; so-so.  But the sopapillas were great and I lost count how many times I raised the little flag on the table to signal for more refills.  We were seated right next to the 30' tall water fall and saw a couple of lame skits that ended up with someone taking a dive off the cliff.  It was great.

But what made the evening was visiting with Scott and Liz.  Scott and I spent a lot of years traveling all over the west and southwest promoting the products of Amoco-British Petroleum-Solvay.  Our division, while staying intact, flew three different flags over the last 25 years: Amoco (American), British Petroleum (Great Britain), Solvay (Belgium).  But we are both clear of that stuff now and enjoying being independent operators.  The downside is that we have not traveled together in a good while and I had missed Scott's company.

Dinner was over all too quickly, we said our goodbyes and Scott and Liz headed north to Fort Collins as we turned south for Colorado Springs.  Scott hinted that he may get a wild hair and jump on his Harley to cruise to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon while we are there.  That is almost a 2,000 mile cruise, but it would not be the first time he had done a drive like that.  We'll keep a light on for him.

In our brief moments sitting outside the camper we noticed numerous fly-byes of hummingbirds.  Cyndee cooked up a batch of hummingbird food and I hung the feeder on the rear window of the camper.  We are in bear country and I was hesitant to leave it up overnight but we took a chance.  Luckily we did not attract any bears, or any other unwanted critters, but we did attract hummingbirds, lots of them.  We think there were at least three different species.  One of them was a Ruby Throated, it was so quick we never got a good photograph.  But we did get some good shots of one the other species.

I've got about 125 shots of these birds, the two above are a couple of the more sharper images after significant enlarging and cropping.  Knowing that our last day was approaching, Cyndee wanted to grab a couple of frames on her phone so that she could send them via text message to our daughter.  She showed me one of the ones she took with the phone and I was impressed.  While my camera was configured for a shallow depth of field, subject in view everything else blurry, Cyndee's phone focused on everything.