Bowling, “Toy Story” Uno (family game night), Louisville Street Faire – and blink…it’s time for all to go home.  Always goes so fast.

HOLD ON – we still have Saturday.  Today’s destination: the Springs – Garden of the Gods, followed by mighty Pikes Peak.

Visitors Center, drove the Garden loop, hiked 2+ miles around the God’s infamous boulders – finished at Balanced Rock.  Top 10 Colorado destination.  LOVE LOVE this place!

Elk burger in Manitou, then a mile drive UP to tram parking – had purchased 6 tickets on the 1:20pm train.  Ash & Tom were engaged on Pikes two years ago.  Good memories.

Lotta traffic, hmm.  Arrived to find our train was cancelled – actually STUCK 12,000ft UP.  Argh.

Plan B? Hiked Barr Trail to Pikes (28 miles round trip) in 2013.  Rode the railway UP same year – but have never driven.  Pikes & Evans are Colorado’s 2 14ers accessible [in summer] by car.  Tough on the brakes – glad Sis brought the rental 🙂  Outside temp dropped from 91 to 39 degrees within the hour-half ride up to Summit House.  Truly stunning views!

My 2015 memory?  Sis at the wheel hugging mountain curves while Tori & Jack screamed/jumped & waved their hands wildly in the back. Apparently we picked up a wasp while at Garden – a wasp not interested in resettling outdoors at 14,000ft in glacial snow.  No room to pull the car over.  Nat’l Lampoon vacation memory.  Pretty funny in hindsight.

Ultimately parked without injury, purchased Pikes’ infamous high-altitude donuts & snapped a few pics before clouds moved in & pellet’d the car with snow.  Ranger stopped us 20 minutes into our descent – brakes were smoking hot, 30 minute mandatory wait while they cooled.

Jetted back to Denver – WAIT, day’s not over.  Sis bought tickets to Colorado’s MLS team, the Rapids.  Been a tough year for the local team, last in our division.  This day however, the soccer gods shined on Colorado: a 3-1 victory over Real Salt Lake.  All scoring happened in the last 4 minutes.  If you haven’t attended a soccer match – GO!  Lotta energy, lotta noise, super fun.

2 Nat’l Parks, 2 14er summits, Garden of the Gods, a glacier hike & glissading, mineral springs swim, train ride thru the Rockies, MLS game (professional soccer), geocaching, shopped Boulder’s pedestrian Pearl Street, hiked Chautauqua’s Royal Arch AND toured a silver mine nearly 1,000ft underground.

For monsoon season, this family filled their days.  Miss you already sis 🙁

vacation extras

 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *