Colorado Springs and Garden of the Gods

Jul 6

The great summer road trip begins! This trip will take us to 5 states in just under two weeks.

Our first stop is Colorado Springs. We drive like true road warriors, in that we pack lunch and snacks, stopping only for gas and necessities. We made it in 11 hours door-to-door. Unfortunately, it started raining right when we got to Colorado Springs and never really stopped during our short visit.

We stayed downtown, something I like to do in short stops. We park the car and simply walk to dinner or any short sightseeing we want to do.

Below is the Pioneer Museum, which was closed by the time we walked by. I would have liked to stop by as it has a lot of interesting history of Colorado Springs. The building itself is a former courthouse built in 1903. It was converted to the museum in 1979.

(notice the rain, but we kept walking)

One bronze statue outside was of William Seymour. He was born into slavery in 1843 then homesteaded in Kansas following the Civil War. He, his wife and 11 children eventually settled north of Colorado Springs and established a successful farm and dairy operation. After retiring they moved to town where he served as the first African American on a jury in their county.

The statue in his honor is representative of the “invisible people of the Pikes Peak Region;” black American pioneers whose major contributions have been largely unrecognized.

It was a reminder for me of two things: we need to continue to study our American history more deeply and that simply walking around in new places there is so much to learn!

Colorado Springs 2.jpg — Such a cute downtown!

It stopped raining for a bit so we could walk through the downtown and find our way to dinner.

We found a great place for dinner called White Pie. They only opened in February, and feature Neapolitan style rustic pizzas. They did not have a table ready so we were happy to sit at the bar where we could watch all the action. It would have been great to sit outside on a warmer, drier night.

Ahead of our pizza we got the beef capriccio. It was delicious! We then ordered the Three Meat pizza, with house made fennel sausage, pepperoni and bacon. We added mushrooms and they topped it with fresh basil. We paired it with an Italian Primitivo wine. YUM!

It was a really cool space and they have another location in Denver. We would highly recommend!

It’s so nice that at 8:30 it’s still light, even though the rain continued. Back to the hotel to sleep so we could be up early for our next day’s adventure!

Colorado Springs GOG 1.jpg — Garden of the Gods

The rain will still around but we were determined to enjoy this beautiful natural site.
p.s. - it does not look like it here but it was very crowded!

The rain had made everything so green! The deer didn’t seem to care about the crowds. They were everywhere.

You can drive all around the park, but about 1/2 mile from the visitors center is the “Central Garden” where a great many of the rock formations are. They are all named. This one is North Gateway rock, just as you enter the central garden area.

Below is the “kissing camels” formation. Fortunately, the rain held off, but the overcast made it nice to hike around.

Some of the rocks are so thin they look like they could just blow over. They are actually sandstone, limestone and other rocks, that millions of years ago were forced “up” to the fin like shapes we see today. There is a ton of geological history here to learn from, far beyond the few hours we had to spend.

What’s so amazing about this park is that it is 100% free. The land was purchased by Charles Elliott Perkins in 1879 for $10,473. It has a total of 480 acres. He had made his money in the railroad business. He never built on the land, but while he was alive he let the public enjoy it.

When he died, his wish was that this land be given to the people of Colorado Springs and that no one ever be charged to visit. His family donated it in his name and the park opened in 1909. Truly a spectacular gift!