So why Colorado Springs?

Now if I step on any toes, I'm sorry.  This is what Jan and I thought period.

So why Colorado Springs, well the reasons are few actually.  We mapped out our route last winter and knew we had to zero in on the 4th of July holiday.  I have mentioned in the past that for us full timers the holidays are particularly tough.  You need to find somewhere to be, right when every other RV'er, camper, and family decide to come to the campgrounds.  We knew from past experience we did NOT want to be in a state or national park.  Again this is just for us, they are too crowded, too noisy, too busy, with tons of kids running helter-skelter, so we wanted to find a RV park that we could, even at that seemingly early date be able to make a reservation.  We played around with our itinerary and decided on Colorado Springs, specifically Garden of the Gods RV Resort.  We figured not only would it give us a spot to be over the holiday, it would also allow us to do several errands at places we could find in a city, i.e. REI, Costco, big grocery stores, Jan's birthday dinner, blazing internet, etc.  Little did we know we would also have to deal with the truck:-)  When we looked at the campground, we saw they had 6 "Executive Pull-Through sites" slightly away from the rest of the park, looked ideal, and it looked like they overlooked a trail that ran along a small stream.  Expensive, but maybe worth it?

A pretty view off Wilkerson Pass, 9,504'
halfway to Colorado Springs

As I said earlier we had parts ordered for the AC unit that we picked up there also.  So after our disappointing result with repairing the AC and ordering a new one, we had stuff to do.  

Our site was a little tighter than we expected particularly for the cost of it, but it did have a patio and some shade, and we did look out through a wire fence, thankfully, to the trail beside the mostly trashy and polluted stream.  As we were enjoying cocktails in the early evening we had the pleasure of watching either drunk or drugged out people staggering by, homeless pushing their carts full of their worldly belongings, and even had the incredible opportunity to watch several people actually defecate along the side of the trail!  Really nice.

After that experience, which was the worst for the week we were there thankfully, we were anxious to get out of there and do our thing.  Exploring around it appeared that our campground was right on the edge of the bad, and only a mile or so away was Old Colorado City that looked like it was really trying to improve their lot, many shops, restaurants, bars, a touristy place.  Another goal of Jan's was to get her Senior National Park Pass, as she says it's one good thing about turning 62.  We found a National Forest Office in south Colorado Springs which was more in a normal city like area, but they didn't have one.  The man there told us we could go over to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument and he knew they had some.  We had never heard of it, but it looked interesting and only about 30 miles away.  We didn't have time that day so we ran up to REI to do some shopping.

We got our Costco fix taken care of, bought a bunch of wine and noted how expensive bourbon was in the fair state of Colorado.  We found that the blazing internet wasn't there and we even had trouble with our cell phone coverage.  Talking to others there, we all were experiencing the same problem whether AT&T or Verizon, maybe a weird pocket?

We went out for Jan's birthday dinner at Ted's Montana Grill, she had her heart set on bison short ribs.  It turned out great, the food was excellent, the waiter was excellent, the free dessert was excellent!

Jan's Birthday dinner

She didn't like it:-)

Dessert

And wow, they even gave us some of those incredible pickles to go!

Once the weekend was over we drove over the the Fossil Beds, and best of all Jan got her Senior Pass.  If you don't know about this, when you turn 62 years old you can buy this for $10, soon to be $80 for LIFE!  It gets you in to all the National Parks, Monuments, Forests, and usually gets 50% off camping!  Jan and I think the $10 is a steal, the $80 will be a steal, and even if it was $250, it would be a steal.  The fossil beds turned out to be an interesting place with exceptional hiking.  They have 15 miles of hiking trails in the monument.  Millions of years ago, unbelievably there used to be redwood trees growing there, the climate was much warmer and wetter then, oh my!  Volcanic eruptions mixed with ash and water to create mudflows which inundated the area and the redwood trees, and petrified the wood.  Many stumps remain that were not picked off by souvenir seekers in the 1800's.  It is quite strange to see the petrified enormous stumps in the middle of a meadow.

One of the enormous stumps, this tree was estimated
to be more than 230' tall and 750 years old
when buried by the mudflow

If you look close you can see two saw blades
that were broken off by souvenir seekers
trying to cut off a chunk of the stump

That part was pretty fascinating, but the hiking trails were awesome.  We decided to do a 3.8 mile loop trail.  It went out through the meadow and through the pine groves, it was quiet, peaceful, and we only saw a couple other people.

Heading out

View across the meadow

A gorgeous day!

Jan at the namesake boulders on the
Boulder Creek Trail

In fact as we were finishing up, we felt so good we continued around another 1 mile loop trail to see several of the petrified stumps.  We both remarked it was so nice we would come back the next day and do a more remote hike on the other side of the park.  Since we had a lot of time, and really weren't in any hurry to get back to the campground we took a detour over to Cripple Creek and took the Old Gold Camp Road back to Colorado Springs.  We went by a huge mine near Cripple Creek that had positioned the bed of one of the huge mining trucks to make a viewing platform.  It was amazing how big that thing was!

That is huge!
That is me up on the top

It was an interesting winding narrow dirt road with awesome scenery that finally worked around and plunged back down the mountainside into Colorado Springs.

Along the way

One of the tunnels

So we did come back early on the 4th.  We parked in a small picnic area on the other side of the park, we were the only ones there and took off on and out and back that was supposed to be 1.6 miles each way, again when we got to the turn around spot we decided to keep going.  It was wonderful, the weather was stellar, temps around 65, and again it was like we were the only people in the whole world.  We finally turned around at the 2.25 mile point and made our way back, and passed only 3 people coming in.

A meadow to ourselves

Through an aspen grove, you can see where the snow
reaches in the winter

What a view!

Our turnaround spot

Ha, little did we know, we would hit the deer in about 30 minutes....

So to sum up our time in Colorado Springs.  Jan and I just didn't like it, just felt wrong, but perhaps the majority of that feeling was generated by the location and vibe of the campground, and of course the "ambiance" of the trail.  We both felt much better up on the north side of town, and we both think that had we arrived from the north, found a campground up in that area, we would have a different take on the place, but in the meantime, we see no need to ever go back..