Colorado Trip - Day 4

Before I tell you about our day, I want to introduce you to our humming bird. He lives in the trees outside of the cabin we stayed in and made a high pitched fluttering sound as he flew. It frequented our deck, especially while we ate dinner; its favorite food being watermelon. I would leave some on the deck for him every evening & it would be sucked dry by morning.


Now, on to Day 4. It was my favorite because on that day we went to The Garden of the Gods and rode the Pike's Peak Cog Railway. Our day was filled with breathtaking scenery like I have never seen before; so much so that it was hard to wrap my brain around.

When I first heard the name "garden of the gods" I pictured a park with statues of Greek gods, however it is quite the contrary. It is a national park boasting natural rock formations. There is a trail that leads you around the park where you can marvel at the beauty of the rocks and see the occasional rock climber. Since it is hard to put to words what we saw, I will let the pictures do the talking.

This is my new favorite picture!

The Kissing Camels.

Papa, Grammy, Madeleine, & Audrey

I love the sunburst in this picture.

By the end of our hike Audrey was pretty tired, so Aunt Natalie gave her a piggy back ride.

Shortly after we were done at The Garden of the Gods, it was time to leave so we could make it to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway in time. Here is my dad, Madeleine, Natalie (you can barely see her), and my mom situated on the Cog. Notice that my mom is drinking water. We were encouraged to drink lots of it as it helps prevent elevation sickness.

Audrey is ready to go!

Steven and I documented our place on the cog as well. That smile on my face was soon replaced with terror. As the Cog started to move I experienced a feeling much like I do when I fly. I believe that feeling could be classified as panic! I tried not to be obvious, but my eyes filled with tears & I was on the verge of hyperventilating as I imagined our cog careening backwards down the mountain at 200 miles an hour! Once I got used to the feeling and concentrated on the beautiful scenery, I did much better.

Here are some of the sights we saw on the way up.
A waterfall.

Beautiful trees.

I love this picture of my family looking out the cog window.

I really can't think of another way to describe these views other than breathtaking. Just looking at them now takes my breath away.

At this point we are above the treeline. That is not grass in the picture, rather it is tundra. Grass cannot live at that elevation.

Even though this building looks slanted, it is not. It is indeed completely level. However, at this point we were on a 25% grade. The front of the cog was 3 stories higher than the rear!

This is a picture of the cog that was in front of us.

Here we are on the top of Pikes Peak. Elevation 14,115 feet! It was 52 degrees at the top (about 40 degrees cooler than at the bottom). Here are some views from the top

While my dad quickly snapped this picture, my mom had already taken the girls back to the cog. At this point the engineer had blown the warning whistle indicating that it was leaving in 5 minutes. My mom later told us that Madeleine was in a panic because she was afraid we would not make it back in time. My poor child is such a worry wart and I have no idea where she gets it from.

These pictures were taken on the way down. That would be the booties of 3 sheep.

More beautiful scenery.

This is a marmot. Marmots are large ground squirrels that live in mountainous areas. Apparently, they are very social. We saw quite a few of them on the ride down the mountain.

Audrey enjoyed sitting by the window.

Relaxing on the way down the mountain.

This concludes day 4. Day 5 proved to be quite memorable. I will give you a hint as to why . . . Goldilocks.