Vacation Day 3: I'm a Heartbreaker

Vacation Day #3: Another great day. Today I made it up to the summit of Pike's Peak - which is 14,115 feet above sea level. To get there, I took the Pike's Peak Cog Railway, a train that looks like this:


The ride up took about an hour and a half, then we had about 25 minutes at the summit, and came back down. The ride up was great. Our conductor (more on him in a minute) gave us a lot of information about the different things we were seeing out the window. I was fortunate to have a window seat, and shared my little seating cubby with a couple named Bill & Linda. They were friendly enough, but I quickly discovered on the trip down that Linda was a chatterbox. (She also took a swing out of what I'm pretty sure was a little bottle of peppermint schnapps.) Here are some pictures I got from the summit. With my puny camera, they don't really do justice to the view. Even though it was a clear, sunny day, there was a bit of a haze, due to the wildfires near Boulder.






The view was amazing. It made me wonder how the pioneers ever crossed through these mountains on just horseback or on foot. This trip has also taught me that Pike's Peak was the inspiration behind the poem that became the song "America the Beautiful". A teacher from Massachusetts, Katherine Lee Bates, was visiting Colorado, teaching at Colorado College in 1893, when she took a carriage (!) ride to the summit. She was so inspired by the view, that she penned the poem "America the Beautiful". In 1931, "America the Beautiful" was a top contender for becoming our country's national anthem, but lost out to "The Star-Spangled Banner", even though many felt "America the Beautiful" was a better song.

Shortly into the ride up the mountain, our conductor, Vic, came around collecting tickets. After he took mine, he commented that I looked just like a woman from his past who broke his heart. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to that, but I kind of think Vic developed a little crush on my during the trip. On the way down the mountain, the train had to stop to at a switch track, which Vic had to get off to take care of. When he got back on the train, he handed me a little bundle of wildflowers he had picked:

How sweet. If only he was about 10 years younger, that would have made for an even better day. As it is, I'll take the flattery where I can get it!

Lunch was in the quaint, touristy downtown Maintou Springs, at a place called "Marilyn's Pizza".

It was only about 4ish by the time I returned to my hotel, so I decided to venture out to Garden of the Gods again. There was a short (1 mile) trail that I wanted to take. I ventured out on the trail alone, feeling a bit nervous about the fact that the day was coming to a close and I was out there by myself. Even though I knew there were plenty of other people in the park, the fact that there was no one else immediately on the trail with me was a little unnerving, as I really did not want to get eaten by a bear and/or mountain lion. I booked it through that short trail, and was able to get a couple of neat pictures:



I then headed over to the "Balancing Rock", where there were plenty of people and no threat of bears and/or mountain lions:



Another fabulous day!