Vacation Day 4: Of Caves & Waterfalls

My fourth and final day of vacation began with a worship service at Forestgate Presbyterian Church in Colorado Springs. The service was nice, and because the church was relatively small, it was pretty obvious I was a newcomer. Two people came up and introduced themselves to me, which was nice.

After church I checked out "Cave of the Winds". I've always though (erroneously) that caves are all underground. Not this one. I had to drive up a pretty steep, winding road to get to the cave. Once inside the cave, the tour guide explained that we were about 7,000 feet above sea level. So much for my theory on caves. The tour was pretty cool - lots of strange looking formations in the cave. I think, though, that early cave explorers must have been crazy. The tour I took was along well-lit, smooth, easily walkable pathways. The early cave explorers discovered the caves by crawling on their hands and knees by only the light of a candle. That's pretty wild. It's kind of tough to take good pictures in a cave, but here are a few:






After the cave tour, I headed over to "Seven Falls", which is a mile-long waterfall. It was okay. I was not as impressed as I thought I would be. I did hike up the 185 steps to the look-out platform, and felt like an old woman for how out of breath I got. I'll blame it on the altitude.




On the platform I did see a tiny little hummingbird, unlike the kind we have in Michigan. It was so small, I thought at first that it was a dragonfly. I tried to get a picture, but the darn thing wouldn't sit still for very long. I've not been able to figure out what kind of hummer it is. I'm guessing it's the female of the species, because it wasn't very colorful:




And thus ends my vacation. Tomorrow I head back up to Denver, where I'll be for the next week for work. Work - boo. Overall, this vacation was just what I needed it to be: refreshing and relaxing.