Vacation Day 12 (Colorado Springs to Denver, CO)

Saturday (August 3) – Trip Day 12 – (Colorado Springs, CO to Denver, CO) – My initial plan was for us to come up to Denver and spend the day there touring the city.  As things ended up we spent most of the day in Colorado Springs and then came up to Denver in the late afternoon.  Our first stop was at the Garden of the Gods.  In the background behind the park you get a great view of Pike’s Peak which rises to 14,100 feet.  We didn’t have time to ascend it but did get a good view of it.  Interestingly in 1893, Katharine Lee Bates, a long-time professor at Wellseley College in Massachusetts, was lecturing at the summer session at Colorado Springs.  During her visit she joined an expedition to the summit of Pikes Peak in a prairie wagon.  Electrified by the beauty she saw atop Pikes Peak, she wrote the poem that later became known as “America the Beautiful.”
Pikes Peak in the background - you can drive your car up to the summit, climb it, or take a cog railway.

 The women's restroom entrance at the park has the information about "America the Beautiful."

 Our first stop was to Garden of the God’s, which is an area of red rock formations created during a geological upheaval along a natural fault line millions of years ago.  This area had been privately owned until 1909 when the family of the owner, according to the wishes of their father deeded the park to the City of Colorado Springs to be forever a free park.  In 1971 it was designated a National Natural Landmark.. The rock formations are spectacular and you get to walk right at their bases. 

 These are the kissing camels.

 There were several climbers in the park so it was fun to watch them climb.

 Barbara even got into the act.

 This one is my favorite.

 He is trying to get leverage to get up over that rise.

 This is a nice shot from the visitor's center.

We next went to see Cave of the Winds which was just a few miles away.  It was discovered in the 1800’s because of a whistling sound made by the rock formation at the entrance of the cave when the wind was blowing.  We took the “easy” tour (we didn’t have to crawl through passages or carry our own light.)

 This is looking straight down to the original entrance of the cave.

 Like all other caves of this nature it was formed as water dissolved limestone beneath the surface of the earth leaving passage ways and hollowed out “rooms.”  It is filled with stalactites and stalagmites of various sized and patterns.  There were even a couple of columns where stalactites and stalagmites grew together. 
Stalactites from the roof.

 

 Barbara the spelunker.

 Stalactites and stalagmites of various sized and patterns.

 This is called Bacon - it is a ribbon formation.

 To the left is a stalactite that is 8 feet long.  When it was actively growing it took a thousand years to grow one inch.  

After our tour we started to Denver in a light rain.  The trip took close to two hours as much of the 55 mile trip was through construction zones on I-25.  After getting our room we went out to eat and that was when it really began to rain – literally in sheets.  We heard later that some areas outside of town got 4 inches of rain in 30 minutes.  There weren't any tornadoes but tornado warnings were out for several counties around us.