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Hi Everyone,
After leaving the Rocky Mountains National Park we headed for Boulder, Colorado. We had beautiful weather around 80 degrees, so I can finally start working on my tan. Boulder was a nice city, with lots of quaint little shops. The city itself is very clean and seems to be extremely health conscious. Everyone rides a bicyle everywhere, it's a little disarming, they are abslouetly everywhere. Jumping out in front of cars or on the sidewalk. Coming from the northeast, it's quite a change. There are so many alternative, health, or western philosphy stores (a little too earthy crunchy for my taste). So far I haven't really been impressed with the people in Colorado. I'm sure that they are all fantasitic people but to me it seems as though they are a little snobby and pretentious. Overall, it was a good place to spend a day, plus I got to do a little shopping. My kind of day!
We then left Boulder to check out the Coors Brewery in Golden, Colorado. I can't in good conscious be in Colorado and not go to my favorite brewery. But we got a little lost and couldn't actually find where you
entered it. It was pretty frustrating, we have been less than impressed with Colorado maps, signs, and directions. After that mini-catastrophy we headed to the Red Rocks Amphitheatere. Red Rocks was pretty cool, so unexpected for that part of colorado. Once you enter the parlk, all of a sudden these jigantic red rocks rise of the earth. It reminded me of what is to come sometime later this week or early next week when we will be in Utah. The Red Rocks AMphitheatere was a lot smaller than I had imagined but just to think about seeing a concert there surrounded by the red rocks would be amazing. When I was reading about the hisotry of the venue it interesting to see just how many artists have played there over the years. Everyone from opera to Neil Young to the Go-Go's. They started having concerts there around 1908 and it is said to have some of the most impressive acoustics of any venue around, it has won award after award.
So now we are in Denver, Colorado sitting in front of the Capital building that is filled with flowers and people sunning themselves in the beautiful weather. We are
off to Colorado Springs in a little bit to visit Jen's brother who is stationed there. We are staying with him so we are getting a little repreive from the nightime cold.
Colorado Springs is a nice little city (reminds me alittle of Worcester but just nicer). I've meet Jen's brother before very briefy but he is really nice and has been a good host. We visited the army base that he is stationed at, Fort Carson. I wasn't at all what I had expected, it was more like a college campus. I pictured it to be very military like with big scurry army captains shouting orders at people walking on the street, but to my dismay there wasn't any. We barely saw any men in uniform, I mean come one, why else go to a miliary base if not to see some cute men all dressed up in their uniforms. But oh well. We did some tourist sightseeing while we were there too. We went to The Garden of the Gods and drove all the way up to the sumitt of Pike's Peak at 14, 110 feet.
The Garden of the Gods was pretty cool. It was
these amazing red rocks shooting up from the ground framed by Pike's Peak in the background. There were a number of different rock formations at the Park- they were all very interesting. It almost seems like it is man made because it's hard to believe that there could be such varied landscapes in close promixity to each other. Driving up Pike's Peak was absloulelty breaktaking. This was my first experience driving up to such high altitudes, around twisty, turny, mountain roads. On each side of us there was serious steep dropoffs, we were both pretty white knuckled the entire time. The drop was pretty narrow in spots and there was serious hairpins turns!! At first the road is paved but once you get around 10,000 feet it turns into a dusty gravel road. It was amazing to be able to literally reach the summitt of such a tall mountain by car (it puts "This car climed Mt. Washington" to shame). We were way above the tree line and in the Alpine tundra. The view was mangificient, there were a number of mountain ranges in view once you reached the top but you had the best view of the snow capped
Colorado Rockies in the distance. It felt very peaceful and serene at the top of the mountain. It was really very cold up at the top and it was a little difficult to breathe but overall it was pretty manageable. Thankfully we had good weather!
I think we might be heading out of Colorado Springs tomorrow morning but I'm not sure. Our next stop is Mesa Verde National Park in the Southwestern corner of Colorado. I am really excited to see the cliff dwellings there, it's seems like a place rich with history. Hopefully we can make it there in one day but if not we will go as far as we can.
If you are interested here is a link about Mesa Verde National Park:
http://www.nps.gov/meve/home.htm
I think we might make a quick stop to the Royal Gorge in Canon City, Colorado to see the highest suspension bridge in North America- after Pike's Peak I think I can handle it (hopefully)!
I hope that everything is well back home, I miss everyone and please feel free to leave comments...and lots of them!! Talk to you soon.
Love Laura
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jennyfromtheblock42
jenny
why are there no pictures of me holding onto the steering wheel, white knuckles, and looking straigt ahead!! because that would really give the readers a glimpse of how scurry the drive up the mountains was!!