This week flew by. Well, it was a short week to begin with: We arrived on Tuesday and left on Sunday. We stayed at the Elk’s lodge in Colorado Springs – without hookups. And it was hot!
Rather than run our generator to power the AC all day, we just had to leave the rig. Inside the tin can I think it got up to 95 degrees. But at least the nights were pleasant.
We chose to spend our time before the convergence in a place with shopping and big city conveniences – like a Costco – where we scored on martini ice pops but struck out on mango salsa. We also needed to receive a lot of packages from Amazon – so being someplace with Amazon lockers nearby was helpful.
Tom got our solar back up and running – after losing the cable in our blowout. He worked hard to make sure that will never happen again. It was so nice to not have to run the generator to watch TV or run the microwave.
We picked up a special shipment while we were there. Tom and I finished our fairy book project before getting to Colorado, but had to wait until we were someplace long enough to receive our proof copies. So we were able to pickup our book. That’s always exciting – to see your hard work in print.
Another great thing about our stay in Colorado Springs was that we were able to meet up with fellow Xscapers Mark and Patsi. We spent a lot of time catching up and we are all headed into the convergence for even more friendly reunions, so we’re very excited about that.
There is a lot to do in the Colorado Springs area, but a lot of the hikes looked commercialized. Because of that, we decided not to go to Seven Falls. We all had a lot of chores and errands to catch up on and then it got too bloody hot to go hiking.
We all did have one whole day of fun. We started out by droving up to Pikes Peak to cool off. Pike’s Peak summit is 14,115 feet and you can drive all the way to the top – usually.
They are in a 2 or 3 year renovation of the buildings at the summit, so they have you park and then they shuttle you to the top. At the parking lot, we could hike that hill and get a great view of the road below.
That is the first time Tom and I have been at that altitude and we definitely felt it in our lungs – even though we’ve been hanging out at around 8,000 feet for a while now. The views of course were awesome and in the distance you could see the snow covered rockies (at the horizon in the picture below).
Pikes Peak was made famous for its auto racing “to the clouds”, and the annual race, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, happened the weekend after we were there.
Driving back from the peak, we saw this big foot sign and had to stop for the photo op:
Then we saw this:
So we stopped. It was a darling little family fun place that was not busy at all, and high enough elevation not to be too hot.
We had fun exploring and the rides were all free! So we all rode the ferris wheel:
We also rode the gondola ride, but we didn’t get to ride the train!
It was great fun to bring out our inner kids!
On the way home we also drove through the famous and picturesque Garden of the Gods.
But we only drove through. In our air-conditioned vehicle. Did I mention it was hot?
We finished up our fun day in downtown Colorado Springs. Because we happened to be there for race week, the street was closed off for their Fan Fest where you could see the cars up close and meet the drivers.
There were a lot of bars and breweries open and the streets were filled with vendors and cars and even had some motorcyclists doing stunt jumps.
It was fun and we picked up several free hats and T-shirts. Time to clean out the closets!
Staying at the Elks lodge in town meant we were just down the street from downtown and shopping. And the lodge was a nice cool place to hang out and drink cheap beers. 
We ate there a couple of nights – cuz it was too danged hot to cook in the rig. On Saturday they had a shindig with a couple of bands and we had a great time hanging out and visiting with our new friends that were camped there as well (Shout out to Brian!)
All in all it was a busy week and the time flew by. Now we’re headed back across the mountains to the Xscapers 4th of July Convergence in Salida. I know the coming week will fly by as well with no time for work or projects. But having fun never gets old! (just exhausting)!
Happy Travels,
Peace & Love Joy
Rightlaners 