We finally had a chance to get up to the mountains. It was a Saturday, so the shock of how much our beloved state has grown hit us hard as we sat in a line (one of three) trying to enter the park. But we made it in and it was breathtaking. Not only the park itself, but also the drive there once we left the city.
We were driving on a highway, so we couldn’t pull over to snap this photo. It’s a little blurry. Yeah, Jay is kind of a lead foot…But he’ll tell you I am. LOL.
These next two photos are of Manitou Springs, west of Colorado Springs:
Once in the park on the way up to Pikes Peak, these are the views you see:
These woods are filled with pine and fir trees, Aspen, which wasn’t blooming yet, and wildlife, of which we saw only one thing. That will be toward the end of this post. I wish I could convey the smell of these trees, the sound of the wind blowing like waves through the tops, and how green they remain all year long. I wish I could share the feeling in my heart and the peace in my soul, when I find myself in these mountains.
May brings all the rest of the forest to life. Except the Aspen pictured in these next two photos. Not sure what the problem is, but I miss the sound the leaves make, like a tingling whisper full of secrets.
About a mile in, you come to a gift shop. Not much in it, but it does have this big guy standing guard – Bigfoot.
Sometime after the 1990s, there were several alleged sightings of Bigfoot, one by an eleven-year-old boy and his eight-year-old brother. That prompted this sign to be placed along the roadway:
We got a good laugh. There have been alleged sightings for decades, but the incident with the kids sort of led to its posting. Do you believe?
Back to reality…or something I can verify, anyway. Pikes Peak is 14,100 feet above sea level. It is very cold and still very snowy there. For me, it’s also hard to breathe. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it, but on Christmas Eve in 2015, I was hospitalized for respiratory failure caused by staph pneumonia, and was also septic. Sepsis kills many people every year. They told my husband they didn’t know if I would live. And the intubation tube they used was too large for my throat, causing permanent vocal cord paralysis. I lost my singing and professional speaking voice. Despite having surgery later to open up my breathing passageway to get me off full-time oxygen, I still have a smaller area to take in air than the average person. We purchased some canned oxygen in preparation for that. Still, once we hit 11,000 feet, I started getting sleepy. I took deep breaths and used as much of the oxygen as advised. But the instructions are for athletes who live in lower elevations and need oxygen when playing in higher elevations. Not for someone with my issue. So it didn’t help much. By the time we reached the summit, I could not stay awake, and Jay had to take the dogs out to walk them and to look around alone. I was sad, but it is what it is. Jay says I say that a lot – It is what it is. But that’s a fact. Once we headed down the mountain and passed 11,000 feet, I was awake and breathing fine.
These pictures were taken above 10,000 feet:
The higher we climbed, the more snow appeared, having been plowed to clear the road, but it shows how deep the snow was in some places.
I have no photos, but skiers were looking for rides up to the top so they could ski down. There was no place for us to pull over to take a photo of the trails left on the mountainsides by them. They were standing alongside the road, though, and would shout out asking for a ride. Since we had the dogs, we didn’t offer any, but many others did.
I know this photo was at the summit. I stepped out for Tristan to get back in as his dog bed is on the front seat between us, and he can’t get in if I’m sitting there. So I turned and took a couple of photos. Honestly, I was not very aware at that point.
The above photo includes the walkway at the edge of the summit.
This photo shows some rock formations on our way up:
We stopped for a picnic and this guy tried to join us. Our dogs were having none of it!
I thought it was a crow. He was big. The next day, I opened Facebook to find a comparison picture of a crow vs a raven. Although you can’t see the side of his beak here, it had the raven bump. Tristan spotted him first:
Then Sophie, aka Lil’ Bit, saw him and barked. Tristan only stared and warned him to stay away. LOL. He hopped around us while we had our late lunch, but never approached.
Jay and the ‘babies’ above at our table.
It was a wonderful trip and we had such a great time! The dogs sacked out once home until bedtime, then slept some more. It was a lot of fun for all of us.
On Hummingbirds Wings 