Colorado Springs

Zoe here from Colorado Springs:

This is really a beautiful place right at the foot of Pikes Peak. Unfortunately, my best friend, Phaedra, had to go to the hospital to have her front tooth removed. Remember she ran into mom in East Lansing? Well, some dogs will do anything to get sympathy. Mom makes special food for her and gives her lots of petting. But, I’m glad that she is a lot better now.

We hiked in the Garden of the Gods. There are red rock formations, which are large natural sandstone boulders. We all got to go and saw really neat things like The

Kissing Camels and Balanced Rock. When we returned from our

first walk, there was a whole bunch of excitement! Police cars were all over the lot, all around our truck. We found out later that two people were

robbed at gunpoint on the same trail that we were on. I heard that this is the first time in 35 years since someone was robbed here. Lucky we missed that! Of course, Phaedra and I would have protected Mom and Papa.

Mom wanted to visit a fancy hotel called the Broadmore where she had visited as a kid. They spent a couple hours walking around the resort, which included a tour of the main hotel. While they were waiting for a tour of the hotel, they had a drink on the lake patio and guess what? People came out onto the patio with dogs. I wonder why we don’t get to stay there. Maybe it is because a room costs around $300 a night. Still, they take dogs so it must be good. We were still back at the camper during this. Then, they had a great time hiking in Cheyenne Canon and driving to the top of it. They do like driving up mountains without the camper.

A visit to the Air Force Academy was a great experience. We stayed home again. We missed the first big wild animal of the trip---a brown bear. That’s all they could talk about when they got home. And we missed it! I would have barked and barked! I’m not afraid!!!

We had great weather in Colorado Springs - except for the wind. Saturday morning I almost fell off the bed because the camper was rocking so much. Chairs, rugs, towels, and everything not tied down had been blown all over the campground. If I’d been outside, you’d have been able to see dogs fly!

Memorial Day Weekend is a great time here. There was Territory Days, a street fair with food, artisans, food, entertainment, and food in the Old Colorado Town. Of course we had to stay home.

They also went to the Manitou Cliff Dwellings that had been brought to this area in the early 1900’s from the Four Corners area. The Anasazi Puebloans built them around sometime around1100 A.D. They were good but not as good as either Mesa Verde or Bandelier.

The best thing the folks did was ride on a cog railway all the way to the top of Pikes Peak. They were gone for 4 hours going up to 14,000 feet. They enjoyed it a lot more than trying to drive up the mountain. It sure got them in the mood for more mountains.

Tomorrow they get their wish…

Zoe

Howdy Pardners!

Phaedra here: On the road again!

Here Zoe and I are, once again, in the truck. Boooooooring!!!!!! We got some good zzzz’s riding around, though.

Imagine this… We all went to Michigan for Taylore’s and Mat’s wedding and guess who never met them. That’s right. Zoe and I... never met them!!! We did see Erin, Audrey and Brad at the camper. Zoe really liked Erin who kissed up by throwing the ball over and over for her. I pretended not to be interested. All we got to see was the inside of the camper and the campground. We did NOT GO ANYWHERE!!!!!

They really liked being in East Lansing and even checked out Mom's old dorm at MSU. I didn’t really enjoy Lansing much. Zoe and I were running around playing chase and I wasn’t watching where I was going. I ran into Mom’s knee and knocked my front tooth loose. I didn’t like hearing that I’m going to have to get the tooth pulled once I reach Colorado Springs. I think we should just ignore it, but Mom is so over-protective! I don’t think I’m going to win this argument…

We were only in Lansing 4 days and left Sunday heading out for Colorado. Sometimes I wish we could just skip the travel and wish ourselves to the next city. It rained way too much all the way from North Carolina to Michigan, then on to Illinois and Iowa.

We finally set up camp without any rain once we got to the middle of Nebraska (which by the way, Dad says goes on for days and days just to upset Mom). The wind was blowing about 35 miles per hour the whole time. After dark, we were surrounded by storms and tornado warnings. Out came the big map! Mom watched the storm’s progress on the computer and packed our GO Bags just in case. We didn’t even put out the slides because the folks were worried. When the wind reached gusts of 55 to 60 miles per hour, we really rocked. Fortunately, the storms subsided after several hours and no tornadoes were seen where we camped. Still, there isn’t a very good place to evacuate to at a campground unless the bathhouses are concrete. These weren’t.

We got out of there as soon as the sun came up, and Dad drove over 500 miles. We went all the way to Colorado Springs. It was so fun seeing the snow covered mountains. We always play a game of who will see the Rockies first! Guess who won! Of course, it was me. I made Mom want to take this picture so she made Dad pull over on the highway. If you look really, really hard, you can see the mountains just peeking over the high plains.

It’s really just spring here, now.

There are lots of wonderful things to do in Colorado Springs. Zoe will write more about that later.

Arf! Arf! ... For now.

P