July 20, Into Colorado Springs

Jeff started out pretty early from up on the mountain at Mueller State Park. It was a beautiful morning, too! Since we had driven so far off of Hwy 24, the miles to the highway made up for the miles that we had gone from the starting point. I got us "dumped" and fresh water, and headed out after him. There was a long line at the single dump site there at the park, too.

There were a couple of small towns before we got to Woodland Park. With a couple of coffee shops, too, where Jeff stopped to get his "breakfast of champions"! He also did a bit of window shopping.

 

 

Along the way towards Colorado Springs, he found another interesting item. As he said, all the kings horses and all the kings men....

 

Once we got to Woodland Park, there was a Starbucks! Of course I had to stop. It was one of the busiest Starbuck's we've seen so far! But, we did manage to get a table in cushy chairs for a little rest stop. Of course, Jeff stopped outside to talk to folks. Wearing the "super hero" 9-11 cape gets him a lot of notice!

Now, after he took off walking, he discovered that there was a donut and ice cream shop right next door to Starbucks.... so he was able to get a nice mid-morning snack.

The father of the young lady that served him is a volunteer on one of the small towns there.

Woodland Park had some interesting stuff. It was a good sized little town, I guess. They also believe in having a lot of artsy stuff. Particularly the bronze statuary. This state must spend a fortune on statuary!

 

 

 

From Woodland Park to Manitou Springs area is some of the greatest scenery! There were rock formations, all made out of the shiny red granite with quartz and mica, everywhere! I cannot believe that I didn't take any pics of this area! I just love the large boulders stacked on other large boulders. And that pretty granite is so common here, they even use it for road base. Such a waste.... We did get some pics of the scenery of the day, though. I was just too mesmerized by the granite boulders to stop and take any. 

 

I will say though, that the Road Ahead pic is from the pretty boulder area. And there were some other interesting pics along the way, as well.

 

A couple days ago, a friend had emailed me about the serious flash flooding that was occurring in the Colorado Springs area. Since it had been several days, and the flash flood warning had expired, we went ahead and kept to our route. Once we got to the Manitou Springs area, we saw quite a bit of evidence of the flooding. There was one area where they had had a mud slide that had closed highway 24 for a couple of days. They were in the process of moving all that dirt when we came through, but they only had one lane of the highway closed by then.

 

There were several RV parks in the area, but some were full, and others were too expensive for my taste. We ended up staying the night in a Walmart parking lot on the west side of Colorado Springs.

Luckily, Jeff was able to find a flower of the day, AND a Mailbox of the Day!