Colorado Trip 2010...Days 1 & 2

Since discovering the wonderful world of camping, we have enjoyed many of the local state parks as well as a couple in neighboring states. We decided a year ago that we wanted to go back to Colorado for our summer vacation. After a recent camping trip that was fun but very hot, we decided that it would be nice to take our camping to some place cooler. It was then that we decided to make our summer vacation a camping trip as well. I love the doors that our camper has opened for us as far as places to go. We booked a campsite on Cheyenne Mountain...a new state park. The campsite was very nice with an AMAZING view of Colorado City. I was in awe when we pulled up to our site. I just couldn't believe that we were going to get to stay there for five nights. I don't know what was more beautiful....the clear view of the city in the daylight or all of the magical twinkling lights at night. It would have been easy to have stayed right there at the park the entire time if there weren't SO many fun things to do in Colorado. It was hard to choose what we would spend our time there doing. I think we were all pleased with our choices in the end!!

Our last trip to Colorado was five years ago.

Since the kids were so young on their first trip to Colorado, in many ways, this was like their first time there. Like always when I go to Colorado, I so anticipated the first sight of mountains in the distant. I loved watching the kids get excited as the mountain, and soon mountains, got closer and closer. Even though we were only a few states from our home, it felt like we had entered an entirely different world. It always amazes me to watch the land change from the flat, wood-filled land of home to the flat lands of Texas or Kansas, depending on which way we are traveling, where it seems that you can see for miles and miles with no trees in site. Then, out of nowhere it seems, the mountains appear. They are so big that they seemed to just suck us in. Gone was the humidity that we had been plagued with all summer at home. The air felt lighter and cooler...I felt lighter as well.

We took a train up Pikes Peak on the first full day in Colorado. The ride up was interesting with all of the history and narrations of the landmarks. Sadly, it was a very cloudy day, so we didn't get the full view we had hoped for when we got to the top. There were, however, enough breaks in the clouds to see some of it. What we saw was amazing. It was very cold up there...41 with a wind chill of 38 degrees. This is a bristlecone pine...one of the oldest living things on earth!Alpine tundra...it was so amazing to be able to show the kids some of the things that we have studied in school. It's one thing showing them pictures from books...another thing altogether to take them to it!

Before heading back to our camp, we drove through Garden of the Gods. Of course, the boys loved climbing on the rocks there. It was a beautiful place.