Garden of the Gods (Colorado Springs, Co)

We wrapped up our outstanding experience at the Rocky Mountain National Park and moved on to Colorado Springs, CO. We arrived here Friday afternoon (Sept. 23) and pulled into our campsite at the Air Force Academy without incident. I’m a retired civilian employee of the Navy. I spent 4 years in the Air Force and 17 years in the SC Air National Guard. Consequently, I had the good fortune of retiring from the National Guard with 21 years. The result is that we have military base privileges. Given my mixed bag of military experience, my military heart strings lie with the Air Force. So it’s nice to be here at the Air Force Academy. It’s an impressive facility. The campground is quite nice. A little utilitarian but a great price at $20 a night.

So Friday we cruised the base, got our bearings and spent some time planning for the next few days. Saturday we drove to the Garden of the Gods.

It was originally purchased by Charles Perkins in 1899. Upon his death in 1907 his children donated the area to the city of Colorado Springs with the stipulation that it would remain free to the public forever. It’s now a city park and encompasses 1367 acres. The area includes 15 miles of hiking trails. So we spent several hours gawking at the rock formations, snapping pictures and deliberately hiking trails to pack in the miles for a total of about 7.5. We remain pretty focused on keeping off the pounds.

Sunday we stayed home. You will see we had a huge blog to create covering RMNP. Debbie did 4 miles with her walking DVD and I rode my bike for a couple hours on trails and roadway. Later in the evening we walked 5 miles with the dogs. It was a great day!

Duane