After the continental breakfast at our hotel, we checked out and drove down to Pike’s Peak Cog Railway. At 8AM we were on the cog and starting our way up the mountain.
Several of us had already started to feel sick because of the altitude. Some people on the ride started to get bloody noses on the way up.
At about 8:30 we started to see some incredible views.
The conductor had a running commentary: “Do you see that big, flat area out to the East where there’s absolutely nothing going on? That’s Kansas”. We saw a large outcropping of rocks which apparently can contain mountain lions sunning on any given day. We saw several reservoirs in the mountains containing drinking water for Colorado Springs residents. And we started seeing a lot of marmots.
When we made it to the top , the conductor told us that we had to try the donuts (we did, and they were good). It was an incredible view from the peak, a clear day, and we could see Kansas to the East, Oklahoma to the SouthEast, New Mexico to the South, Wyoming to the North, and the Colorado Continental Divide to the West. I started to get a headache, and Matthew was tired as well and had to sit down. The altitute was over 14,000 feet! We took a group photo……
We found out that America the Beautiful was composed on Pike’s Peak. Overall, the beauty of the mountain left Carter speechless.
The train left the peak at 10AM (here’s a picture of us on the way down) and when we got off the train at the bottom we began our drive towards Canon, where we would go White Water rafting. We stopped off at a Denny’s we saw along the way, where Matthew uttered the famous line: I’ll have a classic cheeseburger, hold the cheese. At about 1:45 PM we made it to our rafting location at the Junction of Route 50 and the Arkansas River.
Imagine my surprise when I met our rafting guide and he turned out to be the same guide I had in Texas when my family canoed the Rio Grande five years ago! His name was Kaloo and he was from Nepal. He was an outstanding guide, and we drove for about 25 minutes to our drop-in point. There were four boats total, two of them held our troop. The first boat was myself, Pat, Dave, Matthew, John, MikeB, and Adam. The second boat contained Carter, Spencer, MikeH, Ray, MattG, and Ryan. Here’s a picture of us in the 1st boat.
The rides were fantastic. We spun, splashed other boats, got soaked, surfed the river backwards, jumped in (Matthew, MikeB, and Adam), failed to collect MikeB (the other boat picked him up!), and got knocked in (Matthew disappeared out of the boat despite a valiant effort to hold him in by Dave). The other boat picked him up as well but before we could make the exchange we hit some rough water and Matthew had to ride on the front of their boat like a hood ornament! We all had a great time.
We finished in enough time to make the trip to Royal Gorge, the world’s highest suspension bridge. We rode down to the base of the river in a “cab on rails”, and watched the Arkansas river flow by. We went back up and rode the the merry-go-round , and then walked across the bridge and back. Mr. Harrington felt like a kid again. The view from the bridge was incredible, and there were also flags representing each state in the US. For some reason Ray really enjoyed this part of the trip.
Time for dinner! Most of us went to Sonic, which we don’t have out on the East Coast. The food was fine, but ordering dessert took forever! We had all seen the commercials for Sonic but they don’t have any in our area, so it was fun to eat there.
Left Sonic, two hour drive to Raton, NM, and then off to bed. That was a LOOOONG DAY.
great man 😀