A Weekend in Colorado Springs

Every few years since my kids were young (3 and 6), we like to take a trip to Colorado Springs. If you’ve never been there, Colorado Springs, which is one mile above sea level, is a city in Colorado at the eastern foot of the Rocky Mountains. We’ve been there at different times of the year, but my favorite would have to be the trip that we took one year during August.

It was a scorching hot summer that year, and anyone who lives in Kansas can tell you that the summers are hotter than hell, and the winters are freezing, so it was a welcome relief to get into the cooler temperatures of the mountains.

The first place that we visited was the very aptly named Garden of the Gods. This place is amazingly beautiful, with its 2.14 square miles of hiking trails and majestic sandstone formations, and I could easily spend the day there. When we let the kids out of the car, they both took off running, but it wasn’t long before they were huffing and puffing due to the high altitude.

The next place that we visited was Manitou Springs, which is a picturesque little town nestled at the base of Pikes Peak, which is filled with quaint little shops where you can find everything from refrigerator magnets and toys to Souvenir t-shirts. We stopped for a late lunch at PJ's Stagecoach Inn, and the kids got their pictures taken in the stagecoach by the restaurant. The food inside the restaurant was excellent, and the waiters and service were also extremely good.  We always make a point of stopping here when we're in town, and each time that we've been there, they were pretty busy, but you wouldn't know it by how good the service was. We all had burgers along with some appetizers of fried zucchini, and someone who won’t be named had mountain oysters. Our waiter also advised us that if you take an aspirin before going up Pikes Peak, then you won’t suffer altitude sickness.

The first time that we visited Pikes Peak, we took the Cog Train to the top, which was an interesting experience. Once there, we walked around enjoying the amazing view, and the kids were surprised to see it start snowing. On another visit a few years later, we drove to the top, which was a bit scarier than taking the Cog Train. I believe that it took us around 30 minutes to make it to the top, where we walked around for a bit and tried some of their delicious fudge from the gift shop. Luckily the trip down seemed less scary than the trip up.