Garden of the Gods is a free park displaying massive,
free-standing rock structures in various shapes and formations. The rocks are composed mostly of white
limestone and red sandstone, giving them a stark contrast to the greens and
browns of the surrounding area. Over the
years, the rocks have split and fallen (in some places), leaving
impossibly-beautiful shapes behind. The
walk around the park on the main trail is only about 1.5 miles, but you can
definitely spend several hours here, admiring the formations and gazing out at
the surrounding landscape. Off in the
distance, Pikes Peak looms over the park with its snow-capped peak, lending a
majesty to the whole area.
Our favorite formations were the “Three Graces” and the
“Cathedral Spires.” The “Three Graces”
look like three hands, side-by-side in prayer.
From the side, the slender fingers slope up into the sky with a small
gap in between them. The “small” gap is
large enough for two people to walk into it side-by-side. The “Cathedral Spires” look like the flying
buttresses of Notre Dame with thin pillars rising up next to a large, central
rock and horizontal rocks connecting the pillars to the larger rock. The delicacy and grace of these formations is
what makes them intriguing. These are
rocks…huge, lumbering rocks…but they somehow manage to be these beautiful works
of art without a human’s hand ever touching or shaping them.
We grabbed a quick lunch at Panera, because my wife had a
craving, and then headed to Manitou Springs, CO to see the cliff
dwellings. The cliff dwellings are a
line of houses cut from and constructed into the cliffs by the Anasazi
Indians. These particular dwellings were
apparently moved to this spot over a hundred years ago in order to preserve
them. They’re small, but well-done. They give you information on each structure,
and you can actually climb into and over everything. It makes it more real when you can actually
stand inside and touch the structures.
The Anasazi were very small people, so a lot of the openings were too
small for me to climb through, so I just had to stick my head through the
opening instead. We have several
pictures of my backside sticking out of the hole, since my wife thought that
was funny (we should never give that woman a camera, I swear). It didn’t take us long to complete this, but
that’s okay, because it was late in the day, and they were closing anyway!
For dinner, we did a throwback to our days in Missouri, and
went to HuHot Mongolian Grill. It was
just like we remembered, and I went to town in there, eating a plate and a half
of food before my wife had even eaten her first! I’m usually the slowest eater at the table,
but not tonight…not tonight…I loves me some HuHot (or as the GPS calls it,
“Hu-hoe”)!
