Longmont/Boulder to Manitou Springs

 June 16 2023 Friday

We had a plan to drive south to Boulder this morning, tour the town and then return to Longmont via a different route. We would then tour Longmont. We drove through Longmont on our way into town yesterday but did not see much because of towing the RV.

We executed the first part of the plan, but we got rained out before we got back to Longmont. We drove straight to the fairgrounds campground and have been inside all day because of the damp cold and rain. 

Longmont fairgrounds campground

I was impressed by Boulder Colorado; it is located at the base of the foothills to the Rocky Mountains at about 5000 feet in elevation. It is a college town and home to the flagship Colorado State University. It is also the county seat so it is a vibrant urban center.

One thing I liked during our tour was the architecture, every building looks as if it was someone’s vision, I didn’t see any cookie cutter houses. There must be a strong urban planning department. I know there will be people who frown on too much government control, I included, but I must say they’ve done a great job building this city. One other thing I noticed was there are only a few buildings in the whole city that are higher than four stories. The only tall buildings we saw were part of the university. PS: I found out the city put the height restriction on buildings so as to not block the view of the mountains.

Downtown Boulder Colorado

Sorry, I took no pictures in Boulder, above is from the net. Tomorrow we leave Longmont and move south to Manitou Springs.

June 17 2023 Saturday

The rain cleared overnight so other than the ground being saturated, we had good weather for our departure. It didn’t last but at least we got coupled up and underway under clear sky. 

We traveled to Denver and located the Blue Beacon truck wash. We had to wait in line with two trucks ahead of us, but Blue Beacon has a good system with at least four workers and a team leader working in each bay. Our travel Trailer was dirty from the 3000-/+ miles we’ve drive so far on this trip. 

Wash bay at Blue Beacon truck wash

The truck wash guys did a great job and soon we had worked our way out of the industrial section of the city and were back on the interstate and heading south. Soon the sky turned gray and it started raining. It continued to rain all the way to Colorado Springs. The RV came thru it pretty clean, just a little road dirt on the lower front cap.

The rain stopped before we got to our next campground, Garden of the Gods RV Park in Manitou Springs Colorado. It’s a nice park; we are parked on an all gravel (crushed granite) site with full hookups and wifi robust enough to stream video. We’ve been catching up on all our YouTube channels. We will be here for four nights and have several activities planned.

Garden of the Gods RV Park

June 18 2023 Sunday

We have tickets for the 12:40 Manitou Cog Railroad to Pikes Peak. Before we left I checked my email and had a message from them saying the train would not go all the way to the summit because of high winds. They gave us the option to cancel, reschedule, or ride to 12000 feet up the mountain for a 30% refund. 

Millie at 14,115 feet.

We said we’re here now, this is what we planned to do and we may never come back this way again, so we decided to go. Our conductor/tour guide regaled us with interesting mountain and cog railroad facts. She also had a large repertoire of jokes which kept us amused. About 3/4 ‘s of the way up the mountain the trains engineer announced the winds had subsided and we would be going all the way to the summit of Pikes Peak, 14,115 feet.

Above the tree line

What he didn’t tell us was the wind was still blowing at 40 + mph, it was mighty cold up there. The views were panoramic and absolutely stunning. My cell phone camera does not do it justice. Despite the cold it’s a great experience, we both recommend it. The trip is a one hour train ride each way with 40 minutes to take pictures and go inside the visitor’s center. It is mostly gift shop (imagine that) and a cafeteria. The cafeteria was jam packed which begs the question, why didn’t these people eat before they got on the train? Think about it, a lot of these folks just spent an hour to get to the top Pikes Peak just to stand in line behind dozens of people to eat cafeteria food. They will probably not get to view the majestic landscape before being called back to the train.

To the east behind us

In the afternoon we went for a ride around town and discovered a Thrift store. I must admit it was a very nice store. The ARC thrift store benefits mentally challenged folks and have three more stores in the area. Tomorrow we only had one activity planned so I’m sure you see were this story is going.

June 19 2023 Monday

The Garden of the Gods Park is right around the corner from our campground. I’m not sure if it is a state, federal or city park. About the only thing I know is it is free to enter and has hiking trails and an auto tour route.

Traffic in Garden of the Gods Park.

The trip started to go bad when we got to the visitor's center and the parking lot was totally full. There are many jeep and bus tours headquartered there plus the transit buses to the trail heads in the park. I also saw Segway and ebike rentals there.

We had no choice but to drive into the park and look for trailhead parking there. The place was jammed, traffic was bumper to bumper and all the trailhead parking was full. We could see portions of the hiking trail and they too were shoulder to shoulder with tourists. Many of the large boulder monuments were covered with kids climbing all over them like ants. PS: the large rock out-croppings are the Gods of the garden. 

Not my kind of hiking

I was rapidly loosing interest in the place; there were just too many people here. If we ever return it will be in the fall after school starts. We completed the driving tour and the rest of the day became thrift store day. We visited several ARC stores and another one that I forget what charity it represented. We had a late lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then toured t downtown Colorado Springs. We spent the afternoon at the RV.

June 20 2023 Tuesday.

Today was the day I’ve been waiting for this whole trip. I will take a challenging hike to the top of a mountain on an old cog railroad bed. They call it the incline. I will devote a whole post to it.

The Incline