After taking a cue from the people who pulled over ahead of us, we stopped at the giant welcome sign for photos and to get a closer look at the Kissing Camels. We then parked for a walk.
We were joined by a lot of little kids, one of which explained, "She's too big!" when Colleen tried to wedge between a rock formation, and "veteran" dogs, including Mr. Wellington, who we think would be a good match for Miss Tun.
Next we went to neighboring Glen Eyrie, a castle the founder of Colorado Springs, General Palmer, built. The castle is now a retreat and bed and breakfast center that a missionary group called the Navigators runs. Fortunately, the informational video was long on history and short on "be a missionary."
The tour started at 1, but we had to wait awhile for our tour guide. Turns out Bobbi is just a fill-in (her name tag said she was an administrative assistant) who had to resort to index cards and ending sentences in "so." Like the James Monroe and Barney Ford tour guides though, it was clear she was a big fan of her subject, so we can't fault her too much. A solarium built for one of the Palmer daughters was a highlight, along with the bighorn sheep Jon spotted along the side of the road.
A pamphlet in the gift shop directed us to our next highlight: a sky train tour over the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Colleen had heard glowing reviews of how close you could get to the giraffes, but had also heard how much of a hike it was through the exhibits. Like Hannah Montana, the lift provided the best of both worlds - we could see the giraffes, mountain goats, tigers and bears for $5 instead of $12.95 (with the AAA discount). Then there was the guy proclaiming, "I'm the king of the world!" off the overlook. You don't see THAT with a regular zoo admission! At the top, we were greeted by a nice guy who told us it wasn't all that lonely up there, despite the cooling weather and end of the day approaching, a fact confirmed when we spotted the snack bar guy. There were two random tents - one where Jon attempted "bouldering" and another dedicated to Mongolia.
Jon expressed interest in seeing the station that had offered him a job out of college, KRDO, but didn't have the money to fly him in.
After that we attempted to find downtown, but were looking at the wrong black circles in the AAA book and ended up at the scary-looking Garden of the Gods Motel. We parked in the equally scary Subway (Eat Fresh!) parking lot to re-evaluate and find another landmark to punch into Garmin. We later turned Garmin off when she kept wanting us to make a U-Turn, and found our own way to Denver.
After a pit stop in Denver we drove to Idaho Springs for Jon's second visit to the Indian Springs Hot Springs Resort. There were about seven people when we got there about a quarter to 8 and that number increased dramatically before closing time at 10. Among our fellow pool attendees, two women making plans to meet up later, although they were giving each other their names which gave Colleen the impression they didn't know one another before this, and our favorite - a guy who was first washing his hair (well, acting like he was( in the hot water pipe and then doing almost wall sprints back and forth with his face in the water. Sadly, the bar was not open so no PBR-induced happenings. After Garmin claimed a wrong-turn meant 20 miles down Miner Street when I-70 was really a mile away, we were on our way home. --POSTED BY COLLEEN
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