Travel Dates: September 7,8 2025
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Colorado Springs and Garden of the Gods
After arriving at our hotel from our trip on the Georgetown Loop we had a group dinner at a local Bavarian style restaurant. The food was good and it was nice to sit with some of our new friends and exchange stories. The highlight was Suzie, the accordion player. She was a hoot and did a great job of including us all in the fun. She is a school teacher by day but loves her chance to play.
The next morning we headed out of Colorado Springs heading for our next train trip – we’ll detail that in my next post. I always think of northern Arizona – specifically Sedona – being the home of red rocks. But there is plenty of iron throughout the Rocky mountains. Our morning tour stop was at the Garden of the Gods.
Red rocks dominated the local landscape.
These spires are breathtaking
We followed a drive through the park and eventually came to a stop at Balancing Rock.
We are tourists so we did the tourist thing
What the heck; let’s get our good friends and September travel partners Jim and Terri in the frame.
Last October we went with Terri and Jim to Quinault National Forest and the Hoh Rain Forest. Along the way we heard about the “Tree of Life” on the Washington coast near the Hoh Rainforest. Terri and Carla had a moment with some strangers when they asked if they’d heard of the Tree of Life. Lo and Behold we found a similar tree of life in the Garden of the Gods. Life will find a way.
It’s difficult in a small picture to capture the full attention grabbing massiveness of these structures. But this huge rock dwarfs the trees and lawn in front of it.
So much for rocks, as impressive as they may be; I came on this tour to ride trains. In the next post we climb above the tree line to the top of Pikes Peak. On. a. train.