We left for Colorado Springs after breakfast and drove though a rain storm most of the way there.
I thought Colorado Springs was a short drive from the Denver area but, adding that we were actually leaving from Golden and that I misjudged the distance, it took us over an hour to get there.
Our first stop was Garden of the Gods. This is a large park up against the mountains, west of Colorado Springs. There are incredible sights such as balancing rocks, keyhole rock, steamboat rock and other incredible stone formations to view.
We traveled through the park and came upon an off road trail that could drive up in our Jeep. It took us up above the park and let us look down on Colorado Springs and the Garden of the Gods park from about 800 feet above everything.
We found a good place near the top of the trail to turn around and headed back down to the park. We went from the off-roading adventure to the Trading Post and bought a few souvenirs to remember this place.
Afterward we found a hiking trail about a mile up the road and hiked up to see Pikes Peak breaking through the clouds in front of us. It was awesome.
In the afternoon we meet up with one of Jenn’s colleagues, Cody, who lured us to a smoothie shop in town. I think we paid for about $60 worth of smoothies and everyone cooled down from the day. I’m pretty sure everyone enjoyed that stop.
While Jenn and Cody caught up on life and business thoughts, I took the kids to a car wash to get our Jeep cleaned up.
Remember when I shared that we went off-roading at Garden of the Gods? Well, the Jeep was covered in red dirt and was looking like a very well used off road vehicle, extremely dirty!
After cleaning up the Jeep we picked up Jenn and headed back towards Denver. The soothies were starting to make everyone need a bathroom so we stopped off at John’s house on the way through Denver. He gave us a tour of his house, garden and outside patio area while the kids played with his dog, Fernando.
Everyone had a great time and we headed out after about an hour stay.
While we were in the area, we decided to drive by my old college campus at Regis University. It’s been so long since I haven’t seen my campus and a few new buildings had been built.
My old dorm building (Desmet Hall) had been expanded and a new Science building was built that looked incredible.
We were followed through the campus by a campus police vehicle who was probably just making sure we weren’t up to anything inappropriate. He was probably following the right car but, I’ve grown up a bit since college.
The Edden crew was “finished” after a long day and we headed home after circling through the neighborhood a little. It all comes back quickly and my kids had tons of questions about college life.
We made if home for a late dinner and everyone went straight to bed.
Luke's Journey Across The USA 