Garden of the Gods

After our return from Utah I fielded a phone call from Sarah, asking if we were free the next weekend, and would mind her coming out for a quick visit.  Truthfully, I was more excited for her visit than I could possibly say.  It's just nice to have someone come out and spend time with you in a new place, do some exploring together a little bit.  The only downside to her visit was the length.  She brought Thor and Fox with her, and they left late Friday afternoon, driving until late at night to arrive.  We had Saturday, and Sunday morning, but they had to head back again Sunday afternoon.

With limited time available Justin and I discarded several plans to take longer drives to see things outside of Colorado Springs, and instead proposed to Sarah that we take a little hike through Garden of the Gods, a city park that's unlike any city park I've ever seen.  It's full of red rocks, and trails, and is very pretty, but very crowded.  Sarah is usually up for most anything, so she was the perfect guest for this outing.  We left late, due to their late arrival, and my still lingering remnants of morning sickness, that at last was truly just in the mornings.

At the top of our first little ridge.

This picture cracks me up with Justin and Thor craning to see through the little window in the formation in the background. 

The view through the window.

This formation is called the "kissing camels."

We originally determined to take a short little stroll, but when we were done with that Sarah proposed we go on, and see more of the park.  The problem here is that the trail map sucked, and it didn't seem totally clear where we were in relation to where we wanted to go.  We ended up pretty much following the watershed for quite a while through the park before we landed ourselves back on a clear trail.

Definitely part of a trail

still in the watershed.

Back on an actual trail.

Justin loves this picture.  He's very proud of his little hiker.

At this point Thor and Vivian were starting to look very red, and not as sweaty as you want a very red child to look.

Because we ended up going so much further than we had anticipated...like we basically went from one end of the park to the other, we also found ourselves in a bit of a water crisis there at the end.  We ended up kind of dragging ourselves up to a little picnic spot with a water spigot.  We rested there before heading back, this time on a trail.  It was a significantly faster, easier hike if you actually stay on the trail.

We ended the day soaking in the pool at our apartment complex, and by my estimation it was a perfect day.  We were sorry to see it end, and even more sorry to see Sarah have to leave the next afternoon.