R&R in Pueblo

Thursday, August 3 - Sunday, August 6. Pueblo, CO.

It's Sunday night, and since Thursday afternoon, we've barely been on our bikes. On Friday, we removed the trailers and rode down the hill to the library to upload pix. After that, we found Bob's Bicycle Shop and made arrangements to have our brakepads replaced the next day. Matthew's dad, Jim, arrived in Pueblo on Friday night, so on Saturday morning, we dropped off the bikes and then took a drive over to Pueblo's waterfront park. The Historic Arkansas Riverfront Project (HARP) has been underway for a few years, an effort to restore the Arkansas River to its original channel. The parts that are complete are really nice, and it's easy to see that the retail and residential pieces will create a vibrant area downtown (there are still a few prime locations available, btw).

Once we picked up the bikes, we headed out to Colorado Springs to meet the Brobergs, friends from Lafayette. Our drive was shorter than theirs, so we also had the chance to re-visit the neighborhood where Matthew and his family had lived 30 years ago. Both Matthew and Jim remembered the streets and turns, even though the area has completely grown up now. Jim drove right to their old house, which still looks the same as when they lived in it. We also drove over to Matthew and Kim's old elementary school, and watched a female deer wander through the grounds and down the hillside.

We met up with the Brobergs at the Garden of the Gods, a wonderful park area just outside of Colorado Springs. We arrived just as a rainshower moved in, but it moved through pretty quickly and we were soon able to set up and enjoy Becky's picnic lunch. Three kinds of wrap sandwiches, two different desserts, chips, pasta salad, vegetables and salsa made from the fruits of their garden--what a fantastic treat!

We then needed to walk off lunch, so we headed for the trailhead. On the way to the park, the three of us had speculated about the name "Garden of the Gods". Did it seem that the gods had placed these enormous natural stone formations here for their own amusement? Was it the scale of the rocks, their beauty, their isolation that seemed to indicate the intervention of deities? Inside the visItor center, we found the answer. On discovering the formations, one guy gets his friend to come look at it. Together, they agree that it is a beautiful spot. Their conversation goes something like "This would be a perfect place for a beer garden". "Ya, a beer garden fit for gods". And although you can't get a beer here now, one family owned and operated a beer garden right at the gateway rock for many decades.

Becky and David have three boys--Kenny, Austin and Colin--and we all enjoyed the hike through the park. There are several well-known rock formations, such as the ksising camels, but we decided to have some fun and make up our own. We managed to get a crowd to gather after we all exclaimed and pointed excitedly to the "Jabba the Hut" rock formation. Yeah, I know you wish you'd been there. We also spotted several intrepid climbers scaling the rock formations, and a group of elk up on the ridge. After leaving the park, we took a side trip into nearbyManitou Springs in search of ice cream. A shopkeeper told us that we'd only find soft-serve in town, but just for the record, we found one standard and two gourmet ice cream shops. The temps in the area stayed cool, and the cloud cover really helped make the day very enjoyable. It's wonderful to be able to see friends and family at any time, but particularly on this trip.

We had one more day today with Jim, and decided to take the Royal Gorge Train down to the floor of the canyon. It's a two-hour round-trip on a narrow track that descends 1,000 feet to run parallel to the Arkansas River. Viewing options included coach and first class seating, as well as an open-air car and a domed observation car (we managed to spend time in every class of seating.). There were quite a few whitewater rafts on the river today, taking visitors on rapids that included some Class III to Class V waters. A few folks had been bounced out of the first raft that we saw, but the water didn't look too deep--just really rocky.

Back in Pueblo we caught Talladega Nights, an enjoyable show. Now we have to finish up laundry, and get packed up and ready to leave in the morning. We'll be finally heading into the Rockies, although tomorrow's climb will only be around 1,000 feet. I've been looking at the mountains for 4 days now, and I think I'm ready to test my legs in the hills. We were able to get a sneak preview of the road between Pueblo and Canon City, tomorrow's destination. There are a few climbs with long, slow grades. The heat wave seems to have moved on east, so I'm hoping for a good travel day. More later.