Travelogue: Colorado Springs (Part 1)

These are the Boulder and Denver travelogues from a few weeks ago in case you missed them! 

Wecome to the final city on my very brief Colorado visit a few weeks ago! We spent a whirlwind twenty-four hours in Colorado Springs visiting Michael’s brother Isaac and his wife, Angie, and of course, our niece Eabha. Angie is from Colorado Springs originally but they all live in Dublin now. We see lots of them during the year, but it’s always nice to visit them in the Springs. Angie knows me well since she’s been around for lots of Dublin exploring, so she planned some awesome adventuring for us!

I felt like I really got to see more of the Springs than I had in the past. We’ve hiked the (very, very hard) Incline and wandered into the Bluffs before, but this time we got to see so much of the city. It’s a lovely size for a city, and has nice different neighborhoods and mountains that are so close to the downtown.

We packed so much into the quick visit that I had to break this post into two!

We started with lunch at Amanda’s Fonda (no photos because we couldn’t take our fingers off the chips and salsa!) for delicious Mexican food on a patio along a creek. They had two-for-one margaritas so Michael and I split one. Best decision of the day!

Then we walked up into Manitou, the little town between Pike’s Peak and Garden of the Gods. We’d driven through Manitou a few years ago to get to the dreaded Incline, but we didn’t stop. It’s a funky little hippy town founded around a series of natural mineral springs.

You can see that terrible Incline up in the mountains in the distance. A gain of 4,000 feet of elevation over 2,000 steps along a former cable car line. It was terrifying and not for those scared of heights!  We stayed on solid ground and tried out a few of the mineral springs. I wouldn’t necessarily say they were tasty – they tasted very strongly of minerals – but they were very interesting! I wish I’d caught the look on Eabha’s face when she had a sip of this spring. Let’s just say they wouldn’t put her in a mineral spring commercial!  Michael decided to fill up his mini-watergun instead of drinking the water.

Then we tried out Manitou’s penny arcade. There are tons of outdoor arcade games and the boys played a few. Eabha sat in a couple but didn’t last long! The boys definitely had more stamina.

I’m not a very big fan of games (no one will ever call me the fun one!), but I tried the horse racing and loved it! I was terrible, although held a very early lead for about ten seconds during one game.

After the arcade, we strolled around until it started to rain. We hopped in the car and drove through the Garden of the Gods on the way home, per my request. Thanks, team, for indulging me!  When the afternoon thunderstorm had cleared, and we had all had a little rest, we left Eabha with her other grandparents and headed to Hillside Garden Center for their live music and wine evening. Hillside is aptly named for its location on the side of a hill overlooking Colorado Springs and Pike’s Peak in the distance, but it’s also part antique junkyard and full of every kind of lawn sculpture and old junk you could imagine. There’s a washing machine area full of antique washing machines scattered through the bushes, and in the photo below you’ll see a man playing a didgeridoo in an old fountain filled with bowling balls. It’s bizarre and amazing all at once. A few times each summer, they have live music and you can buy beer and wine, people bring lawn chairs and dance under the gazebo. One of Angie’s friends even had her wedding there! We took a ceremonial photo on the altar in her honor! There was an old school bus you could climb on and a welding demonstration going on in the little lean-to. The whole rambling garden area was remarkably wheelchair and stroller friendly, which was amazing, and it was such fun to explore all the little nooks.  And of course, a geodesic dome with a few ceiling panels missing! There was a chicken coop and a giant sculpture of a chicken as well. Every time you turned a corner, there was another strange sculpture of installment to greet you. They serve food at the Hillside Garden center, but we decided to go down to a local restaurant downtown for dinner instead. Day one in Colorado Springs was a blast! I’ll have day two to share with you tomorrow. For continuity’s sake, I’ve been trying to at least get through with Colorado before I share too many of my Maine adventures with you, so I’m anxious to finish up with our Rocky Mountain travels!