Another Day on the road....

Well, we made it to Denver! We woke up early and headed to the mountains. Carlos, my brother, went with us. He was our guide. We had just started up the paved mountain road when we met a bear!!! Right in the middle of the road. That is lucky, yeah, that we got to see a real bear and that we happened upon it while we were safely inside our vehicle.

There was so much to see, but we had to get to the mining towns early enough so that we could make it back to the Cog railroad train and take the trip up to Pikes Peak. From here you can see Colorado Springs in the back ground. I don't know how high we were but its a long ways down.

The road was an old wagon road, not very wide. When coming to a tunnel or a sharp curve, okay, any curve, Carlos told me to honk so if anyone else was coming from the other direction they would know we were there. Okay, they have some real idiots out there driving way to fast for this little roads. Anyways, we came upon this tunnel and got out to take pictures. It is so cool, carved out right through that mountain.

We made it to the first town and got out to explore. We missed a lot of good photo ops on the way. See the hills in the back ground?
They use to be mountains that were mined for many years. When GW Bush says that oil drilling in Alaska or in the gulf won't destroy the environment, just remember those hills. Anytime you exploit an area you end up with destruction.

Here is a better example of what happens when greed exceeds concern for our planet. That is huge, it is the rubble that was dug from the mountain then dumped over and use to create a dead mountain. Nothing will grow for a few hundred years. Just remember that when a politician calls himself or herself conservative, they are all for conserving their dollars not the environment.

Isn't that beautiful.

This is what a small mountain look like before mining begins.

That is one of the trains that takes people up to Pike's Peak. The trip up is slow. You can see the middle rail which is where the cog under the car connects to the ground. That is the only traction that the train has to climb up the mountain.

This area gets so much snow that trees don't grow. There are plenty of animals up here though. We were so high up that we were level with the clouds. It wasn't raining, we just ran into the drops before they fell.

This is awesome. You can the the mountains, the clouds and way back, you can see where the sun is shining.

When we got to the top of the mountain, it was snowing!! July 1st. and it is snowing!! Boy, was it cold. Elfida was out there for a few minutes then went inside the souvenir shop where it was warm. She even bought a pair of gloves.

Here they are mugging an old miner. They sold all kinds of souvenirs, most made in China.

Sam was so excited about being up here, he didn't even notice the cold. He ran around all over taking pictures. I finally got him to sit down and took his picture.

He was so excited, I thought he was going start singing "Rocky Mountain High".

The clouds moved higher that us and the snow and rain stopped.

That is the train that took us up here. Sam was still somewhere taking pictures.

I like this shot. What a bunch of tourist.

Sobering moment.

What thoughts come to mind when you are so high up, so close to heaven?

Deer enjoying the warm weather, the green grass and the clean air. Oh yeah, that is snow.

This little guy didn't seem too happy to see all us tourist invading his home.

That is the old steam engine that use to take the tourist up the mountain many decades ago. Yes, that is me. Sam took the picture.

We stopped and ate at TGI Friday's, spent about two hours talking and made it home at about 11:30 PM. Tired, very tired, but very happy to have been so high.