October 12, 2017
We are on the edge of the mountain range near Colorado Springs, CO. It is warm- 70s every day, but cold at night. Very dry air, but smoggy, too. We expected to spend two nights here, but loved this campground and may be here for 6 nights. Cheyenne Mountain State Park- it sits just under Cheyenne Mountain…and do you know what sits under and in Cheyenne Mountain? NORAD and other “hush hush” military stuff….google it- it is fascinating. We can see one tunnel entrance from our campsite; that is how close we are. This is a fairly new campground. Below us is Army base Fort Carson and north of here is the Air Force Academy.
So, we have been shopping- every day, until we just about drop. This camper needed different things than the truck camper- lots of cupboards, but stuff can’t be sliding around, a new generator because the other one was built into the camper, a huge cargo bay for all the mechanical and outside stuff, etc.
We went to the Garden of the Gods the other day- spectacular…and free! We did pay to watch a “time travel” video of how these rocks and the Rockies were formed- this place (and most of the Great Plains) were covered in water- TWICE! Volcanoes, tectonic plate shifts, subduction and several eras of dinosaurs all contributed to the Rockies. “Kissing Camels” on the left, “Three Graces” second, and the last photo was not named, but it looked like a woman working to us.

This is the Siamese Twins formation:

Took the Pikes Peak Highway up to the top- 19.5 miles, 8000 ft elevation climb to 14,115 ft! It was 75 degrees at the bottom and 34 degrees and blowing 30-40knots at the top. COLD!

We averaged 15mph, took about an hour- there is a race up this hill and the record was set by Sebastien Loeb- he did it in 8 minutes- topped out at 195 mph, took the sharp corners at over 25mph. google the video. The length of our truck barely kept us in the lines on some corners!