Girl's Weekend in Colorado Springs

This year's Labor Day weekend was spent with the Myer's girls. Lorraine, Rachael, and Tauna drove to Colorado Springs to Lisa's house, where I too, met up with them. Friday after work, I drove on my merry little way to Colorado Springs. I listened to XM radio 20 on 20 for the entire 8 hour drive, minus the time I talked to Sash on the phone. Saturday morning we went and toured the Olympic training center.

 We then went for a drive up to Woodland park and had lunch at the Hungry Bear. I bet you would never guess that their entire restaurant was filled stuffed teddy bears. AND our waitress even had a bear paw tattoo on her neck. You can't tell me that you have ever ate lunch at the Hungry Bear and had a waitress who had a tattoo of a bear paw. So that was basically an experience of a lifetime.

After our hungry bear lunch, we rode the cog railway up to Pikes Peak. We rode up to over 14,000 ft in elevation. AMAZING. It was amazing views, and we could also see Kansas (i'm not quite sure what was Kansas, but that is what our tour guide told us). We even saw a marmot and a mountain goat/sheep (we didn't really know what they were). It was awesome. Tauna even bought a $4 picture book of the cog railway trip!

On Sunday, we all went to Lisa's single ward for church. She has a lot of members in her ward from the air force academy and it was bring your parent week for the cadets. So that was different and interesting. After church, we had yummy lasagna. That night we went to seven falls.

After dark the falls are lit up with different colors. It was really pretty. We walked a few stairs for preparation for the Incline hike that we were doing the next morning.

Monday morning, after a weekend full of anticipation, Lorraine, Lisa, and I left Lisa's house at about 5:30am to go hike the Incline in Manitou Springs. It is a hike that is 1 mile up and gains over 2000 ft in elevation. There are over 2700 stairs. It took us 1 hour and 15 minutes to hike up that 1 mile. It was great once we were on top. My goal for next time is 1 hour. Officially, the Incline is private property, and by climbing it you’re trespassing. But that doesn’t stop folks from running… well, scrambling.. well, trudging up the rigid steps.

The average grade is just over 40%, and the steepest point tops out at 68%. Yes, at some point I had my hands on the railways ties ahead of me to literally climb!

At the Base of the hike, Approximately 5:30/6:00am.

View of the sunrise during our hike

Trespassing with the rebel herself, Lorraine

Break Time

At the Top!!!!

And no, we did not walk strait back down the stairs like some people do, we went down the back side of the mountain.

So after our quick get together, we all headed back to real life, mine back in NM.