Colorado Springs and around

For the next few days we are staying at a KOA in Cripple Creek CO. It as the distinction of being the highest KOA at over 10000 feet.

Actually it is pretty nice although it is far from Colorado Springs but it was the only place we could get into.

While in "The Springs" we checked out the Garden of the Gods and also drove up Pikes Peaks.

The main reason for the stop was to hangout with Nicole an old friend from way too many years ago.

She is still good at air hockey!

After "The Springs" we switched to a state park just north of Denver.

In a rare occurrence we went out to breakfast at a place someone we met at the last hot springs we soaked at.

We so rarely go out to breakfast that it seems like a treat.

In Denver we walked around downtown and also took a ride up to Boulder to have dinner with a friend of Wills.

Another day we went back to Boulder to hike to this arch. It was a great hike and Tucker was glad to run around off leash.

 In our travels and chores (Finding propane if I remember correctly) we stopped at the Colorado School of Mines to visit their free museum.

It had a dizzying collection of cool rocks and minerals from all over the globe.

It also had displays of lots of the different areas in CO and the rocks you can find there.

They also provide free rock identification. So I ran back to the car and had them identify a rock I think I found on a trip 2 years ago.

It is very heavy and funky and turns out to be some naturally occurring form of iron that probably weathered in a stream.  Pretty cool!