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When we woke up this morning the weather was rainy and miserable. We were a bit disappointed as we didn't know if the weather conditions would allow us to do what we hoped to.
Most travellers have a list of things they would like to do and places they would like to visit - their Bucket List. We have been fortunate enough to be able to tick off many of the things on our bucket lists and today we hoped Greg would get to tick one more off his list.
We drove out of town on I-24 West until we came to the turn off to Pike's Peak also known as America's Mountain. The reason that this spot is on Greg's bucket list is quite simple. It is the site of the world famous Pike's Peak International Hiil Climb, also known as The Race to the Clouds. It is an annual car and motorcycle hillclimb to the summit of Pike's Peak. The track measures 19.99km and has over 156 turns climbing from 1,440m from the start at Mile 7 on Pikes Peak Highway, to the finish at 4,300m at mile 20 on grades averaging 7.2%. Since 2011 the road has been fully paved but when the hillclimb first started in 1916 the surface was gravel. The first hillclimb trophy was awarded to Rea Lentz with a time of 20:55:60 in 1916. The record was set in 2013 by Sebastien Loeb in a Peugeot 208 T16 in a time of 8:13:878. In 2017, Chris Fillmore did the hillclimb in 9:49:625 on a KTM Super Duke 1290R - not bad! Our time today was quite a bit slower than any of those times.
When we stopped at the entrance gate we were told that the road to the top would not be open today because of ice and snow - we could only go as high as Mile 14. We almost decided not to go because it was foggy and wet but the ranger explained to us that the weather would most likely be clear above the timberline and we should get good views. So off we set. The road was wet and there was fog around almost every corner however the weather did start to clear the higher we went. The road was narrow and Greg tended to stray to the left side (they drive on the right in the USA) any time he could see the road was clear. The views were spectacular the higher we got but Greg only saw them when we stopped to take photos. He was too busy keeping the car on the road and away from the edge as there were no barriers to stop you going over the edge - and it was a long way down. When we arrived at Mile 14 there was a barrier across the road so we took some photos, noted that the temperature was 2 degrees Celsius and turned around to go down. About 2 miles down we were flagged down by a ranger who told us they were going to open the road so we could go up a bit higher. So, we did a u-turn and went up again. This time we got up to mile 16 with a snow plough vehicle leading the way. As all the traffic from Mile 14 was going up (or so we thought), Greg wandered often to the left side of the road as we went around the switchbacks - until we almost collected a snow plough that was on its way down! At Mile 16 they closed the road again as it was too icy for safe travel. Once again we got out to take photos, the temperature this time was -2 degrees Celsius. There was snow beside the road and ice in clumps on the road. We turned around and headed back down the mountain only stopping at Mile 13 gift shop for a coffee to warm up. Happy with our visit we headed off to our next stop.
At the bottom of Pikes Peak Highway we stopped so Kerrie could visit North Pole - Colorado. This is an amusement park with a Christmas theme. Even though it was free today for anyone over 60, I could not convince Greg to go in. Kerrie did go in to the gift shop and came out with a motorbike Christmas decoration for Greg to add to our tree this year.
We rejoined I-24 East this time and drove on through historic Manitou Springs, a quaint village with lots of art and craft shops and cafes. Our next destination was Garden of the Gods which was across the freeway. This area was dedicated as a free city park in 1900. The red sandstone rock formations are what this park is famous for with many of the formations over 300 million years old and were sculpted through time by the forces of nature. There are many walking trails and picnic areas in the park and they were being well used today. There is supposed to be and abundance of wildlife too but we didn't see any animals today. We had lunch in the Garden of the Gods Trading Post which was built in the early 1900's to resemble the homes of the Pueblo Indians.
After lunch we headed north to revisit the United Stated Air Force Academy. We had been here in 1978 on our first trip to the USA, at that time we did a quick drive around on our way to Denver. We decided is was time to have a better look. After having I.D. checked at the North Gate we drove around to the visitors Center. We collected a map and discovered that we were able to do a self drive tour at our own pace. We watched a 20 minute video about the life of an Air Force Cadet - I think Greg had flashbacks to his own days training at Portsea as an Army Cadet in 1977.
We returned to the car and drove around the suggested route taking photos and visiting the Chapels (Protestant on the top floor, Catholic, Jewish and Buddhists on the bottom floor), the Cadet sporting facilities and Academic buildings. We also visited the Falcon Football Stadium and the B52 Display. The area is huge, although our memories of our first visit have faded we estimate that the academy must have tripled in size since our last visit.
As it is Sunday, we decided that a drive around the City Centre would be the perfect way to end our day in Colorado Springs. There was no traffic so it was easy to drive around the city for a look. We returned to a restaurant near our hotel for dinner.
- comments
Christopher As a bye the 2nd place at Pikes Peak in 2017 was Australian Rennie Scaysbrook (Jim's son) also on a KTM
Craig and Marg And I thought the Yaris would have been good for a sub three hour run to the top of Pikes Peak. Looks like Mr Loebs record is safe for now.