Pike's Peak

Today I went to visit Pike's Peak with Kori, a friend of mine that I worked with at Disney, who is making her way across the country on her move to California. I picked her up at 7:20am to drive down to Colorado Springs for our 9:20am reservation to ride the Cog Train. It should have only take an hour and a half but we got stuck in the rush hour traffic of Denver and didn't make it there till 9:22am. Luckily, they held the train for us.We were people running up to the train with everyone sitting on board staring out the window at us looking very angry that we made them 2 mins late. On board we were seated next to a lady and her parents from Russia. I didn't catch the moms name but the lady's name was Olga and the dads name was Nikolai. I thought that was pretty funny because if I was to think of any two Russian names those would be the two. :) The ride up the mountain took about an hour and a half. The scenery going up the mountain was gorgeous, this Florida girl hasn't seen mountains like that much. Speaking of "Florida Girl", I was not very wise in my shoes of choice for the trip. I knew it was going to be cold on the top of the mountain but I figured we were only going to be up there for 30mins so it wouldn't matter too much which shoes I wore so I chose my Chacos. Well, I chose wrong! I got off the train at 14,110 feet above sea level and it was -5 with the wind chill! We stood outside for like a minute to take a picture then went inside to buy some of their "world famous donuts". We stayed inside for about 20 mins then went outside to take a couple of more pictures before we had to board the train to go back down. We were only out there for maybe 8 mins but I thought my toes were going to get frostbite and fall off they were so cold and hurt so bad! I didn't even take that many pictures because my hands and feet weren't functioning properly. I don't know how people can hike and camp in that kind of weather. Anyways, my toes are still attached to my body and aren't discolored or anything so I may have been over dramatic with the whole situation :)

After Pike's Peak we decided to go to Garden of the Gods because Erica had told me that it was really pretty. We pulled in and parked at the very first parking area and took a lot of pictures of the area and of this rock called Balancing Rock. After we got done with our pictures we loaded up and started back towards Denver. We were so excited about that one rock that we had seen that we didn't even realize that there was WAY more to Garden of the Gods than that. I'm glad that I will have more opportunities to visit there when other people come to visit. We also tried to visit the Seven Falls but it closed at 2pm today for renovations or something and we got there at 1:55pm. I will be going back there though because waterfalls are one of my favorite things in the whole world!

I really enjoyed seeing a friend from Disney here and can't wait for many more visitors. Colorado is such a fun and beautiful state. I know I will miss the beach a lot and may have a tough time dealing with the cold weather at some points but I am very happy with my decision to move here and can't wait to see what God might have in store for me to actually do here.