For the past few weeks we have been staying for a week at each destination we had. That part of our summer is over. At this point we are headed towards El Paso to spend time with Paul’s mom for her 93rd birthday. We have time to stop a few places along the way, but not for a week, and we have no reservations.
We discovered that with the heatwave that has hit most of the country, RV spots in cooler areas are hard to come by. We finally found an RV spot in Manitou Springs- it was recommended by a park that had no availability (“they are so expensive, they might have a spot open still”) –and so they did.
It seems like whenever we look at a map of Colorado, our eyes skim over Florrisant Fossil Beds National Monument, and we say some day we need to go there. Well, today was that day. We realized our rig would fit in the parking lot and it was on our way to Manitou Springs. Perfect.
This is one of the largest fossil beds in the world. They were created when nearby volcanoes erupted, covering the entire area with massive mudflows.
Our original intent was to just walk one of the short trails and check out the most impressive fossils, but we arrived just as a tour was starting, so we joined it.
The fossils in this area are all permineralized- created when an animal or tree is buried quickly. Over time, water seeps into the dead organism, and leaves minerals behind- essentially making a stone replica of whatever was there.
After an hour or so, we were on our way again.
The Manitou Springs/Colorado Springs area has an incredible amount of hiking available, and that's what we were focused on.
We first headed to Red Rock Canyon Open Space area- a place where we have never hiked.
We chose the Red Rock Canyon trail (very original) and ended up hiking almost 4 miles.
Since our hike was reasonably short, we felt fine looking for another hike the following day. This time we headed back to Garden of the Gods Park. We have hiked here before, but we took a different trail this time.
Along the way we passed by, among other things, the Siamese Twins Rock formation.
The bright green foliage against the red rock is a really spectacular sight.
This park is very popular so you are never really alone. We ended up hiking about 3 miles.
Our final day in the area we went a slightly different way. We drove to Seven Falls, which is a privately owned park, and therefore, has a cost associated with it.
There are two ways to get to the top- the stairs….
…and the elevator. Yes, elevator. We originally took the elevator up, but realized it didn’t go where we wanted, which was the top of the waterfall. Turns out there are TWO sets of stairs.
So we came back down and headed up the other stairs- 224 stairs up to the top.
Once there, there are a couple of hiking trails that lead to other waterfalls and some viewpoints.
We hiked both of them. They aren’t very long trails.
Once we were done, we felt like we deserved some ice cream, so that’s what we had for lunch.
We could easily spend a month in this area, but 3 days is all we had, and then it was time to move on, closer to El Paso. At the pace we are moving at, it took us a few days more to get there.
After the success we had visiting Florrisant while towing the rig, we looked at doing the same thing at Pecos Pueblo National Historic Park, which was along our route to El Paso. It worked out very well.
The site of Pecos Pueblo was settled in the 1400s, and was inhabited until the mid 1800s when the last of the Pecos people relocated to nearby Jemez.
We took a one hour tour of the ruins, and one of the things the ranger talked about was different ways of viewing “trash”. We, as modern people, view trash as things that have no value, that aren’t needed anymore. The Pecos people say that the piles of “discarded” items are halfway along their journey back to dust, and so, didn’t necessarily bury their loved ones separately from anything else.
A few days later we were hiking a trail somewhere else, and came across a rotting tree that really reminded me of that idea. You can clearly see that the top part of the tree trunk is essentially dissolving.
Soon enough, we were in El Paso.
