We left Sacramento at 4pm on Saturday afternoon. Our flight was delayed because of mechanical issues (that didn't make me nervous or anything...) and we missed our connecting flight in Phoenix so... impromptu Phoenix vacation! Unfortunately, my camera was in my suitcase which was who knows where between Arizona and Colorado, so no pictures exist of our thrilling evening at the Clarion and the delicious dinner at On the Border that followed. We finally caught a flight out of Phoenix at 8:45 on Sunday morning and rented a car in Colorado, finally arriving at UCCS around noon. We had hoped to get Brian's computer checked in and then go to the zoo, but it turned out that he had to install Autodesk Inventor which takes like a billion hours, so I investigated Old Colorado City and Downtown Colorado Springs by myself until around 4. I then picked Brian up from the university and we went hiking in Garden of the Gods.
The next day it rained, so I lounged around and read a lot. We drove out to Seven Falls that evening and paid a lot of money to climb up a bunch of steps. It was too late to hike past the falls, which was a bummer, but the view from the falls was really pretty.
The view clearly inspired some romance...
Bridal Veil Falls was my favorite,
But leave it to Brian to be goofy:
On Tuesday, I woke up early, slathered on the sunscreen, charged my digital camera, bought coffee, and headed out to the zoo!
I was excited, OK?The giraffes were first (and really, my primary motivation for flying all the way to Colorado. I mean, besides Brian, of course):
I got to feed them - I was fascinated with their tongues:
There are about a million more pictures here. By the way, if you are as enamored with giraffes as I am, the zoo has a Live Giraffe Cam. Sweet! You can also adopt one! Awesome!After I had my zoo fill, I drove to the top of Cheyenne Mountain to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun.
It was a GORGEOUS clear day, so the view of Colorado Springs from 8000 feet was pretty impressive. Little did I know that I would end up at a much higher elevation later in the week.
Brian and I did a longer hike in Garden of the Gods on another evening and maybe got a little lost... but I took the opportunity to take this sweet picture of my hot mountain man boyfriend:
Oh yeah, and the park is really pretty too:
As our week drew to a close, I decided to drive to the top of Pike's Peak (but not in a covered wagon).
It took nearly an hour to drive the 19 miles to the top (14,110 feet!), but it was totally worth it. It was even snowing when I arrived at the summit! I stayed for a few minutes, took a few pictures, considered buying donuts (apparently they are world famous?), and then started the trek back down the mountain.
After I left the Pike National Forest, I stopped to take this picture of the Ute Pass:
It's now Highway 24, but historically the Ute Pass began as a bison trail that connected the prairie with the mountain meadows and then became a wagon road and in 1888 the Colorado Midland Railway put in tracks to service the mining operations in mountains to the west. And I drove on it!
For reasons completely unbeknownst to me, we flew home on a red eye on Friday night. No pictures exist of that glorious occasion, but I'll give you an idea of how I felt about it:
Yep. It was awesome. We found ourselves home in Sacramento at the delightful hour of 3am and then woke up at 7:45 for breakfast with Brian's parents and sister, just returning from their road trip through Oregon. A superbly long day followed, including sorority reunions, bridal showers, bathing suit shopping, gazpacho, and fighting with my apartment AC, but those are all stories that will wait for another day (hopefully when I have pictures).
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