O Beautiful, Spacious Skies

America the Beautiful park

So, we've been living in Colorado this week.  That sounds weird, but that's what it feels like. Not like we're visiting, but that we're living here.  Typically when you go on vacation, you pack everything you need, eat out a lot, and spend most of your time in touristy areas.  But when you're full-timing, things are different.  We spent most of the week doing business as usual. We got groceries, hung out at the park, went to a car appointment...it's really like we live here, except that we have to use Google Maps to find places.

Colorado Springs is a unique city.  We aren't even technically staying in the town, yet because of the interstate that runs through it, we are able to be pretty much anywhere within 20 minutes.  It's a mix of big city and Coos Bay (so said the kids yesterday).  It's GREEN.  So green. Oregon-green.  It has rained almost every day this week, but it's not like in Oregon rain.  It'll be beautiful until afternoon, then clouds roll in quickly and it rains for an hour or two.  Then, the clouds leave and it's beautiful again. And temperatures never drop below 70 during the process.  Not the kind of rain that I'm used to, but it's a pretty convenient way to get your plants watered if you ask me!

(By the time fall gets here, I'll be looking forward to gray coastal weather again!)

After school one day, we went to the park.  It has a huge water feature that we wanted to see, but we found it out of commission when we arrived.  :(

Colorado Springs was the inspiration behind the song, "America the Beautiful" by Katherine Lee Bates.  In 1893, she rode up to the top of Pike's Peak in a prairie wagon and was captivated by the views.  She said that these first lines came to her up on the mountain top:

"O Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, for purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain!"

One morning before school and work, we hiked at Red Rocks park.  At first glance, we all thought it was similar to Sedona, but once we got in there a ways, we realized the only similarity is that it's warm and the rocks are reddish.  Otherwise, it was totally new.  

Climbing.

More climbing.  :)

Colorado's rock formations are covered in trees that have grown up in them.

I guess this is where you're supposed to do your big thinkin'. ;)

Jordan loved these trees and took this photo.

Jax is my hiking partner, so I tend to get more photos of him than the girls.  He and I like to climb and take our time, while Jeff and the girls are always eager to forge ahead and see what's around the next bend.

A photo of Meg's REAL (non-posed) SMILE!  She doesn't like having her photo taken, so this is rare.

Another afternoon, the kids and I went down to Old Colorado City to check out the shops.  Guess who we ran into there?!?

The Queen!

This store made all my kids' faces light up.  They wanted to get jammy dodgers in the grocery section, but someone had come in a bit earlier and bought the last 5 boxes.  They settled for raspberry biscuits.  (And didn't care for them.)

Above a theater in Old Colorado City.  Made me smile.

On Saturday, we went as a family to Manitou Springs.  After reading many reviews that it was worth the cost, we decided to spend the money and visit the cliff dwellings.  We were really disappointed, but probably only have ourselves to blame.  How many times will we fall for these touristy money-pit type things before we remember that we don't like them?!?  The dwellings themselves are neat and we did enjoy seeing them, so it wasn't a total bust.  But this place is a business and has a man-made, mass-produced, touristy veneer all over it.  You feel less like you are exploring and more like you are a sheep being herded through.  

By comparison, the cliff dwellings we visited in Arizona were tiny but free to visit and felt untouched.  The two experiences were like night and day, and I'm sorry to say that our pocketbook suffered on this one.  We left a little disappointed and $45 poorer, but here are a few photos of the dwellings themselves.  We've seen several of these, and this site is the largest.

A wolf rescue organization was at the park that day for a fundraiser.  We didn't want to do the photo op thing, but did glance in on them from a distance.  They behaved just like domesticated dogs except for those amazing howls!

After the cliff dwellings, we attempted a visit to the penny arcade, but it was too busy in that area.  We decided to come home and play Catan, which we loved!

We've also had a good week at the park we are staying at.  We met several people, swam, and walked down to the Colorado river, which is nearby.  A pretty good week!