Pikes Peak, Colorado

The weather is still cloudy and rainy in the morning, but we decide to drive up to the top of Pikes Peak anyway. We get to the entrance and see the sign that says it is 36 degrees at the peak. We ask the cashier if the sign if accurate and he says "a storm just went through so it is probably a few degrees colder". I'm glad I wore pants.

We drive up in the dreary weather and they are working on the road near the top where the visibility is a few feet at places. The road is muddy and the drive gets kindof scary at places.

We get to the top and look around.

There's a plaque at the top of Pikes Peak commemorating the 100th anniversary of the writing of the song, "America, the Beautiful".

Apparently the composer wrote the song after traveling to the top of Pikes Peak and being inspired by the beautiful view. She must have traveled to the top on a clear day; here is the view we saw:

We go into the gift shop and have some of their freshly made donuts (according to the sign, this is the only place that the donuts can be made due to the high altitude). The donuts are actually very good. And they're warm, which is good since it's cold up here. So after eating our donuts and drinking some hot chocolate, we head back down the mountain.

We stop at a lookout on the way down and Joe wants to hike over to a large rock outcropping, so Jere and he hike over to the rock while I check out the wildflowers near the lookout. They are tiny specks on top of the rock:

The tundra wildflowers are everywhere on this part of the mountain, so the three of us head down the trail to look at the wildflowers. We see lots and lots of wildflowers everywhere along the path,

AND the fog breaks up several times for us to see a view of the valley below us.

We continue down the mountain and stop at Halfway Picnic Grove to eat our lunch. As we're eating, the sky is getting blue. Jere thinks we should head back up the mountain now that the fog/clouds are lifting. Joe votes NO, but I know Jere well enough that he's going to drive back up no matter what Joe and I say, so I say "sure, let's go. I have nothing else planned for the rest of the day".

We get back to the top and it is initially still very cloudy, but then the clouds break apart and we get a wonderful view. Yea!

We drive back down the mountain again (it's a lot different drive in clear skies versus the fog; we never realized how big a drop off was beside the road at places when there was so much fog that we could barely see where to drive). Our only stop on the way back to the campground is to get some diesel (we're paying around $4.75/gallon these days). We have some leftovers for dinner. The wifi is down again so I organize some photos, read a book, and watch the one channel we get on TV.