06.15.15 – Part Two – The Chauvin’s take on Pike’s Peak!

Part Two – Pikes Peak – Monday, June 15, 2015

Two of Roy’s panoramic pictures are above. Click on the panoramic pictures (and any other picture) to see them full size.  Then just click the back button to come back to the blog.

At the Summit, we also ventured out at a different spot, as close to the edge as we could like two crazy old folks.  This involved walking through snow and rocks (large and small) to get there.  The views were amazing even with clouds covering some of the area.  We were the only folks there for much of the time which was nice.  The young folks we did see were just be-bopping along over the rocks and through the snow.  Boots was parked near us and is in one of the pictures.  That boy sure gets around!

We, on the other hand (mostly me), kept sinking in the snow, a couple of times up to my knee and almost losing my shoe. You’ll see a picture of a hole in the snow – that’s where my leg went in down to my knee (this happened twice) and a picture of me face down in the snow.  I had to pause somewhere and this seemed the thing to do at the time.  Also a picture of me in distress with snow in my hand.  I decided to eat the snow while I was resting.  Then a picture of my legs and shoes all wet.  That was from wallowing around in the snow.  My distress seemed to be interesting to the young folks who watched me but Roy was there to pull me up and keep me going.  My shoes, socks and glove went straight to the top of the dashboard for drying.

Now for our ride down the mountain. There are stops along the way up and down to visit gift shops, use the restrooms, see specific beautiful views, and opportunities for exploring the areas through hiking.  We took advantage of all that (except hiking!) which made the whole experience even better!  The driving was quite different from everyday driving, as on the way down Roy stayed in 1st gear most of the time, and on the way up he went from 2nd to 1st a lot and used quite a bit of gas.

   They check the temperature of your brakes halfway down and ours was okay.  Inside the gift shop halfway we hear people saying that three of the last people checked were over 600 degrees.  Glad Roy is such a good driver that we weren’t one of those folks!

The ride down was totally different than the ride up.  It became very dark and cloudy as we were getting ready to leave the Summit.  Being in the clouds as they turn dark is quite eerie and kind of interesting to see. On the way down it began lightening and raining and then came the hail.  We pulled off to the side in a camping area where hail quickly gathered on the ground and on our windshield.  It let up after a while and we continued on our way down going through a lot of fog (maybe clouds).  A sign warned us of loose gravel on the road and there was quite a lot of it as we got closer to the end of the road.  Roy is an amazingly focused driver and I was very thankful for that yesterday.

We are planning to go back up Pike’s Peak on Friday on the COG Railway so Roy will be relieved of driving duty and we’ll see the mountain from a different view.  Can’t wait till then!

I’ve just finished going through almost 400 photos and selecting 100+ of them to share with you over two blog posts. Roy learned how to take panoramic pictures with our cameras so I’ll be including more of those as we go along. I know the number of pictures is too much, but I don’t want to leave anything out!

It’s 7:30 pm here and after this long day, picking out photos and writing this I’m heading to bed to recover before tomorrow’s adventures.  I’ll post the blog and pictures tomorrow, Tuesday when I’ve recovered a bit!!

Ya’ll come back now, ya’ hear!!!

Click on the links below to go there!

Wacky Wonderful Wednesdays published on Wednesdays

Some Things I Learned About Dementia published randomly