Friday, Sept 10 we headed to The Garden of the Gods and Pike's Peak for the day. The rock formations were incredible - and the color, wow! We took the Cog Railway up to the top of Pike's Peak - 14,115 feet at the top. Beautiful vistas; I was lightheaded and nauseous - not a fun feeling, but it was still so worth it. We had a great guide on the train - very informative. We learned that the owner of the Simmons Mattress Co was instrumental in founding the railway after riding a burro to the top in the late 1880's - apparently he was somewhat sore and saddle-weary; the woman that wrote the lyrics for America the Beautiful did so after getting back from visiting the summit; we learned about the couple that has lived at about 10,000 feet up the mountain as caretakers for the last 5 years - year-round (brrrr); we learned how the cog railway works - it pretty much pulls itself up the hill; and he told us all of this in between getting on and off to switch the tracks for the tourist trains coming down the mountain! He was very entertaining - sometimes pretty funny!
Saturday, Sept 11 we were on our way Cheyenne, WY to visit Terry Buffalo Ranch. This was another day for a train ride, but it was nothing like the ride the day before. The train and the engineer/guide were older than dirt. I'm sure he gave us a lot of very interesting information, but it was hard to hear over the rumble of the train and the wheels screeching on the rails around the very tight curves. We saw some horses, llamas, goats & sheep, and about 30 head of adult buffalo and calves - there was also a beefalo (failed experiment) and a yak! You should have seen the buffalo come running when the train came! There were buckets of feed pellets that the old man and kids tossed to them. I guess they used to have one they called Loverboy that would actually give kisses - eewww! Some of them had snotty noses - don't think I would want to kiss one! Had a nice lunch after our train ride - shared a buffalo burger with my sister; Mike had a buffalo bratwurst. Headed back to Colorado and on to Estes Park to see if the elk were in town - not the fraternal order of elk, but the real thing. We took a short walk in town and then to the golf course when we learned that the elk had been spotted there. What beautiful animals - but I sure wouldn't want to spook one! As we were leaving town, we spotted one just standing in an intersection of a residential area- apparently a common sighting!
Stay tuned . . . . Mt Rushmore up next!
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