September 4-6, 2020

I hadn’t been to Colorado since September of 2017, and I was jonesing to get back into the mountains, even if for just a short time. My wife had never been to Colorado and is actually more of a beach person. As I was driving around delivering the wares for my job I started thinking, “Man, we could leave this afternoon, drive about 7 hours, get 4-6 hours of sleep, drive another 4-6 hours, arrive in the mountains, drive around, find a campsite, sleep, explore some, head home; get back and have a good sleep Sunday night and do our responsible adult stuff Monday.”

So, I get home about 1pm, the wife is still working (from home) so I take a nap. My wife is supposed to clock out at 3 pm but has to work until about 4:30, I’m still trying to figure out how to approach her about this “great” idea. Then there is something that she has to have printed and the printer is out of ink, so we go to the local corporate box store. Right before we check out she says something that leaves me an opening, so I jump and say, “Why don’t we go to Colorado?” She’s pretty much speechless, but you can tell the wheels are turning. She’s still speechless the ten-minute ride home, when we get in the house, I just start packing, she asks what she needs to pack. YES!

We throw a small bag each together, grab a cooler and lawn chairs, head to Dollar General to get sandwich meat, water, and chips. We fill up with gas, get some Wendy’s and actually leave Springfield and get on the road about 6:30 pm.

We decide to take the southern route through Kansas. We go through Wichita around 10:30 – 11:00 pm, about midnight we stop at a Love’s and move our gear from the back to the front of the SUV and lay down for a few hours, I set my alarm for 5:30 am. It’s pretty hot in the back but I finally fall asleep. I’m sleeping and sweating hard when my wife wakes me up around 2:00 am, she can’t sleep. So, we decide to drive, I get some sleep in the front seat. Around 6 am we trade positions and my wife gets a couple of hours sleep in the front seat.

Eastern Colorado is barren! It had been about 8 years since I had taken this route and I had forgotten how barren and poor eastern Colorado is. I’m not sure how anyone makes a living out there? We saw this one town that was about a half a mile off the Highway and it was about 50 houses/shacks. No gas station or grocery store on the main highway. Was it an old oil town? Do people still live there? I really don’t know.

Around 9 am we arrive in Pueblo and pass a marijuana farm off the highway, pungent skunky smell! We continue on through Pueblo and into Canon City. After filling up with gas we fix our brunch of spam sandwich and chips. We had grabbed some brochures from the gas station and were deciding where to go from here. Royal Gorge? Not wanting to spend $30 per person, and my wife doesn’t really like heights or hiking that much. Pikes Peak? I really don’t think my wife could take the drive up Pikes Peak, always looking like you’re about to go off a steep drop off would not sit well with her. I look at Google Maps on my phone to see if there is anything to do. I see a Phantom Canyon Road that leads to Cripple Creek; we decide to take it.

We drive through Phantom Canyon Road and enjoy the beautiful rock formations. My wife keeps pointing out rock formations that look like Indians; one looked like an Indian with a beer stein, must have had some German in him. We also seen one that actually looked like a frog from the underside. It was a nice hour and half trip and we stopped along the way to take some pictures on a cliff/valley. I forget exactly but I think we gained about 4,000 feet of elevation, 6,000 to 10,000 approximately. The temperature also went from 85ish to 75ish! What my wife doesn’t realize is that the road is almost as steep as Pike’s Peak and with as much drop off at places, you just cannot tell with all the trees around.

 

A little stop on Phantom Canyon Road

 

The wife, too scared to climb down, and Chief

 

The road actually comes out at Victor, CO before getting to Cripple Creek. We drive through but do not stop. It is an old mining town that has been converted to mostly little flea market shops. We had the dog with us so we were not able to walk around.

I had been to Cripple Creek in 2010 and knew that it was a “casino” town. My wife enjoys the slot machines, so we found a convenience store, had a hobo bath, and a change of clothes. We find a place to park and I take the little guy for a walk. I find a bench in the shade and actually take a 15-minute nap. The breeze and shade were very comfortable. My wife calls me just as I wake up and I go and meet her. No big winnings.

We drive on down the mountain, stop in the state park to see if we were the one-in-a-million chance at having a camping spot left, we weren’t. Drove on down into the town of Divide and looking at the map decided to go to Pikes Peak, not drive up it but there is a little picnic place with some boulders you can climb on before you have to pay. As we’re driving east (it’s around 2 pm) the traffic going west was bumper to bumper, I figured everyone would have already been to their Labor Day weekend destination. We find a side road and take it, not really knowing where it would go, just driving. It ended up taking us to the road to Pikes Peak. But the traffic was all the way back to the point where that road converged with the road to Pikes Peak. We took a left and headed back to the main Hwy. Traffic had let up some and we got back to Divide and decided to find a camping spot.

 

Editor’s note: Tune in next week for Part 2. Same GlibChannel, Same GlibTime!