We definitely crammed a ton into just 2 nights outside Colorado Springs.
We arrived fairly early to our campsite, unhitched, and then drove to Garden of the Gods for a little hike/walk. There is all sorts of road construction around the Discovery Center, which was super frustrating. We never did find a way to actually get into the Discovery Center and had to rely on a picture of a map someone posted online to find the main hike area. The red rock formations here are beautiful, and the kids loved it. The hike was an easy 1 mi, completely paved. We continued driving to balanced rock, which was also a fun little area the kids liked to climb around on. We had a hard time getting them to leave.
The next (and only full) day, we bought tickets for the Pikes Peak Cog railway. It’s a 3.5-hour round trip, and we got 30 min or so at the peak. We got tickets for the last trip of the day. The conductors on the train told us all about history, along with quite a few terrible jokes. The kids were well behaved on the trip. It was a really pleasant ride. At the top, the kids were feeling pretty woozy due to the altitude. Andrew and James walked over to the official summit sign while Ben and I walked through the museum and gift shop.
The next morning, we left early to drive to Florrisant Fossil Beds National Monument. We hiked both the Petrified Forest 1 mi and the 1/2 mi Ponderosa Loop. There are huge petrified tree stumps here of trees that are ancestors to the current Sequoia trees. They dated them back 34 million years. There is also a huge collection of trace fossils of leaves, moths, pine cones, flies, etc, that is truly amazing to see all on display. We only had about 1.5 hrs here before we had to return to the trailer and get out of our campsite. I definitely could’ve spent at least another hour here.
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