Garden of the Gods

Thursday Travel Thoughts

Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs, CO

 

I’ve been motivated to finally take a couple trips that I’ve always meant to do.  You know, day trips to local attractions that you always put off for another day.  “We can always do that next week”? Or next year?  But you never get around to it?

We’ve lived outside of Denver for almost 8 years now.  One trip we’ve been meaning to do is to go down to the Garden of the Gods.  It’s only about an hour/hour and a half from our house.  So since my girls go back to school on the 7th (year round school) we decided to bite the bullet and go.

We got off to a late start because TG1 said she had a sore throat.  Now she’s complained about a sore throat for the previous 2 days, so I decided I better look.  Now I know that sounds bad, but when you have four children, someone ALWAYS has some sort of ache, pain, scratch, etc.  Besides I want these children to toughen up, can’t baby them over every minor ailment. Anyways, when I took a look I knew it was time to take her in.  Sure enough, strep. So we didn’t get off until 11.

Around 12ish we pulled into the visitor’s center.  It’s a great, big lovely building.  We enjoyed the educational exhibits, the huge gift shop, the cafe, and the breath-taking view.

 

 

 

Since we arrived around lunch we decided to eat at the cafe, Cafe at the Garden.  They had the usual kid favorites and buffalo burgers.  I love buffalo burgers! The prices weren’t too bad. We fed the six of us for $40.  But the view! The view was wonderful.

On to the park itself.  The park is free. Make sure you grab a map at the visitors center so you know what the names of all the formations are.  My only complaint is that the parking lots are numbered but aren’t shown numbered on the map. (I found that confusing) There are 9  parking lots to stop and enjoy the scenery.  I suggest stopping at each one and taking a ton of pictures. These pics are only small hint of the beauty.  We’ve had so much rain this year, that everything was so green.

There are 6 trails to choose from. The Ridge Trail is only half a mile while the Scotsman is much longer.  We did not hike this trip as we ran out of time.

At the back of the park is the Trading Post.  Don’t let the size of the building fool you, it’s huge inside, with every knick knack available under the sun.  They have pottery,  Navajo rugs, caps, t-shirts, moccasins, books, cups, glassware, toys, home decor, and that’s just what’s listed on the flier!  There is also another cafe- the Balanced Rock Cafe.  We did notice that the prices here were a little more than at the visitors’ center cafe.

The Trading Post also included a creek side patio and Gemstone Mine.  For $6 a bucket you could sift through a bucket of dirt for gems.  My oldest daughter said she ”thought they were tricking us because you don’t know if there’s any gem stones in there or not”!   So we skipped that one.

As we finished up our visit, we wondered why on earthwe hadn’t been here before.  We vowed to come back at least once a year and bring our relatives too.  If you visit, remember to bring a lot to drink, good shoes, and a camera with an extra batttery.  There are picnic areas so if you wanted to cut costs more you could pack a lunch.