Category: 2019

Today we had our first experience with camping in the snow along with an overnight low of 15 degrees. We returned from visiting the kids yesterday around 5PM and the temperature was 82 degrees. As the front went through we received a huge blast of heavy winds for about 30 minutes and by 10PM the temperature was down to 32 degrees. When we got up the next morning it was snowing and the temperature was 22 degrees. That’s a huge change in temperature. To avoid any issues with the freezing temperatures we unhooked our water and sewer connections and thoroughly drained all the hoses before the front arrived. I placed a remote temperature sensor in the water bay (which is heated as long as we run the gas furnace) and the temperature in the compartment never dropped below 34 even when the outside temperature got down to 15 degrees the following night.

We didn’t want to go out and contribute to the madness on the roads so we hunkered down in the camper all day although Beth did leave to go to the campground laundry facility. The next day the temperature climbed back up to 50 degrees and most of the snow was melted by the end of the day.

Today we visited the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. This is a park full of very beautiful sandstone rock formations. We wanted to burn some calories so we parked at the North end in the main parking lot and hiked through the park to the Palmer Trail on the West side and took it on down to the Siamese Twins. We took the Scotsman Trail on the return trip. In total we hiked 4 miles at 6,400′ in elevation and enjoyed some incredible scenery.

Today we visited Pikes Peak. We had attempted to visit the summit in 2017 with the kids, but learned at the entrance that you shouldn’t take an infant past 10,000′ so we stopped at the Halfway Picnic Grounds at 9,930′ on that trip. The only issue today was the construction of the new Pikes Peak Summit Complex . They are building a brand new Visitor Center at the summit along with replacing the Cog Railway leading to the summit. I assume they will also tear down the current Visitor Center when the new one opens. Due to this construction, there is no place to park at the summit so you have to board a shuttle at either the 13 mile or 16 mile marks. We drove up to the 16 mile mark at which point my navigator determined that she’d reached her yearly limit of driving extremely narrow high elevation roads with no shoulders. I boarded the shuttle and continued to the top. I will have to admit that when I exited the shuttle I had to stop and and suck in some oxygen because I got a little dizzy at first. It was a beautiful day and it was nice to visit the summit for the first time since 1976 (I think that was the year). While I was up there, two military fighters flew by. This was the first time I’ve ever experienced seeing an airplane in flight that was basically at the same elevation I was at. It was pretty cool. I fired off a number of shots with my camera, but unfortunately I didn’t have a long lens on it at the time, so the planes are pretty small. On the way back down the mountain we relived our 2017 memories by picnicking again at the Halfway Picnic Grounds.