Stairway to Heaven

May 28 - June 2

 

Mary Jo, I can’t thank you enough for reading my blog and contacting me to let me know you were going to be in Colorado Springs the same weekend we were there!  Mary Jo and I met 43 years ago while student teaching in Kansas City.  We both were Home Economics Education majors participating in the Cultural Urban Teaching Experience (CUTE) offered through Iowa State University as well as other universities. Following our successful student teaching experience, we both accepted teaching positions with the Kansas City School District and began our careers together as roommates.  We hadn’t seen each other in 41 years, having kept in touch through Christmas cards and Facebook.  What a joy it was to see each other again and catch up, even a tiny bit!  Mary Jo retired the day before we got together in Colorado Springs.  Pretty cool that I was able to be with her to celebrate the beginning and ending of Mary Jo’s passion for affecting the lives of youth.  She will undoubtedly be missed by her students and colleagues!

Breakfast with Mary Jo and Mark at Western Omelet

 

Our purpose for coming to Colorado Springs was to celebrate Brayden’s graduation from Cheyenne Mountain High School.  This turned out to be a family reunion for Dick!  Brayden is the son of Romilly Bethart who is Dick’s niece.  Dick’s brother, Doug, and wife, Rowena, were there from Florida as well as their son, Justin (Romilly’s brother), his wife, Kalena, and children Charlie and Sam traveling from Salt Lake City.  Got all that?  There is going to be a quiz at the end of this blog!  We had a delightful time playing Monopoly with Charlie, playing peek-a-boo with Sam, seeing the home Romilly will be soon moving into, eating yummy food, and just hanging out together!  Brayden will be studying at Auburn University this fall, aiming to become a commercial pilot.

Three generations - Doug, Justin and Sam

The Doug Peterson Family!

Justin and Kalena ventured out with us for what was to be a short walk to Helen Hunt Falls.  Just as we were leaving, it began to rain, but that didn’t deter us!  What did manage to deter us was the road being closed!  Shortly up the road was Seven Falls, so we thought we’d give that a try.  Finding parking was a challenge, but we finally got parked only to find out there was a pricy charge to hike the trail.  Normally that might not have turned us off, but we weren’t in the mood to pay for a hike in the rain!  Well, that may have put an end to the waterfall adventure, but Justin quickly identified an alternate quest – the Will Rogers Shrine to the Sun!  I’m not sure if getting to the shrine or exploring the shrine was more interesting. We thought we had run into another dead end when the GPS’s blue line ran smack into the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!  Yep!  Just tell them at the gate that you are going to the shrine and they open up the gate and let you through!  Okay, you are supposed to have tickets to the zoo, but for some reason they waived the requirement and let us through.  Maybe it was our desperate eyes, maybe it was the pouring down rain, who knows!   The shrine is built from Cheyenne Mountain granite and offers quite the view of Colorado Springs.  You can climb the tower and I can only imagine the view on a sunny day.  The view was amazing, even on a rainy day!

Will Rogers Shrine

 

We did have several rainy days while in Colorado Springs, so I was able to find a little time to put the binding on Baby Girl Peterson’s crib quilt.  The little one is not due to join our family until July 20^th; however Anne was three weeks early with Josh and two weeks late with Eva.  That begs the question, will this one be early or late?  Either way, the quilt is now only needing her name and birthdate for the signature square.  Stay tuned in for the answer to the question!

 

Sunday morning of Memorial Day weekend, we attended mass at St. Dominic Catholic Church.  The church’s view of the mountains was breathtaking!  You couldn’t help but listen a little more intently to Matthew’s Gospel reading (28:16-20) telling the story of Jesus telling his disciples to go to the mountain.  In honor of for Memorial Day, the recessional hymn was "America the Beautiful".  I don’t think I’ve ever sung “for purple mountain majesties” with as much intent!  It was a wonderful reminder of all the gifts God has blessed us with!

Several years ago, Maggie climbed the Manitou Incline, nicknamed the "Stairway to Heaven".  At the time, I thought this sounded interesting and found myself drawn to the challenge. The Incline was originally built in 1907 as a cable tram to aid in the construction of a power plant.  It was updated by Spencer Penrose (who also built the shrine, the road to Pike’s Peak, the Cog trail to Pike’s Peak and about everything else the Colorado Springs area has to offer!) in 1923 and used to carry passengers up Manitou Mountain.  Due to heavy maintenance costs, it was discontinued in 1990.  In 2013, it was legalized as a true Colorado hike and fitness challenge and continues to grow in popularity.  The Incline rises 2000 ft. within a 0.9 mile hike!  I’m not sure if I was breathless because of not being accustomed to the altitude or if I’m just in that poor of condition.  If it wasn’t one of those two factors, it most certainly could have been due to the views!  The Incline is a staircase of railroad ties.  In fact, 2,768 stairs to be exact!  For the trip back down, they offer a 4-mile trail with switchbacks that is equally as beautiful, if not more.  For the trip down, I was only breathless due to the stunning view of snowcapped Pike’s Peak and the rest of Cheyenne Mountain!  The most amazing experience of this hike was seeing Engelbert, a 84-year-old man hiking the trail.  He hikes it regularly as a way to stay in shape.  Bert immigrated from Germany.  He lost 5 family members in WWII and was a wealth of wisdom.  As I was sucking in air and drinking as much water as possible, Bert calmly pulled out a small water bottle.  The liquid was dark so we asked what he was drinking.  His answer... rum and coke!

The Beginning

The Middle

The End

There it is!

On the way down

Manitou Springs also offers eight fountains of spring water.  Each fountain is from a different spring and each contains differing minerals, giving unique flavors to each of the fountains.  You can easily walk from fountain to fountain, tasting each; however, we only made it to three.  We had just completed the Incline and felt we had gotten our steps in for the day!  We started out at 7-minute fountain, which was our favorite of the three.  We also tasted Shoshone and Navajo fountains and found them both to be on the salty side.  It’s interesting to read the history of the springs and how the springs have been used throughout the ages. 

We based ourselves out of the KOA located in Fountain.  Being Memorial Day weekend, the KOA was packed with families.  The KOA offered a small water park and had so many fun activities for children to partake in, including a bicycle decorating contest and parade!  Unfortunately, someone got a little careless with a rock (or some other object) and one of our windows was hit.  It’s tempered glass, so the glass stayed put, it just looks like a giant spider web!  Now for the challenge to get the window replaced.  Real life stuff manages to sneak its way into our life from time to time.  I guess it’s a good reminder of some of the home owner responsibilities we are currently missing out on!

Although we had camped in 1997 in Colorado in our pop-up camper with the children, we didn’t put the Colorado sticker on until we made it to this beautiful state with our new home.  It was a short stay and we were limited to the Colorado Springs area, but it certainly left us longing for another trip here!  The sticker may be on, but we will be back to Colorado for more exploring!  For now, we are off to Wyoming for a few days at Curt Gowdy State Park and then headed to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho!