Cog Railway ~Pike's Peak, Colorado

On Monday of our vacation, after visitng my friend Jess, we headed out to Manitou Springs to ride the cog to the top of Pike's Peak (AKA - American's Mountain). The Cog railway, takes you up to the 14,110 foot summit at the top of the moutain. It's insanely beautiful and breathtaking. When you get to a certian spot on the mountain, NO more trees go, becase at a certian elevation point, trees can no longer grow, there isn't enough oxygen for them. Interesting huh? I thought so. It was pretty amazing. It was about 80 degrees at the bottom of the mountain, and it got colder and colder the higher up you went. By the time you got to the top, it was a chilling 39 degrees! Yep, it was COLD! And it was hailing, and SNOWING! becuase the weather was so bad, we couldn't get many pictures of the surrounding area. First of all, it was too darn cold to be outside, The hail/rain/snow was whipping around so violently, it actually HURT your bare skin (since we did have on shorts. LOL) secondly, we were in the middle of a cloud. Seriously, you'll see from the pictures what I mean. Becuase of the elevation, your only allowed 30 mintues at the top before the train comes back down. 30 mintues were all we needed. The elevation really messed with our heads. it was hard to breathe and we got very light headed. it's a strange feeling. Enjoy the pictures. These do no justice to the beauty we were able to see in person!

From the parking lot

The Cog that we rode!

Mountain view.

Clouds started popping up the higher up we got.

I can't remember the name of that mountain over there, but it's sister mountain to Pike's Peak.

See the cloud out there?

Amazing isn't it? And it might seem like I took these pictures crooked, I didn't, that's how steep this was, your at a pretty severe angle.

This is where the trees stop growing.

Windy Point, Elevation 12,129 feet!  That building is straight, we were on the incline.

View of the building as we continued uphill.

At this point it was COLD. We had the windows on the train up.

Here we made it to the summit. The summit is known for these famous donuts, that can only be made at this elevation. They were good. Too bad they cost $2.99 EACH! *YIKES* but of course, we had 2 each. LOL

Man I wish this wasn't crooked!

here's the train, surrounded by the massive cloud! Not only was it snowing and hailing, it was thundering and lightening, and you can't see ANYTHING expect the cloud around you! Freaky!

Here you can tell how hard the wind was blowing and we were getting slammed by the hail. It hurt BADLY. Kudos to Dan (Mark's friend from College who we met at the wedding and ended up on the cog with!)for braving the elements and taking this shot for us! Not many people were brave enough to go outside in this!

Top of the mountain. They had EMT's on staff, for people feeling the elevation effects.

The snow!! Remember it was August 9th, 2010!

Liz & I playing around

Gina & I

Mike & I, back on the train, trying to warm up. I didn't mention before how long the ride was did I? It was long. 3 hours. It took 1.5 hours  EACH direction!

On the way down.

People actually live on the moutain. They are over an hour drive from anything.

We were graced with this pretty double rainbow on our way back down. What an awesome end to the afternoon!

I can't wait to someday go back to Colorado again! We do have MORE Colorado pictures that I still haven't uploaded to the blog. they will be mixed in here and there with all the other posts.

More Colorado Vacation

Yes,  this just proves more and more how behind I am. Mark & Kelle have been married for a month yesterday and I am just now getting to more of our trip! This night, we went to dinner with our friends from home, who were also vacationing in Colorado. We had a TON of fun spending time with them. So after we did the Cog Railroad In Colorado Springs, we hit up this AirPlane Restuarant. You actually sit in a old airplace that was flown in war. They still have the cockpit and everything in tact as was. It's pretty {creepy} and super cool all bundled together as one! So here ya go!

The menu was in newspaper format, so Mike isn't really reading a paper here, but deciding what to eat :-)

My turn, what to eat? BTW, the food was really really good!

Here is our hostress, in full airline uniform

The Martins, David, Liz & Gina

Big David, Little David and Liz

Here are the Cockpit pictures. They had lights blinking and everything.

Broken windows and all.

Mike & I

The wing from behind. This was in the lower part of the restaurant. You were even able to see (but not go in) the cargo area and the where they stored the missles etc.

Mike & I by the engires/propellers.

The Martins & Gina and I.

Updates

I am getting there slowly but surely with the updates! I still have Caden's birthday to get on here, as well as Mike's pond and our family camping weekend as well. I promise in time it will all get done. hopefully within the next couple of months anyway!!

Yesterday Caden started his first day of Kindergarten!

Today Colin returned to his theraputic preschool

AND

Today Courtney started 8th grade!

Fall is also starting to show around WNY {yay!!} I LOVE the fall, and all the pretty colors and cooler temps that it brings with. I am looking forward to {hopefully} get out apple picking, visiting the farm and pumpkin picking! keep posted for more behind blogging!

Arts & Crafts time!

Since the boys have SO many sensory issues, they don't enjoy going to the gym with me because they have to wear the wrist band so they know they belong to in an emergency. Well since they freak out about that, we started putting in their back where they can't see. No go, they figured it out. Can't do the shoe, or ankle, becase they can still see it and the ankle they can still feel it. So after months of trying and {failing} Mary, the awesome Child Watch evening worker, suggested that she talk to her boss to see I can make them special shirts that they can wear only to the gym??!! What an awesome idea, and since the boys can be involved in teh project, they can get excited about the gym too! After I finally got around to getting the paints and shirts, the boys and I had a craft evening and got them ready to go! They really had fun making them "theirs" and as long as we had OUR info on the back, we were good to go!

Here is the back of both shirts.

Colin getting ready to go.

Caden getting ready to go.

Having fun mixing the colors up!

We decided to go handprints. I was SO proud of Colin for wanting to put the paint on his hands!

Caden working hard.

Colin had paint everywhere. Little did I know that It doesn't come off with just soap and water and we really had to SCRUB with mechanic soap and all for a couple of days to see these colors gone from the hands, arms and forehead!

Finsihed products! I think they turned out really well. and the boys had fun doing it. The next night, Colin went to the gym all proud (as he should be) of his masterpiece.  The Staff loved the idea and everyone was taking a look at them!

Caden took a few more days to get there, and wasn't too thrilled about being there when we DID get there. There were lots of tears, but thankfully, Mary was working again and she is GREAT with the boys, so all ended well. Of course it helped that it was a family evening, so we got to go play in the adventure room after mommy worked out!