Pike's Peak Hurts

Candy: Today we took the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway Cog Railroad up to the summit of Pike's Peak--elevation 14,110.

The train ride was pretty cool and took about an hour and 20 minutes each way, averaging about 6.5 mph both ways. It was a clear day, so we could see quite a ways as we traversed up the mountain.
We both felt pretty well until we actually got off the train at the summit. Then I got kind of woozy and we both got whopper headaches from the altitude. Beth, I don't know how you did it for a whole summer.

I had to sit down a few times while we walked around at the summit. Tim took the photo at the top of the post during one of those recuperative sessions.

We learned something new on the trip. At one point on the Cog Railroad trip, Katharine Lee Bates was so inspired by the view that she wrote a poem that was later set to music. America the Beautiful. Pretty cool. There's even a marker at the summit to commemorate it.
At any rate, we spent the 30 minutes allotted to us by the train company wandering around the summit house, observation decks, and oohing and ahhing over the view.

Pueblo is in the distance in this shot.
We were suckered into the typical tourist shot in front of the sign by another well-meaning tourist, as you can see below.
Here are the trains. We were in the single Aspen car at the back, but we had the best seats at the very front of the train (back of the train from this direction).
By the time we got back to the depot in Manitou Springs, we were both happy to be back to elevation 6,500. We managed to make our way to the nearest Italian restaurant in Colorado Springs, where we downed some Aleve with our diet cokes with lime.

By the time we had finished dinner we were feeling much better and headed back to Pueblo for the evening, using the half hour drive time to discuss the lessons we have learned since leaving Hiram.

All in all, it was a great trip and we enjoyed ourselves.

I've been working on my website lately, and have finally finished it. It should go live by Monday and when it does, I'll put a link on the blog to it so that all three of my photo fans can check it out. :)

Have a great weekend!