Outdoor Wednesday...cycling Co day 2

It's Wednesday so that means I am joining Susan, A Southern Daydreamer, for Outdoor Wednesday along with many other bloggers.
Click HERE to see all the other's participating.Day 2 of cycling Co brought us riding up to the 14,110 ft summit of Pike's Peak. The scenery was gorgeous as we watched for "bigfoot".
Once we got above the treeline, the winds whipped like crazy and it became about 20 degrees colder very fast. Part of the road is currently gravel and parts are paved or currently being paved. They were paving up near the summit so we had to watch for gravel trucks on all the hairpin turns.
3/4 of the way up we pulled over to enjoy the view and visit with these two bikers. When we left they led the way and we watched near the top as the one in the white helmet almost wiped out in the strong winds and uneven payment from the paving project...that was the only really scary part!
Here we are parked at the summit - it was a partly cloudy day with sun peaking out occassionally.
A view looking down showing part of the road snaking up the mountain that we just drove up.
Another view looking down and showing the cog railway tracks at the summit. The train never did come in during the 45 minutes we were at the summit.
This shot shows we are above the cloud cover over Colorado Springs...
and this shot is to illustrate a sign we read that one inch on the horizon looking at the Rocky mountains is actually 38 miles!
America the beautiful from my sign mosaic on Monday...did you know the song was written after the author took in the beauty of Pike's Peak?
Regular followers of the blog will remember our "vacation kiss" tradition :)
On our way down the mountain we stopped for a picnic at the Halfway Picnic grounds and...
this was our view.
After our Pike's Peak experience we rode to Colorado Springs to the Garden of the Gods.
While this park was beautiful...
with lots of pretty scenery...
but it was a little disappointing to us because of all the crowds of tourists and lack of parking spaces and once you have seen the red rocks of Utah...there is no comparsion.

On our way back to the campground we visited historic Manitou Springs.
While driving around we stopped at the 7 minute springs and tasted the naturally carbonated spring water.
I couldn't resist taking this road out of town ;)

Still too busy catching up in the office for garden photos but this morning I looked out and saw 6 giant cucumbers on the front courtyard that didn't get picked while I was on vacation and it looks like Hershey thought they needed picking. I can imagine what the plant looks like when I finally get out there :) Yes, two people were right about Hershey, NE on the mosaic sign post...I couldn't resist on our way home - guess I was a little homesick after all!