Vacation: Garden of the Gods

Taking a while to get the vacation photos out here.  I plead busy.  Despite a long weekend.  I intend to speed up, if only to get back to a bit of book blogging.  Jen remembered Garden of the Gods fondly, although the last time we went it was almost empty because it was off season.  There were a lot more tourists this time, although given the several days of nearly flood-level rain, you would have expected a few less people in the rocks and a few more people locked in their hotel rooms enjoying recreational drug use.  Then again, Colorado Springs is medical only, not recreational, so perhaps they all headed back to Denver when the rain really kicked in.  I hope they got a cup of coffee on the way like we did at the very friendly bikini coffee shop.  Which is entirely deceptive because only one day a week is someone serving coffee in a bikini.  The other days they're in (potentially ass-baring) lingerie.  She was very nice for a partially clothed barista.  My coffee was good and she chatted with Jen for a while about the good hours, the good pay, the pleasant customers, and being able to spend more time with her kid.

I digress.  Here is a gratuitous picture of rocks at the Garden of the Gods.  When I posted one of these to Facebook, Facebook did the social thing and told me Jen's cousin had also recently been to Garden of the Gods with his family.  At the time I thought "well, that's nice", but that was before I heard that perhaps he'd hauled his family out there under pretense to force a divorce decision outside Minnesota.  The socially share-able moment is now less endearing.  And yet the rocks and the kissing camels remain.



Kicking it up a notch.  Rocks AND Eryn. She was very worried as the rain rolled in and we could hear thunder.  I don't do lightning after the accident.  I'm worried with all that metal I stand out like a lightning rod.  I'm also worried sharks can detect me easier and might be tempted to explore my electrical charge.  I also have a paranoia that I'll lift something heavy and bend my hip and walk in a circle the rest of my days.  But the lightning one is topmost.  It's rubbed off on Eryn and she worries for me now so I don't have to worry.


Back to just the rocks.  Since last time we were there they've instituted a lot of signs to try and keep people off the rocks and on the trails, to preserve some of the natural growth and discourage erosion.  It wasn't working so well.  In the clearly marked areas, there were large groups of people.  This was not one of those areas (just to be above board).  Wherever I could, I collected bits of trash to post on Instagram for Litterati.org.


Rocks...with a bird.  Good job J.B., now your initials live on not only carved into the rock, but in a picture.  I hope that was the immortality you were hoping to achieve.


Here's a bird with more focus than the rocks.  An iPhone camera and my personal little handheld are not optimal for all picture-taking possibilities.  This would have been a much nicer picture with Jen's DSLR.


This was the least amount of rain during our visit.  The parking lot was a pool much of the trip and, even when it wasn't raining, it was humid and sticky.  Made for nice pictures though.  Looks like something out of a Chinese valley series.


Or Avatar.  I'm going with Avatar because Ming hates Avatar.  If he thinks Colorado looks like the set of Avatar, maybe he'll see big blue creatures everywhere if he goes there for the recreationals.