Colorado Adventure 2 - Garden of the Gods

 Day 2 - Monday: Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs

Our first full day in Colorado, and we woke to perfect weather in a hotel with a beautiful view of Pike’s Peak and the Rockies! Yes! Driving into town really late the night before, and we missed the entire Rocky Mountain Range! This was the view from our hotel room 💗

Staybridge Suites Colorado Springs North

We fulfilled one bucket list item today: visiting the breathtaking (literally and figuratively) Garden of the Gods.

From the Visitor's Center

Garden of the Gods Earthcache GCND0E

We spent hours walking the Central Garden trail and driving the scenic Juniper Loop route 4x! Stunning! The Central Garden trail is an easy 1.5 mile stroll around some of the park's most famous features.

Beautiful Garden of the Gods Virtual GC7B73Y

Kissing Camels

Having a great time doing the AL
Weather is stunning!

As we were leaving we spied a new bird, the black-billed magpie! Oh, my! What a cheeky little fellow! We saw them several times in our stay, and TaGeez laughed his butt off as I wandered around trying to get them to pose for me!

New bird for my life list!

Pull-off on the Juniper Way Loop 

You can't leave without visiting the Balanced Rock. Oh, the tourists! Insanity!

Afterwards we lunched & shopped in Manitou Springs and explored downtown Colorado Springs while completing several fun Virtuals and Adventure Labs.

Too Touch to Quite Virtual GCA58B

Both Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs had these awesome art tour Adventure Labs.

Manitou Springs AL

Downtown Manitou Springs

Log House Virtual GC9181

Old Colorado City

Downtown Colorado Springs AL

Dinner was at delicious Edelweiss, my brother's favorite restaurant in Colorado Springs. Little Bavaria in the Rockies.

Up Your Postcard Game!

Want to send a memento back home, but never know what to write? We brought our HP Sprocket printer and printed out our favorite 2"x3" photo from the day. Peel off the backing, jot a quick message & address and slap on a postage stamp. Voila!

MSPCGT: Adding to the Adventure

Our trips so far are more memorable with a few additional tools and toys in our bag.

Cachetur.no

Great tool for planning routes and holding cache details in your hand. Sign up for a free account, import the caches, and arrange the order of your route. The image below includes the cache order with travel distances and times. Click in for more detail.

This was the route up US 23 and the Upper Peninsula. 

Map created on Cachetur.no 

Michigan State Park Stamp & Go Guide

How about a guide to the State Parks? It can be bought at several of the State Parks or on the Peninsulas website.  Driving park to park, we read aloud brief descriptions of the parks. And, at the ranger booths, have the rangers stamp your page!

Purchase at Peninsulas Shop
Actual guide is only about 5" tall

National & State Parks Visitor's Journal

Look what I found on Amazon? Also available in some park gift shops....

Available on Amazon

This journal holds 100 park entries, and a great way to remember our adventures. Each night after a series of finds, I logged my parks, printed keepsake pictures, and adhered my souvenir stickers inside the cover.

Sprocket/Postcards

Speaking of printing pictures... My family likes postcards, but, after awhile, I ran out of things to say! But look at this cool idea! TaGeez and I took a selfie and added it to the back of the postcard to my sister. Now she knows exactly how much we enjoyed the Falls! The photo paper for the HP Sprocket has an adhesive back. 

Let me know if you use any of these ideas!

Sprocket and Our Adventure Book

Does WikidKriket know me or what?!?

For Christmas, she bought me an HP Sprocket (Bluetooth-connected) printer! 

Admittedly, I had been drooling over hers when she used it at my nephew's wedding in October. Imagine this: family members spread out throughout the wedding to take candid shots and family photos which we messaged directly to her. She printed them right at the table, peeled off their sticky backs and assembled a scrapbook on the spot! Very slick! Each of us had a chance to sign our love and well-wishes to the happy couple. And the bride and groom left the hall with an amazing keepsake. (Score one for Auntie Lorna - she rocks!)

Fast forward three months, and we found a Sprocket under the Christmas tree! And just when I think it can't get any better... I open her second package. 

This one included Our Adventure Book - a replica of the scrapbook featured in Pixar's UP. Ellie and Carl remind me so much of the fun I have with TaGeez. I love that movie, and I love our many adventures!

She saw it and knew it would be a perfect for us! I'm so excited about printing pics from our favorite adventures. Can you believe it's been 5 years already? So glad the scrapbook is expandable :)

And, of course, there's many other ways to use this! We always use the same log book when we host events - it's kinda a scrapbook which includes event and event cache information. Now we can paste our group photos in there! Too cool!

LOVE LOVE LOVE this gift, and we'll see what other fun we can have with it!