The route this day took us from Alamosa to Denver, via Garden of the Gods and a couple other interesting stops. Another great day on the road!
Approximate time on road/out caching: 13 hours, 5 minutes
Total miles driven: 333.7 mi / 537 km
Total caches found: 35
Total DNF: 2
States visited: Colorado
Famous places visited: Skyline Drive, Garden of the Gods
Most memorable cache: GC77ZJE Dinosaur Footprints
Biggest surprise: The extreme rain
Weather: Sunny, some clouds, clouds, heavy rain
Highest temperature: 88°F / 31,1°C
Lowest temperature: 50°F / 10°C
Early start
We started early, and left the hotel before 7am, and started on the long way to Denver after a couple quick caches in Alamosa. We had planned to visit GC7PWDD Messoline Masterpiece, but we got here way too early :/
Over the mountain
There’s a lot of mountains in Colorado, and a lot of mountain passes – and the first we had to drive over now was Poncha Pass. Almost no traffic, and relatively cold temperatures – but the scenery was beautiful!
Skyline Drive
After getting some new counties along the way, and finding a couple caches, we arrived at Skyline Drive. This short, but extremely scenic, drive was amazing! Highly recommended! We also found a couple caches, including the earthcache GC2FV7Y Dinosaur Footprints on the Skyline.
Amazing view
We enjoy finding virtual caches, so we had several of them on the plan this day. The first brought us to a nice memorial park, the second to what looked like an abandoned rest area and the third to a place with an amazing view – GC8819 In God’s Hand’s Virtual Cache.
Big beetle
A couple caches later, GC10XBK 9-er / Axe brought us to what’s supposed to be the world’s largest beetle.
Airplane restaurant
We like airplanes, so we had to do a stop at the Airplane Restaurant in Colorado Springs. We were almost alone in the airplane part of the restaurant, and by the time we finished eating, we had the entire airplane to ourselves – awesome!
Police everywhere
We almost had to “DNF” GC7B6J4 PIKES PEAK REGION PEACE OFFICERS MEMORIAL, because GZ was full of Police officers. But we got the photo we needed 😀
Garden of Gods
We’ve been to Garden of Gods several times before, and now we had to go back to find some of the new caches. The weather was a bit threatening, and we could hear and see the thunder and lightning as we walked around to find the answers to the last earthcaches.
So we decided to hurry up, and get back to the car before the storm got closer.
At least we made it back to the car
And the storm eventually got close. Really close. The heavy rain made driving hard, especially once the traffic started to get worse as well.
It got better
But it got better (the weather, not the traffic), and we could find GC86CA Final Fire without getting wet.
Denver traditions
After driving the long way to Denver, with moderate to heavy traffic, we finally arrived at the hotel. First we had to get everything out of the car.
Then we had to do our Denver tradition, and visit UNO Pizzeria & Grill.
Back where we started
After eating, we had to go back out to get some final supplies at the closest Walmart – exactly where we started the first night on this trip. We also made sure to find a couple caches while there.
After that, it was finally time to start packing…