Our First Trip to Colorado: Day 4

8/6/13

Our last full day in the Springs started with another pancake breakfast at Over Easy. Again, excellent food and service. We were sad that we wouldn't have time to eat there again. 

After breakfast, we made the drive out to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. This was not crowded at all. They were out of trail maps, but the girl in the visitor center went over a map with us, pointing us in the direction of the Petrified trail, which was perfect. Seeing the petrified redwoods was what brought us all the way to Florissant. We loved walking around the national monument. So beautiful, and for a couple New Englanders, it was VERY cool to see the Petrified Redwoods, particularly the only known trio of petrified Redwoods. 

We were glad we got there by mid-morning though, as it got quite hot. We could have spent a lot of time there, exploring other trails, but we had lots more we wanted to do that day, so we decided to move along after the Petrified trail.

From Florissant, we headed for the Manitou Cliff Dwelling Museum. We enjoyed this. It was neat to be able to walk through the dwelling, and the indoor museum was huge! It's not a place I need to return to, but we were both very happy to have gone once.

Time for lunch. We decided to try to find something for lunch in Old Colorado City. We ended up at Pizzeria Rustica, and we were glad we did. Great lunch. Delicious pizza and gelato. And Nick enjoyed the end of the meal chocolate covered espresso beans. I didn’t. I’m sure my Italian grandmother is rolling in her grave, but I just don’t like espresso.

After lunch we returned to Garden of the Gods, to see what we had missed on Sunday: Balanced Rock. I know a lot of people complain that there is cement holding it together, but being from NH, where various cables held the Old Man of the Mountain in place for years, we understood (and seeing the behavior of visitors, appreciated) the need. We were just impressed that a formation like that had ever formed. We were impressed with the scenery around it too.

From Garden of the Gods, we moved on to the Olympic Training Center, where we arrived about 5 minutes before the movie to begin the 3pm tour started. Great movie intro and great tour. Our tour guide was very enthusiastic and a wealth of information. It was quite inspirational to visit this attraction.

After the tour it was back to downtown, where we parked the car, dumped off belongings at the hotel, and then walked a few blocks for dinner at Rasta Pasta, a rather unique restaurant. This place served only pasta dishes, but they all had some Jamaican inspiration. My dish had pineapple in it, for example. Again, great meal. The rest of the evening was spent preparing to leave early the next morning for the final leg of the trip: Rocky Mountain National Park! We couldn’t believe how quickly this trip was going!