Colorado- Day 4

Today we traveled to the top of Pike’s Peak, by Cog Train! While we were waiting to board the train, we watched a few hummingbird moths sip at some flowers. They were a dusky brown with a red-pinkish mark in their lower wings.

When it was time to board, we hopped on and listened to the safety rules. The train began to move and we were off! Throughout the entire way up and down, we sipped water to help us adjust to the altitude and not get altitude sickness. We past lots of large boulders in the beginning and we went through a large forest of pines and aspen. The tour guide told us that the aspen trees are actually very large. What may seem like a grove of separate trees is actually all one plant! They spread through the roots and send up more trees. The aspens were turning a golden yellow and lit up the whole place.

 

 

Some had began to tun from yellow to a vibrant orange-red tone making the whole forest very colorful. She also pointed out that the white bark of the aspen gave off a powdery substance that had an SPF of about 5. The ponderosa pines that surrounded us gave off a vanilla or butterscotch smell after they are over 80 years old. Once we passed the tree-line, we saw lots of marmots, a groundhog like animal thats a lot fuzzier and a lot fatter.

We had seen them in the Grand Tetons, but there were a lot more here. There were only large rocks and a few small plants. I don’t see how so many marmots could live in a place with so little to eat! I began to real a little uneasy and sick as we neared the top. Once we reached the summit I was excited, but felt horrible. The altitude was making me sick. I had never been so high, except in an airplane! We went inside and got some of their world famous donuts. They were amazing!!!

I was really not feeling good, but a lady dropped her cane off a balcony so I rushed down to get it for her. She thanked me and asked if I was a Scout, and I told her it was my good turn  for the day, since I am a Scout.

After we explored a little more, we had to board the train for the trip back down the mountain. I was still uneasy and sick, but fell asleep on the way back down. My mom woke me up when we arrived at the depot and we went to Soda Springs Park to eat lunch. We had a little picnic down by the creek with some squirrels chasing each other around. We wrote on some of the postcards we made in the Denver Art Museum. We refilled one of our water bottles with fountain water that was carbonated! We added some cherry flavoring and it tasted just like the soft drink Cheerwine! Then we drove off to our next destination,  Twin Lakes. On our way we stopped by Florissant National Monument and looked around before they closed. We saw lots of insect fossils as well as some plant fossils in the visitor center.

 

We went outside and looked at some petrified redwood trees, and saw how people have had to fight to keep it preserved. People had also broken off parts to take as souvenirs, and it had slowly began to deteriorate. When it was made into a national monument, they stopped this and protected these natural wooden fossils.

They were about to close, so we walked out and continued on our way to Twin Lakes. When we arrived at our cabin at Twin Lakes, we saw that the view from our cabin was  somewhat close to the one in the book! We walked down the hill a bit and tried to find it, but it was getting dark so we decided to get the view in the morning. On the way back up  I slipped and my hands went into the plant with lots and lots of spines, (not a cactus though).  I spent the next thirty minutes pulling them out of my hand with tweezers. After dinner we typed up some blog posts and fell asleep with no problem.