Today we have tickets to ride the Pikes Peak Cog Railway to the top of Pikes Peak - 14,115 ft. I guess that's about as high as you can get in the US without the use of illegal drugs. We have ridden the Mt Washington Cog Railway in New Hampshire, and the one here at Pikes Peak operates on the same concept except that the train is modern. But our tickets aren't until noon, which gave us the opportunity to hang out and do nothing for a couple of hours this morning. We needed the break.
     The free breakfast at the hotel was sad, so we walked into town and had breakfast at the local bakery and cafe . Much better. We did walk around town and look into the shops and galleries, but evidently 9:00 AM was just a little too early for most of them to be open. So we wandered around for a little while and then went back to the hotel and puttered.
    At 11:00 we rode the long 1.3 mile ride to the Cog Railway Depot and picked up our tickets. Luckily we had booked the tickets online last week, because they were sold out until late Friday. We hung out at the depot, looked at the t-shirts in the gift shop, and decided to wait until we saw what they had at the summit. When the train pulled in at about 11:40 for boarding, it was red and very modern. The seats were wood and comfortable, arranged with either 3 together on one side or 2 together on the other. They have assigned seating, so we didn't have to rush to get a good seat, we were seated on the 2-seat side facing up the mountain. When no one was seated in the 2-seat opposite us, we began to think that maybe we would have the free space. No such luck . There is always a standby list waiting to board when there are no shows. The train is always completely full.
    The ride up took and hour and a half to cover the eight miles. It is mostly just straight up the mountain with grades of over 25% which is really steep. The cars had open windows to make picture taking easy, but we closed them when we neared the top. The Train Depot is at about 6500 ft elevation, and the final summit is at 14,115 ft elevation. That;s a lot of climb in a short 8 mile run. As we went up, the temperature kept getting colder. It was in the mid 80's when we left, but by the time we reached the summit It was 44 degrees with the wind chill making it feel like 38 degrees. Brrrrr... It was cold!
     There wasn't too much to see while we were below the tree line, though there was a really nice stream running along side the tracks for most of the way. By the time we reached 11,500 ft, the trees were gone and there was nothing but rocks and a little grass. Evidently enough grass to keep the big horned sheep happy as we ran into a few on the way up . Naturally we got pictures.
    Once at the top, the panorama was just spectacular. It was a clear day, and you could see for miles in any direction. We took lots of pictures from every direction. There were also a number of cars and motorcycles at the summit. Just like Mt Washington, there is a road that you can take on the other side of the mountain and drive to the top. It's another one of those "no guard rails" routes to the top, but we had just done the 12,000 ft summit in Rocky Mountain National Park and preferred to take the train this time.
    We spent about a half hour at the summit, taking pictures and picking up t-shirts. We really had a good time on the train ride and really enjoyed the views from the top. The top of Pikes Peak is made of some sort of pink granite that is only found here and at one other mountain in Missouri. So we had to take a small sample as a souvenir. The mountain won't miss one small stone.
     The ride down was much more subdued. It somehow seemed colder than the ride up, so we left the windows closed for most of the ride down . By the time we got back to the train depot it was just after 3:00. So we had that long 1.3 mile ride back to the hotel.
    When we got back to the hotel, we decided that we would spend the rest of the afternoon exploring the shops and galleries. So we wandered around the downtown area for the next hour or two ducking in and out of the various shops. We both thought that Manitou Springs reminded us a lot of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, but not quite as good. When we finished our wanderings, we decided to check out one of the restaurants that looked interesting. It was called Boodads and it served Cajun food.   Jody had the shrimp and I had a chicken pasta dish. Both were spicy and delicious!
     Tomorrow we take the scenic loop west of Manitou Springs and over to Pueblo. Along the way we will be passing the Royal Gorge. It should be exciting!

2.6 miles today
17,491.7 miles total

0.0 gallons today
412.815 gallons total