Roadtrip 2021 - Colorado

Spring Break Road Trip 2021: Nebraska -> Colorado Springs -> Utah (Dead Horse) -> Utah (Arches) -> Utah (Canyonlands)

Spring break roadtrip continued towards Colorado Springs after the night halt in North Platte, NE. In Colorado we visited:

• Mesa Verde National Park, 
• Royal gorge Bridge & Park Canon City,
• Pikes Peak Colorado Springs &
• Denver 

Denver 

Our first halt was to sight-see Capitol and surroundings. One marked thing visible are the Dispensaries and clinics unique to this state and their users roaming all the streets & settled in there.

Next up, Denver Art Museum. Lovely place to relax and take pics with its numerous installations.

Pikes Peak, Colorado Springs

First thing on entering Colorado, is the never-ending chain of mountains on all sides. That's a sight to see. This was a sight of the peak, from behind our Hotel.

Pikes Peak is a 16 mile drive with many overlooks for lovely sights. 

Finally at the peak on 16th-mile, is the place to park the car and climb/walk/crawl uphill. There were large stones and snow all over. Such a lovely view to see snow after so long - it had melted in MN in March itself. The climb uphill to the top looked treacherous, maybe was, but I didn't see any of the crowds get injured. So I did it too. Its a sight to behold. No amount of picture could capture the vastness of it all.

Royal gorge Bridge & Park, Canon City

As soon as we entered the park, it was a Disneyland feeling. There was Zipline, Gandola ride, Swing on the top-most point and a Bridge across the Gorge. And again, no amount of pictures could capture the stomach-churning depth of this gorge.

There are different state flags, and when we neared Minnesota, there was another MN family. Lot of yelling to show the homie feeling.

Gandola rides & Zip Line and Swigs basically stopped after 3pm. There were long waits in lines. Later for some or the other excuse, they closed after 4pm. 

Mesa Verde National Park

This hidden gem was revealed to us by another fellow hotel stayer.

There are these unbelievable Cave houses, villages, squares etc built on the cliffs.

Every village we stopped at, the poster explained the whole history. It was made & used by Pbuleo tribe between 1200-1270. Yet there was always a wonder, why did they build on the edge of cliffs ? Why not the plain lands slightly (miles) away and why on these slippery cliffs to climb everyday ? Who came here first & settled those 60-80 families eventually ? Phew.

The drive across the park stops at many overlooks to show the different cave villages and one final grand view across the whole thing. Its so hard to believe these were built in 1200-1270 AD and not some tourist-fraud thing.

Next hop to Moab, Utah.

The drive was via winding ghat roads. With river gorge on one side and yawning mountains looking like rock-slide on the other, totally reminded of Hindi-movies Kashmir.