Springs road trip

 My best friend, Carol, was in town last week for a work conference.

She arrived while Seth and I were still in Sand Wash Basin. We spent Sunday evening and most of Monday together.

Then on Tuesday, we both went back to work.

Fortunately, we both had short work weeks. Neither of us had to work on Friday, which allowed us just enough time to indulge in one of our favorite friends activities: Road trip!

Time was short so we didn't go far, just down the highway a bit to Colorado Manitou Springs.

As per usual, I let Carol pick the hotel. Her default is the Marriott or something similar, so I was really surprised when my GPS guided us to the Eagle Motel.

This is the least Carol hotel in the history of hotels.

It wasn't fancy, but it was clean and quiet enough, and the location was perfect. We were just a short walk to downtown Manitou.

We spent most of Friday afternoon window shopping Manitou.

This was the first time I'd been there since before the pandemic. The town seems to have come through remarkably unscathed. Even the rubber ducky store is still in business.

My favorite store Buxton's Ruxton's Trading Post. 

More about that in an upcoming post!

After we'd seen the sights, we walked back to our hotel, freshened up and ubered to Old Colorado City...

for dinner...

and more window shopping.

The first day of our teeny tiny road trip was a big success.

The next morning started with breakfast at the Red Dog Cafe in Manitou. Then we packed up our belongings and headed out to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, where we'd planned to feed the giraffes. Alas, a lot of other people had the exact same idea.

We regrouped and decided to visit the Carriage Penrose Heritage Museum instead.

Seth and I toured this museum in 2009. I enjoyed it then and just as much on Saturday.

As with Ruxton's Trading Post, there will be another post - or three - with pictures from this particular part of the our trip.

After the museum, we tried to go for a short hike at Rainbow Falls. That was closed, so we ended up at the Garden of the Gods instead.

It's always good to be flexible when traveling!

Our last stop was at Carol's sister, Christine's house, where we celebrated Carol's niece, Sarah's recent graduation.

Congratulations, Sarah and Eric!

Despite the setbacks - and the rain! - I greatly enjoyed our really short road trip.

Thank you, Carol, for making that happen. I can't wait to see where we'll go next!