The unexpected, totally spontaneous trip to Colorado Springs.
M has strained his knee trekking so hard up the mountain, and I had overstretched my achilles to the point where I thought they tore. M had to rub out the two golf ball sized lumps on my ankles the night before, and they were now sore and bruised, which made for a painful hike back. Because of our injuries, we decided to only stay one night instead of two, like we had originally planned for, at our backpacking site. Since Colorado Springs was a well-known and touristy place we would have missed on our Colorful Colorado adventure, we decided to check it out on our free day before we needed to head back to Denver.
We collapsed into the car, headed back to Aspen, booked a hotel for Colorado Springs, and were off. Let me tell you, the over 100 miles on Route 24 leading from Aspen to Colorado Springs is beautiful and horrifying all at the same time. Beautiful because you are secluded, nestled between mountains and hundreds of acres of wilderness, with a sheer drop on one side of you. And horrifying because you are secluded, nestled between mountains and hundreds of acres of wilderness, with a sheer drop on one side of you. Be sure to fill up on gas before this drive, as you will not be finding a station anytime soon- luckily we had gas. At one point during the drive, we crested a mountain. We were hundreds of feet in the air, and it seemed like we were at sea-level.
Since the drive from Aspen to Colorado Springs is a little over 3 hours, we did what we could to keep our wounds flexible. M bending and straightening his knee while driving, and I pointing and flexing my feet. Aspirin was our best friend during this time. We definitely needed some serious TLC, which was soon to come.
We arrived at the Radisson Hotel, which was a more luxurious hotel around the area. I limped to the front desk to check in. The manager pulled out a floor plan of the hotel to show us our room. He circled the room on the end which was significantly larger than all the other rooms. It ended up being the business suite! Fulled equipped with a Jacuzzi tub, sleep number mattress, robes and slippers and a living room area. Just what we needed after sleeping on the ground the night before.
Colorado Mountain Brewery was a place we had noticed on the drive in. We sat outside by the outdoor fireplace and ate our amazingly delicious food and drank our amazingly delicious beer sampler before heading back to the hotel to take a dip in the hot tub. A perfectly relaxing night.
