Colorado Springs, Colorado

Colorado Springs was not on the plan for this trip but since the weather in Wyoming was getting sketchy we headed south through a massive hail storm, pelting rain and snow. We landed at Cheyenne Mountain State park. We managed to get a campsite for a few nights, normally this place is booked solid all summer! Someone was looking out for us! Little did we know the mountain behind us is where NORAD is located! So in that mountain is a huge bunker!

Our campsite was beyond amazing! Emmerson was promoted to fire tender for this trip and was happy to start his first fire. We hung our and enjoyed the cool evening with the campfire. I took to the rocks looking for insects. Mom and Emmerson looked for rocks. We had a fun evening after a long day of driving. On the way into town E said he say a sign for Gardens of the Gods. We both remembered it from the Percy Jackson books. Mom looked it up and it was close by so the next day we went exploring. We saw lots of balanced rocks. The sandstone formations were striking against the lush flora. We climbed as much as we could! We were hiking the flats and saw tons of deer. We popped into the visitors center and earned out Jr Ranger badges for their state park system. Up next we raced up the road a few hours to Florissant Fossil Beds. They have the claim of the most invert fossils! I had to see this! We learned all about the formation and layers present in the area.  I was lost in the fossils for hours! Fossils and insects at the same time, my head was going to explode! As we were getting out Jr Ranger badges, Mom was talking tot he staff member about our weird weather vacation. She asked if we knew we were under a winter storm warning! WHAT! Mom popped online and sure enough we were. We hightailed it out since the roads back to ColoradoSprings were in the direct path of the storm. 
We started off okay for the first 30 minutes then hit the wall of white. No blizzard but pretty close. The snow certainly was coming down quickly. 

We made if safely back to Dad at Cheyenne Mountain, hitched up and hit to road towards the Great Sand Dunes. Happy to be away from the snow and heading into warmer areas and dunes of sand!

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