March PPOW Colorado

Colorado

            My trip to Colorado started when my aunt Ang invited us out to stay for a week. Of course we had to go so we planed it in June. The trip was a long 12-hour drive from Hancock, Iowa to Broomfield, Colorado. The whole way there, we were constantly going uphill. When we got to Ang’s house, we said hi to her, and our cousin Mark, who lives there. We didn’t do anything the first day because the drive was too long, and we wanted to catch up with Ang and Mark.

            Ang is known for her cooking, and the first day, she smoked pulled pork and ribs.  It was really good. The next day, we went to Elich Gardens Theme Park in Denver. When I was there, we rode on many rollercoasters, and rides I never have before. My sister Alyssa and my step-dad, Randy, went on The XLR8R. The XLR8R pulls you 150 feet in the air and drops you in a free fall style. My favorite was called the Mind Eraser rollercoaster.

            I was too scared to go on it, so I watched from below. Then after they were done, we did some more rides and headed back to Ang’s house. The next day, we decided to go hiking on a mountain in Boulder. We saw a lot of clear water running down the mountain, and a lot of pretty plants. The view was amazing and I wanted to stay up there longer. Even though it was really hot, it was worth it.

            We also did a lot of shopping at cool stores that day. The next day was really hot so all of us decided to go to the local pool. We had a lot of fun swimming and it was nice to cool off. When we got back to Ang’s house, she smoked ribs and we all ate and went to bed. The next day we started planning on going up to “Pikes Peak,” by taking the “Cog Railway.” Ang bought our tickets and we headed out.

            It was my first time taking a train, and going up “Pikes Peak.” On our way up, the conductor told everyone all about the land. He pointed out that the railway we were riding is the highest “Cog Railway” in the world. He also said that most of the trees on the mountain were over 2000 years old. The ride was very long and my sisters were getting a little sicker the higher we got.

             Thankfully I wasn’t feeling that bad, and was still enjoying the ride. The conductor also pointed out that Katharine Lee Bates wagon tracks were still there when she wrote America the Beautiful in 1893. I thought that it was very cool to see the wagon tracks even after all of these years. When we finally reached the top of the mountain there was a building there that everyone went into. My step-dad and I went outside after a while to look at the view.

            I could see some clouds when I looked down the side of the mountain because we were so high up. Out of nowhere it started to snow but I still stayed outside. Then a few seconds later there was thunder and lightning at the same time that it was snowing. It was the first time I had seen it snow and thunder outside at the same time. They told us all to go inside because we could easily get hit by lightning.

            When we were inside there were people making fresh doughnuts. We didn’t get any because none of us felt so well. The weather outside was getting worse so we had to get back on the train, and head back down. Once we got outside again we noticed how much it had snowed already so we had to move fast. It was really cold so everyone had to put up there windows to keep warm. The weather went from warm and sunny to cold a windy. I thought that it was really cool how the weather can change so fast.

            On our way down we still couldn’t believe how pretty the view was. When we were getting to the end the conductor started handing out books to everyone to see if they would buy it. We bought a book and it came with a CD and a souvenir. The CD talked about the history of the “Cog Railway” and extra information about it. We went back to Ang’s and went to bed after the long day. The next day was sadly our last and we decided to just stay at Ang’s and relax.

Ang made a really good breakfast for our last full day there. We ended up playing a lot of board games and watching good movies after that. We played Yahtzee and Mark ended up winning by far. My sisters and I started watching movies while the parents were outside by the warm fire. The night ended well and we had to go to bed early so we could wake up and leave early the next day.

We said our goodbyes and left early in the morning. The car ride back was really long with all the stops along the way. We stopped at a little store and got some Colorado shirts to remember our trip. We also got these weird suckers with scorpions in them. None of us actually ate them but we just thought that it was cool to have.

When we were on the road we were going downhill the whole time. We thought it was cool because on the way there we were going uphill the whole time. As we got farther away the more I missed it already. Yes, It was sad to leave but it was something we can always talk about.

We plan on going back hopefully sometime soon and visit Ang and Mark.