8.10.2021
Driving into Colorado Springs from Denver
For the rest of the trip we had planned out the must-go destinations but everything in between was spontaneous. Our next stop was Eleven Mile Canyon where we would were planning on fishing and camping. We didn’t spend any time in Denver and headed straight to Colorado Springs where we would stop first before heading to Eleven Mile Canyon. On the way there the landscape changes from plains to what you would imagine the old west looked like. Lots of orange rocks/dirt with tons of pine trees. First we stopped at Walmart to get some food for camping and also to get some other items we needed. We happened to stumble upon the coolest Walmart we had ever seen.
My co-worker had told me to check out the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs so that was our next stop. This was our first time seeing Red Rocks and it was surreal. Down the road we would learn we would be seeing a lot more Red Rocks in Arizona and Utah.
Heading to Eleven Mile Canyon
We started heading out of Colorado springs and stopped at a small restaurant where we had lunch in Manitou Springs. The view from the restaurant was of Pike’s peak! I got a Coors Banquet since we were in Colorado. I can’t remember what we ordered for food but my guess is that I got a burger and Taya got a wrap or quesadillas.
We finished eating and drove around before heading to the Garden of the Gods. We found a view point down the road next to a Cave tour place. Sadly the cave place was booked and we weren’t able to do it. However, the place was up on a hill so were able to get a great view of (what I think is) Pike’s peak again which we also found out was a long ways to drive up to the top so that idea was off the table too.
There were wildfires happening west of Colorado at the time causing the sky to be a bit hazy but we got a pretty good view of the mountains. From here our next stop was Eleven Mile Canyon. I don’t have any pictures on the way to Eleven Mile Canyon but it was mostly flat and the view of the mountains disappeared. We could only see silhouettes of mountains in the distance.
Eleven Mile Canyon Recreation Area
Driving into Eleven Mile Canyon was the coolest thing we had experienced on the trip so far. The canyon walls were way higher than they looked in the pictures. There were lots of trees and the area was very well maintained making it look unreal.
We stopped at a couple spots to try fishing but we were not very prepared and didn’t end up catching anything.
When it started to get dark, we headed to our campsite and quickly found out it was not ideal for our camping situation. We planned on sleeping in our car for the night and didn’t really think about the campsite not being flat. We checked out the other campsites and noticed they labeled if someone had booked it or not. Since there were a few open we decided to switch spots. We found a nice spot that had a lot of area to walk around and a separate area from the car to sit down and cook our food.
We grilled some cheeseburgers for dinner on the propane stove we bought and they came out pretty decent. As the food cooked we fueled our fire which we kept going by using pine cones that were on the ground, cardboard, and some firewood that the very generous people next to us let us use. They were from Texas and they said this was there usual spot that they would go for the weekend. Thanks to them for letting us take some of their firewood!
