Manitou Springs 1

Over this past weekend Miles and I went to Manitou Springs, Co. It was an unexpected trip, originally scheduled to attend Jordan and Kellie's wedding. They had to postpone for medical reasons, and we went ahead with our trip because of time off of work and just wanting to get away.

We ended up having an amazing time, though, with just the two of us! Manitou Springs has an amazing amount of things to do in close proximity to the quaint and cool downtown area. It was perfect for our short trip.

To prevent information overload, I'll break our trip into parts throughout the week!

We arrived Thursday, late afternoon, and went over to Garden of the Gods. Immediately, we were blown away by the amazing rock structures and beautiful views. I'll post more pictures from our second trip to this public park later because the light was WAY better. These are from the first evening we were there.









Friday morning we went to Seven Falls. We hiked up the 224 staircase that goes right up the side of the falls. It was steep and the altitude made me feel even more out of shape than I am! Not cool, altitude. Once at the top, though, we did the easy hike up to another waterfall, Midnight Falls. Seven Falls was one of the highlights of our trip - we loved this!





This pic, with all seven falls, is actually from the observation deck, which was up a different 184 step staircase. We took the elevator (it was after our other hike). The elevator was cool, too - carved into the mountain.


Halfway up the 224 steps beside the falls, there was a platform...and a bench. :)





We encountered a 450 year old pine tree on the hike. Yes, I counted the rings. Really.


Okay, there were informational signs.

Midnight Falls was not very picturesque...and we set it on a crooked post to self-timer capture ourselves!


I held up the mountain, a classic Brier pose.


I'll just be here until the next post...