Congrats everyone, you made it to Friday! Anyone have some great weekend plans? Today is my last full day in Colorado Springs… I’m pretty sad about it. I like this whole doing nothing stressful and just hanging out with my parents thing.
Although it all hasn’t been too pretty… My dad and I decided to go on a hike on Tuesday, and, well, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. Before I came down here I told my dad I’d love to go hiking with him. He loves to hike and has actually climbed several 14-ers! (14,000 ft mountains). I told him I would only have tennis shoes and thus would not be equipped for snow. Apparently he thinks there’s a difference between snow and “snow snow” and thus thought it was fine for me to hike a trail covered 80% in snow…
The hike we went on was up Raspberry Mountain. I loved the name and felt like it should be something out of candy land! The drive up to the base was about an hour around Pike’s Peak (the tallest mountain in CO Springs) and went through some gorgeous areas!
My dad had done the hike a couple years before and said he thought it would just take us about 2 hours. So we headed off! Unfortunately, we hit snow pretty quickly. The trail was actually at least 80% covered in snow. My dad didn’t seem to care that I was wearing my running shoes and trekked on…
I’m not gonna lie, it was pretty rough and I was not enjoying the hike. I normally love hiking, but here I was staring at my feet and sliding all over the place, just hoping to keep moving. After we hit the hour mark I started to get concerned because there was no summit in site. After about an hour and a half we finally got to a point where we could see the summit. See it back there? Look above my head to the left just a bit. That’s the summit…
When my dad pointed it out I actually thought he was kidding. It was pretty far away and would have taken us another hour to get there. At this point I was starving, on the verge of tears and just wanted to go home. We decided the summit was just not going to happen, especially since the snow looked like it got to be more like “snow, snow,” whatever that means.
So I ate my granola bar and we turned around and headed home. The hike back was faster, only taking an hour and we finished in about 2 hours and 40 minutes and covered 5 miles. I looked up the hike later on and it said it was 6.4 miles round trip… Meaning it would have taken us about an hour and a half extra if we’d headed to the summit. So glad we turned around. I think that’s a hike for the summer, when there isn’t any snow!
When we got back it was much nicer and warmer in CO Springs so I ate some lunch and laid in the sun for a bit (still in my coat and pants) to warm myself back up.
Our house in Colorado Springs is actually quite amusing. The previous owners hadn’t done any work to it in decades, and my mom just remodeled the upstairs. However, the downstairs, where I was staying, was still a little retro. Check out my bathroom:
Um yes. The entire bathroom is carpeted. and the sink, toilet and tub are all a beautiful maroon. Other beautiful things in Colorado? The sweatshirt my dad is letting me borrow. Honestly, I love this thing and think it’s insanely comfortable. If I ever end up moving to CO, I’m so wearing this everywhere. Unfortunately, I think it’s not quite “Chicago.” That city is just not ready for my style”
I actually have a photo of my dad and I on a canoe trip where he’s wearing the sweatshirt!
Cleary it’s been around the block a few times.
Do you have any pieces of clothing as stylish as this fleece sweatshirt?
Are you a fan of hiking? Any good stories?