Garden of the Gods

Garden of the Gods is a huge stretch of land (480 acres to be exact) with natural sand/rock formation in the middle of Colorado Springs. It is a gift to the city by one man - Charles Elliott Perkins - who owned it as his summer home - with the following condition: "where it shall remain free to the public, where no intoxicating liquors shall be manufactured, sold, or dispensed, where no building or structure shall be erected except those necessary to properly care for, protect, and maintain the area as a public park."

When we arrived the sun was scorching. Not sure if it was the sun or something else I was not my usual cheery self. Oh I remember what the problem was - I had looked at few of my pictures in the camera and was so disappointed that no pictures came close to what we saw. This was a perfect opportunity to demand for the latest and greatest camera, right? I thought so too. But when I just opened my mouth Israel was like "This is SLR. Minolta - one of the best! Learn how to use it!" and Mom was like "Go for some classes to learn to take pictures..." and I was like (to myself) "How is it my fault if the camera is outdated and not user friendly?"

The sand/rock formation was well spectacular I should say, but honestly I was not very thrilled as I would otherwise be. Water thrills me - be it in the form of river, stream, sea, or falls - but these huge rock formations somehow didn't do the trick. Green thrills me - trees, grass, plants, moss etc - but brown? - that is not quite my taste.

Israel on the other hand was very impressed. He insisted we come back again a second time just to explore more and we did - just the two of us. It was a 'leisure strolling and some rock climbing and a lot of people watching' kind of visit - anything more interesting than that?! There were a few trails, horse back riding etc but we did not opt for that.

Here are some pictures in an attempt to take you along...