West - Day Seventeen - July 9, 2005

I took it easy in the morning and didn't leave until checkout at noon. First priority was to find a car wash to get the inside vacuumed out and start fresh. Once I did that, I decided to drive up to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, a bit west of Colorado Springs past Pike's Peak. Very interesting location with more fossils dating back 30+ million years ago than anywhere. No dinosaur bones but lots of insects and petrified redwood trees. The skies were very stormy with lightning flashing so I couldn't hike around much but listened to a ranger program while I was there. On the way back towards Colorado Springs, I stopped at the Cog Railway that climbs up Pike's Peak. Unfortunately, with my cold, I didn't think it would be smart to go up to 14,000 feet. People coming down said it was snowing at the top.

From there, I drove down to Pueblo to stay for the night. Again, tried to take it easy a bit. There were wildfires burning just west of Pueblo (the Mason fires) that created dramatic skies with the smoke but didn't impact the city directly.