Colorado Springs - June '26 

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In June we had another family reunion in Colorado Springs, a great month to visit & I stayed four nights at the Fillmore BW (at I-25), not far from where my sisters Doris & Mary (and Roger), live. 

Brother Don drove from Las Cruces, NM and Theresa flew from Phoenix. Don's son Pat flew from Austin and another son, Tom, lives in the Springs, and his girlfriend Heather was at gatherings, too. 

Not far from the hotel were both Red Rock Canyon & Garden of the Gods, where the first two hikes were. The third hike was at Palmer Lake, about 20 miles north on I-25, at Monument, Co. 

I'm glad to say I've had a 40+ year history & interaction with this unique landscape. It is hard to (photographically) do justice to the enormity of the Front Range. Of course, you can see Pike's Peak at 14,115 ft. from just about anywhere in the Springs. 

At 6,500 ft., there is always some acclimation, and each night there I slept better.   

Thursday at Red Rock Canyon 

	Mary & Mackenzie		RR Canyon & G of the G's		self-portrait (a jet-lagged man)

On Thursday after the walk I was back at the hotel for awhile & got some coffee drinking and reading time in. And Mary and I did some food/beer shopping. 

Later Mary had wild Alaskan Salmon and salad, and we sat outside or in. It was an NBA Finals night, too.  

Friday at Garden of the Gods - with Doris, Mary & Theresa

This was a good general walk, maybe a few miles. The visitor center, as is usual for June, was crowded & tourists almost always prefer to mob the roads, rather than parking & walking. Thus, we saw few walkers on the trails.

After the walk, we drove to Colorado City for food/coffee at a sidewalk cafe. This is an attractive 1800's mining town, and we could could see a Carnegie Library just up the street. We meandered for an hour & looked in shops.  

	see note 1		scrub oaks		Theresa
		that Colorado look		near visitor center
	see note 2

note 1 - the original cabin was built in 1867 by homesteader Walter Galloway; this is of course a restored version.

Later that evening Doris treated the gang to Panninos, her favorite restaurant downtown. Afterwards Doris and Theresa and I went to Target, deserted at 8 pm on a Friday, perfect for exchanging coffee makers.

Then the group re-assembled at Doris' home & fantastic back yard, and it was the first time all of us were together. There was plenty to talk about and I especially enjoyed talking with nephew Tom, a civil engineer public agency bureaucrat, just like I was, about infrastructure.....Doris' park-like back yard is thanks to a huge water treatment plant almost next door, and its huge distribution pipes are in a permanent utility easement, so her back yard view stays the same & no one can build on that land.  Doris kind of knows about real estate & zonings and utility easements.

Saturday at Palmer Lake  - with Mary, Theresa & Pat

	Monument		El Paso County park
				flowering Yucca cactus
	scrub oaks & front range (looking south)		Pat
		Palmer Lake

Misc. Photos -

After the Saturday hike, Theresa and I drove into town to get coffee at Acacia Park and go for a walk. Two hours earlier at 9 am, a fire engine, moving at full-speed, with sirens at full volume, crashed into a City bus at the intersection of N Tejon & E Bijou, virtually the 'city center'.  Nothing had been moved since.

The front of the bus was smashed-in, while the fire engine careened into a corner crossing & landscape barrier, wrecking the front of the fire engine. On the ground in front of me was a broken-off concrete corner, say 3 ft square. It was a shocking sight and I had no interest in getting a photograph. After that, we walked for about an hour, a few blocks north, to a deserted Colorado College campus. 

Later we were back at Mary & Roger's for Saturday dinner plus an NBA Final, or a cornhole (beanbag) game, out back, where Don, Tom, Roger, and Pat were mightily engaged, for 2 hours.  

	on a walk downtown				Roger & Mary's  place
		Maya		out front & Colorado Blue Spruce next door
	Woodland sage		Shrubby cinquefoil		volunteer Marigolds
		Tom & Heather and cornhole game		the fam in '26

Postscript -

Flights there & back to the Springs, via Denver, were good, as usual. Flying east over Nevada, you cross 18 different mountain ranges, all on a north-south axis, classic basin & range topography, and surely the best way to appreciate the State's rugged desolation is from 35,000 ft. up. 

About the DEN - SMF return flight  on Sunday: at noon, when United 1415 left the gate and taxied out, there were 50 planes lined up ahead of us and one hour later we were aloft. As we approached SMF, the pilot said that 30 minutes earlier it would have been 80 planes, a huge backup, caused by an IT problem at the ATC (air traffic control) tower.  Oops !

It was a smooth flight home & I read most of the way. Linda knew (via flight tracker) I'd be late and was right on time.  I left SMF at 1 pm on Weds., and was back on Sunday at 2 pm.  Not bad !

Canon G16 used for photos & plant names are from Picture This.

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From May '25 reunion -

Cheyenne Mountain

Pike's Peak

Roger & Mary