Garden of the Gods

While we were in Denver over Christmas, we went on a Sunday afternoon excursion to see the Garden of the Gods. Jeff stayed home with a sick Amber, Brad stayed home with the twin babies, and some people had opted to go to afternoon church rather than morning church. So our numbers fit into two vehicles. We drove an hour and miraculously found parking spots in the crowded parking lot.


The Garden of the Gods had lots of sidewalks winding through large orange rock formations. We did a simple loop around, walking about 1.5 miles with plenty of stops to play and take pictures and take in the dramatic views. It was beautiful! The orange rocks were massive and rugged. The sky was blue. The sun was shining. The place was crowded, but that scenery was delightful. I love exploring new places!

The boys enjoyed reading the informational maps and trying to identify the names of each rock formation.

 Steve, Jay, and Dan: too cool for pictures.

Jay's distressed face has been the same his whole life! He got stuck in this crevice and was very concerned for a few seconds before I told him to turn sideways more and shimmy out. The kids went around and around this rock, going through the crevice over and over.

Rosie-monkey

Uncle Jesse with Jay, Rose, AJ, Chase, and Derek.

Rose, Steve, Chase, and AJ

Photo courtesy of Rose.

The only way to get the rocks in a picture was from afar, but distance made them look small. The Garden of the Gods was definitely better in person than in pictures.

Rose the model.

There was some patchy dirty old snow here and there along the path, and the kids kept stopping to dig and play.

On the way out driving along the one-way park loop road, we got stuck behind some deer enthusiasts who had stopped in the middle of the road to admire these deer. We didn't think the creatures were worth holding up traffic for 15 minutes, but people kept getting out of their cars to take pictures of them! I snapped this picture while we drove past, just to remember how...normal the deer were in comparison to the craggy orange rocks behind them.