Rocky Mountain Highs

Day 9: Drove the Old Santa Fe Trail scenic byway from Santa Fe to Colorado Springs yesterday. It is indeed extremely scenic. You can drive 75 mph most of the way and make the trip in four to five hours. Back in the 1800s it took around a month to travel the same route in a covered wagon. I don’t like to complain but my back really hurt for the last couple of hours (too many days in the car), and I didn’t have to ride on a wooden seat in a dirty wagon and worry about justifiably disgruntled Apaches waiting over the hill. You just know there are still bones out there somewhere. This would be a great trip and history lesson for kids. Not that they’d care.

Less than 200 years later, I’m sitting at a hotel in the shadow of Pike’s Peak, where last night I was able to soak my aching back in a hot tub. Travel is so draining. Next door is the Emerald Fields Recreational Marijuana store. So that’s convenient. To think, Zebulon Pike himself may have sat on this very spot smoking something. Although it probably wasn’t as easy to get.