Jaci Dawn

I had it in my mind to quote a folk song about Pike’s Peak, but the one I was thinking of is actually about Pike County (“Sweet Betsy from Pike”) (and which could be any number of Pike Countys). I couldn’t remember the name of it, though, and had to google it. And while I was trying to google it, I came up with an interesting tidbit about a folk song that was purportedly taken from a poem written by an American poet after her visit to Pike’s Peak. That song is “America the Beautiful” and the poet was Katharine Lee Bates.

So now I know something new.

The end to my visit came and we had to say good-bye to my son, his beautiful wife and precious little Justin.

You can imagine how hard it was to leave this guy!

We decided to drive to the top of Pike’s Peak before we left the Colorado Springs area but when we reached the park day pass kiosk, we were informed that you could not drive to the top due to high wind conditions. Oh well, we decided to make the best of it and drive as high as we could (which was between 11,500′ and 11,900′, right at timberline. The high wind danger lay where there were no trees to shelter the road from the wind.

Whoa! This was the most promising sign for an encounter with Sasquatch that we’d seen yet!

I was on high alert now. (Or as my mother would say, “Look! A Lert!” and we’d all look.)

For one thing, I perused the little pamphlet they gave us back at the gate, hoping to glean some information on Bigfoot sightings in the area. All I learned was that you need to be worried about lightening. I don’t dye or highlight my hair and Terry doesn’t have enough hair to worry about, so we weren’t too concerned about lightening.

I suppose lightning could be a problem.

We drove as high as we could, then turned around and started back down. We stopped at the gift shop on Diamond Reservoir to take some photos and go for a Nature Hike.

No, not that kind of Nature Hike. The real kind where you look at flowers and trees and stuff and a little brochure tells you what you are looking at.

Terry found a Fred Flintstone mobile. sitting at the end of the Nature Hike.

The Nature Hike was supposed to take “fifteen to twenty minutes”, but that must be for people who are using canes and carrying oxygen tanks. An average person can do it in five minutes, and that’s reading every little plaque describing the flora (limber pine, kinnickinnick, aspen, Ponderosa pine, and so on).

WHOA! Another clue that Bigfoot might be in the area! June of 2009. That was only a few months ago!

I thought the sign was funny. The sculpture is just weird. It doesn’t look like any Bigfoot I’ve ever heard of. It sort of resembles Terry, though: bald on top, long arms, big feet. Except he doesn’t have hair on his face.

We went into the gift shop where I picked up a magnet for my fridge and Terry shopped for his grand children. I struck up a conversation with the bored-looking cashier that went something like this:

Me, “So, have there been any Bigfoot sightings lately?”

Cashier: “Not here, but last year there were a couple engineers who said they saw one down on Green Ridge.”

Me: “Cool!”

Cashier: “I know. I’d love to see one. But I like things like that, like ghosts and stuff. I’m from Manitou Springs and there are a lot of ghosts there.”

She elaborated with a little help. I could have spent all day talking to her. She told me the history of Manitou Springs as related in my previous post and she assured me that Bigfoot sightings do happen on and around Pike’s Peak.

Terry and I made one more stop on the way down. He wanted a photo of the narrow canyon leading to Colorado Springs. While he was taking his photo, I caught this one of the US Army searching for Bigfoot on Pike’s Peak:

Yes, that’s a Black Hawk combing the tops of the trees.

At the foot of Pike’s Peak we found Santa’s Workshop, but the parking lot was empty. Guess it is too early in the season. But just in case you ever wondered where Santa’s Workshop is, it’s in Colorado, at the base of Pike’s Peak.

It’s a long way from the North Pole.

And still no Bigfoot.