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Finally having a beer after successfully navigating from Denver to the town of Manitou Springs, CO.
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A trip to the Miramont Castle Museum. This is actually the proper way to reach the entrance from the parking lot.
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There's a fancy tearoom or some such at this place, but that's not really our scene, so we just wandered through the building taking photos of their fantastic wallpaper.
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Now THIS wallpaper is pretty but deadly. It contains a pigment called Paris green, and is kept behind glass so it doesn't spray arsine gas at us (thus the inferior photo quality).
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You need to do some crazy maneuvering when putting down the floorboards in an eight-sided room.
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This sitting room (reading room?) is the best room in the house thanks to its mountain view.
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The Colorado version of Topo Chico. Manitou Springs is a town built on mineral water (more on that later, unless I forget).
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I included this so you could find the EXACT bottle, as the previous photo instructs. Did you find it yet?
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The coolest thing in the fancy house museum was an exhibit of the works of local artist Charles Rockey, who does these amazingly intricate drawings of fairies and shit (but in a not-lame way)...
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Unrelated (probably) hippie mural. The fence obscures the demon-y underworld part until you peer over it.
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Creepy candy store window display. Manitou Springs is an easy drive from Denver, so it's full of annoyingly quaint tourist shops.
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But back to the mineral water. There are naturally carbonated mineral springs here, which was how the town initially because a tourist destination (back when people were into health spas and tonics...which kinda sounds like present day).
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There are several (four maybe?) mineral water fountains along the main drag and you can totally drink the water and not die. And if it were still the 19th century, it would surely also cure your tuberculosis.
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Thomas filled an entire water bottle of the stuff and drank it and didn't die, so I know what I'm talking about.
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Some cliff dwellings. I found these to be kinda meh. Many of the sights in this part of the world suffer from being too easy to get to.
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We were thinking of also going to the Florissant Fossil Beds on this day but ended up skipping it once I realized that Thomas wasn't saying "fluorescent fossil beds."
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...But first a stop in the Garden of the Gods visitor center, which has the best wall of taxidermied animals I've seen outside of a natural history museum. Check out the action poses on bear and wolf (or possibly fox?) here.
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Ok, back to Garden of the Gods, which has all kinds of cool rocks but also way too many humans for something that isn't a city.
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The rocks at the top center are said to look like two camels making out. You can Google "kissing camels" if my photo doesn't do it justice.
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But then you reach one of the more famous rocks ("Siamese Twins" seen here) and have to Photoshop a tourist out of your shot.
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I packed in a hurry for this trip, so some of my hiking attire came out unintentionally Patty Hearst-ish.
