Tagabonds: Sights

Showing posts with label Sights. Show all posts

Monday, July 14, 2014

Garden of the Gods & Manitou Springs, CO

Our last stop in Colorado was at Garden of the Gods and the close-by town of Manitou Springs.

Garden of the Gods is full of beautiful red rock formations that developed throughout years of natural progression. The park is a registered Natural National Landmark and is super well-maintained, with wonderful paved walking paths throughout. I was thrilled with how much wildlife we saw during our quick walk around the park, and we had a fun time watching some rock climbers ascend up the peaks.

When we left the park, we drove over to Manitou Springs. The town is small and used to be most popular for its mineral springs, but today the main attraction seems to be the town's downtown area, a quirky spot for tourists to have a meal and browse through shops. However, wiki tells me that many of the town's springs are still functioning and the water is free, so it seems we missed out on that experience!

See more Colorado posts here.

Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Denver, CO

The four of us left Aspen and drove to Denver where we met up with another of mine and my sister-in-law's friends from college. Apparently we were too busy having fun to capture many photos, so sorry for the lack of pictures in this post!

Denver is such a rad city and I can see why it attracts so many people. There's a great restaurant scene, and the city is clean and approachable. Maybe my favorite thing about Denver, though, is its accessibility to almost any type of outdoor activity you can imagine. It's the best of both worlds: city and country.

While most of our time in Denver was spent exploring the restaurant scene, we did manage to squeeze in a trip to Red Rocks Amphitheatre - can you imagine seeing a concert there?!

Once Taras's brother and our sister-in-law headed back home, Taras and I drove over to Golden, CO to meet up with a couple friends of mine from grad school. It was so fun to catch up with them, to meet their daughter, and to get a glimpse at this cute western town. But maybe the best part was heading back into Denver with them and sharing an amazing meal at root down.

Big hugs to everyone who showed us such a good time in the Denver area!

See more Colorado posts here.

Friday, June 27, 2014

Homer, AK

We drove all the way down to Homer on the Kenai Peninsula, a town known as both "the end of the road" and as the "halibut fishing capital of the world."

Our stop through town was brief - the weather had turned particularly chilly so we kept most of our exploring to looking out the car window. But even though our time in town was short, we could tell that a good time could easily be had here, with many restaurants, excursions, and cultural options to keep a visitor (or local!) busy.

Homer is also home to the Homer Spit, which is the longest road to go into the ocean in the world. This 4.5 mile multi-use trail allows for great viewing of the area's scenery and wildlife (and is the true end of the road on Alaska's Highway 1).

My favorite thing to come across was what seemed to be an old boat junkyard, where a lot of abandoned boats have gathered. We photographed these boats for way too long - neither of us could get enough of the gritty, old boats against the background of the grey sky.

See more Alaska posts here.