Day Five was the last full day of our week in Colorado Springs. I had a late-morning appointment that left me with an hour or so to waste after hotel breakfast #4. I scoped out my options on the east side of town and decided to hang out at Palmer Park, nothing I’d heard of before my vacation research. It’s a plot of land slightly smaller than Central Park, but encapsulating all the Rocky Mountain scenery I’d been exploring and driving around all week. The best part was, the petite peaks of Palmer Park were a picnic to perambulate.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

Each year my wife and I take a road trip to a different part of the United States and see what sorts of historical landmarks, natural wonders, man-made oddities, unexplored restaurants, and cautionary tales await us. From November 1-6, 2015, we racked up a number of personal firsts. My wife Anne was invited on her first business trip to Colorado Springs, all expenses paid from flight to food to lodging to rental car, to assist with cross-training at a distant affiliate. Her supervisor gave me permission to attend as her personal travel companion as long as I bought my own plane ticket and food. I posted one photo for each of the six days while we were on location. With this series, we delve into selections from the 500+ other photos we took along the way.

There’s no charge to pull into Palmer Park, park in the section of your choice, and just hike or climb or stumble or just sit on rocks to your heart’s content. But heading upward is more fun.

Some formations all but welcomed humanity to explore its upper reaches via conveniently stair-shaped paths. Some parts required a bit more effort, careful searching for footholds, and balancing against large objects with dirt on them.

A few landmarks are distinct enough to have earned their own nicknames, but I’m not sure I found any of them. What you’re seeing here is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of Palmer Park. But it’s the fraction I saw and is therefore the greatest fraction of them all.

And the view isn’t bad. Toward the east, there’s the contrast between autumn and evergreens.

Toward the southwest, the evergreens win the landscape and mask most of the Rockies, except for our old friend Cheyenne Mountain far off yonder.

And to the south, our rental car waits patiently for me to hurry up and come back down, preferably without getting my arm trapped under a large rock or inviting a vicious wildlife attack. Fortunately I only saw one small bird and one other college-age guy on walkabout for reasons known only to him. Both creatures kept their distance and their own counsel.

To be continued!

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