The hotel was built as a boarding house in 1886 and is full of antiques and everyone sits down for breakfast together under the porch at 8.30 sharp . This is French toast stuffed with cream cheese covered in fresh strawberries. Served with sausages.
The pattern of the weather has been the same for days: sunny and warm all morning, getting humid by the afternoon then absolute humdingers of thunderstorms with torrential rain and flash flood warnings. High up in mountains like this, the storms are spectacular. So we get out and about straight after breakfast and are holed up at the b and b as soon as the storms start, chilling in our enormous room - with 2 elegant drawing rooms available as well. I’ve been reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kinsolver and Steve’s reading short stories set in Wyoming by Annie Proulx.
Just up the road is Pikes Peak. You may wonder why, as it was named after Zebulon Pike who tried to climb it in 1806, there isn’t an apostrophe after Pike, before the ‘s’. Well, after a massive signage discussion in 1891, it was decreed that there should be no apostrophes on geographic names in the USA, so who am I to challenge policy?
So this guy Zebulon Pike decides to climb the mountain in mid November when the snow is waist deep. He gives up after a couple of days and says “I believe no human being could have ascended to its pinnacle.” Wrong! Someone climbed it in 1820, a woman climbed it in 1858, but my favourite has to be the guy in 1929 who went up on his hands and knees, pushing a peanut with his nose all the way to the top! He got through 3 pairs of shoes, 170 pairs of trousers, 12 pairs of gloves and 150 peanuts.
You can drive up to the top, go on the cog railway or if you are extremely mad do things like walk, run, cycle – or crawl up pushing a peanut with your nose. Guess which we did.
The pattern of the weather has been the same for days: sunny and warm all morning, getting humid by the afternoon then absolute humdingers of thunderstorms with torrential rain and flash flood warnings. High up in mountains like this, the storms are spectacular. So we get out and about straight after breakfast and are holed up at the b and b as soon as the storms start, chilling in our enormous room - with 2 elegant drawing rooms available as well. I’ve been reading The Lacuna by Barbara Kinsolver and Steve’s reading short stories set in Wyoming by Annie Proulx.
Just up the road is Pikes Peak. You may wonder why, as it was named after Zebulon Pike who tried to climb it in 1806, there isn’t an apostrophe after Pike, before the ‘s’. Well, after a massive signage discussion in 1891, it was decreed that there should be no apostrophes on geographic names in the USA, so who am I to challenge policy?
So this guy Zebulon Pike decides to climb the mountain in mid November when the snow is waist deep. He gives up after a couple of days and says “I believe no human being could have ascended to its pinnacle.” Wrong! Someone climbed it in 1820, a woman climbed it in 1858, but my favourite has to be the guy in 1929 who went up on his hands and knees, pushing a peanut with his nose all the way to the top! He got through 3 pairs of shoes, 170 pairs of trousers, 12 pairs of gloves and 150 peanuts.
You can drive up to the top, go on the cog railway or if you are extremely mad do things like walk, run, cycle – or crawl up pushing a peanut with your nose. Guess which we did.
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