15 miles of hiking trails wind through gloriously upended sandstone formations in Colorado Springs’ Garden of the Gods. Free to the public by decree of railroad magnate Charles Eliot Perkins, whose family donated the land to the city in 1909, the property was named as one of the nation’s top ten public places in 2011. With sites like these, it is easy to see why.
Within the last couple of weeks we’ve received enough questions about our RV, and how we chose it, that an entire post on the subject seems warranted. We haven’t spoken a lot about the nuts and bolts of RVing in the past, so this is a topic that is probably a bit overdue.
When we first decided to live in an RV fulltime it was something we knew absolutely nothing about. To be honest, we couldn’t tell a Class A from a 5th wheel from a cow. We had never owned so much as a pop-up trailer. Heck, we had never even spent a night in a camper of any kind. It took us about two months of hard research to go from zero to confident RV owners. This is how we decided on our specific rig:
Rocky Mountain National Park left us feeling breathless. Not because of the scenery, which is stunning, but because of the altitude.
For a couple of east-coasters whose home state averages an elevation of 246 feet above sea level, the heights of the park required some adjustment. Even a week in the “mile high city” didn’t acclimatize us enough for the Rockies’ 8,000 foot valleys and 14,000 foot peaks.
Our drive to the park took us through some of the most unbelievable scenery of our trip; winding through narrow granite canyons so tall they rose completely out of view. So mesmerized were we by the landscape that we barely noticed the relentless climb or the resulting lightheadedness that indicates altitude sickness. It wasn’t until after we stopped for a while that it really hit us.
We definitely felt rushed. It simply wasn’t possible for us to adequately cover the entire 356,000-square foot Denver Art Museum in the scant two hours allowed by our parking meter. In the time we had, we did manage to cover enough ground to appreciate DAM’s high quality collection and fabulously arranged display areas.
Here are just a few of the things that caught my fancy as we whizzed past:
Food has gone viral.
The surge in mobile bistros has given rise to the digitization of eateries. Sure, plenty of savvy restaurants have had a virtual presence for years, with slick websites promoting their fabulous fare. But when the kitchen has wheels, the entire establishment becomes virtual – here one moment and gone the next. Connecting with repeat customers isn’t as “simple” as providing great service and offering outstanding value; that’s a given. An even more basic neccessity is providing would-be patrons a way to find them.
