City: Colorado Springs, CO
Distance travelled: 1451 miles
Total distance: 5,746 miles
Theatre: Pikes Peak Center

This Was my first time in Colorado and I wasn’t disappointed by the scenery which surrounded the town of Colorado Springs.  I opened the curtains to my hotel room when I woke up in the morning and was greeted with a beautiful view of Pikes Peak in the distance.  I treated myself to breakfast from room service and put my feet up and watched the sun come up.

 

 

This was the 4th city we had travelled to in 7 days so it was good to be planted in one place for a short time. It also gave the crew a little time to recover.

I made sure that I got out to see some of the nearby natural beauty which is so close to the city.  The Garden of the Gods was a place which came up with nearly everyone who heard I was going to Colorado Springs.  Myself  Tony, Terry and Jordan headed out to walk around the National Park.  It covers a much smaller area than I thought it would so we were able to hike around pretty much the whole thing in a few hours.  Check out the post I put up about it here.

 

 

 

I took some time on another day to go and look around the near by Manitou Springs.  It was a short cab ride from our hotel and picturesque small town.  I used Lyft to get over to town and had a great ride from a chap called Bill Monroe who, it turns out, used to make Mandolins for Gibson.  It was so interesting to talk to him about the process and how he got into it.

 

It was a little cold that day to wander around too much but I passed by the locally famous penny arcade which has hundreds of vintage pinball machines and arcade machines and Patsy’s Candy Shop.  Patsy’s was originally started by Irish immigrant Patsy Mehaney in 1903 and has ben around, despite some changes in ownership ever since.

 

Colorado Springs has quite a good music scene.  There are gigs and performances all over town.  I managed to squeeze in a turn at an open mic night one night.  It was a lot of fun and I was pleased to have a bunch of my colleagues come out and support.

I also managed to obtain a bottle of HP sauce from a very kind bar owner!  I offered to buy it from him but he was kind enough to give it to me as a gift.  We had a short but meaningful ceremony to make the handing over.