Cave of the Winds & Garden of the Gods

We spent Tuesday of our vacation in the funky little town of Manitou Springs. We did some shopping, played at the local park and then headed up the hill (way up the hill) to the cave of the winds. Manitou Springs is the town on the otherside of the bridge in this picture taken from the Cave of the Winds overlook.
The entrance to the cave - it's 54 degrees at all times in there. A bit different from the caves we have visited in Texas that average in the 80's with high humidity.

A cool cave picture. We took so many.

This is Laney walking through the lowest, narrowest passage in the cave.

Kat gets friendly with the bear at the entrance.

On Wednesday some friends from college drove down and joined us for a trip through the Garden of the Gods. This city park is a monument of natural sandstone formations.

We didn't hike as much as we'd have liked - Laney had some altitude side effects that slowed us down.

A totem pole:

You can't climb most of the rocks without equipment & permission, but there are a few that are open to the public. Like this one:

Above the hole the girls are sitting in is a path that led to where Rob is in this picture:

Here we are as a group, with one bushed toddler: