Free At Last!

Hallelujah! Today we were finally able to experience Colorado Springs outside of the Carlson's neighborhood. Pitifully stranded without a car, Hunter proved to be a wonderful friend yet again and gave us his car to use for the weekend. After picking us up, Hunter made me drive around the area to point out some main roads and land marks. Even though I admitted that I was directionally challenged, Hunter decided that it would be best to enforce his teaching style of learning by making mistakes. With Caroline's help we did o.k. getting him back to his house and from there to Panera Bread for lunch downtown.
After eating we headed out for our first real adventure, to see Garden of the Gods. Driving through the park, we snapped pictures of the huge sandstone rock formations. Once we found the main entrance, we parked and walked through the trails to get an upclose look. While we explored, we got so excited about taking pictures to show everybody how cool the formations were, that we decided to go a little off the trail. Caroline walked about 2 feet off the path so that I could get a picture of her and quickly realized she had outrageously offended a local man. He began yelling and flailing his arms at her to get back on the path to which Caroline smiled and leisurely walked back with her head down. From then on we just asked other tourists to take our pictures for us, on the path of course.
Leaving the park, we saw a Starbucks close by and had to stop for a snack and some coffee. After looking back through our pictures and finishing up our snacks, we started heading home. As we were driving we stumbled upon Old Colorado City, a part of town we will now make a regular hangout. The colorful storefronts and cute old town feel caused us to immediately park the car and continue exploring! We walked the streets and pointed out restaurants we would need to come back to try with visitors and got into big trouble as we saw how many boutiques stood in front of us. Don't worry Mom, we only looked in a few and the best part is, the prices were awesome!
We finally pulled ourselves away and headed home for the night. Going along with this new independent and domestic lifestyle of ours, we cooked dinner. Shocking I know, at least for me. We made pasta and a fruit salad and finished off a great day with a movie.
Transportation, we love you.