One pretty, cool, unsettling trip

© 2012 Lydia Hinshaw

Above the treeline:  Trains pass each other at siding

View from the top

Eight miles downhill, it's in the 80s

 MANITOU SPRINGS, CO --  Things feel strange at 14,115 feet.

 Best I can recall, that's the highest I've ever been outside an airplane.  Saturday, Prince Charming and I did it by train.

 The low levels of oxygen atop Pike's Peak had me stumbling around in a semi-stupor.  I bumped into several people in the gift shop because I just couldn't think fast enough or move fast enough to sidestep individuals headed my way.  Hey, maybe they were bumping into me?

 Outside, I wandered around unsteadily, battered by a 32 mph wind.  I had two cameras with me, but couldn't seem to focus on making pictures.

 The Pike's Peak Cog Railway only gives customers about half an hour at the top. That was enough.  I was happy to get back down to 6,800 feet, where I felt human again.

 Every now and then the Prince and I venture as foot-soldiers into a field where we are accustomed to giving the orders.  It's interesting to us to be part of the hordes, instead of trying to manage the hordes, as we do in our summer jobs as bus drivers and tour guides.

 We could feel our conductor's pain as she asked -- repeatedly and with relentless politeness -- a couple of our fellow passengers to please sit down so the train could move.  They were English speakers and they were not deaf.  They just couldn't figure out that the amplified voice was speaking to them.  It's a phenomenon we observe often.

  Another familiar and amusing scene:  Many, many passengers boarding the train in shorts, tank tops, flip flops, and unencumbered by anything bigger than a cell-phone camera.  This in spite of verbal and written warnings of conditions at the top, which Saturday included temperatures in the mid-30s and win chills 10 degrees below that.

 The Prince and I went prepared.  He models his Pike's Peak wardrobe in the third picture.

 In a few weeks, we'll be the ones trying to convince our passengers that it's cold at the top.