When Jim's college roommate, Dave, was in Colorado two weeks ago, he wanted to take the cog railway from Manitou Springs to the summit of Pike's Peak. Snobbish Colorado transplants that we've become, we thought it sounded a titch touristy (God forbid!), but we try to oblige visiting friends and family.
It proved to be the a wise decision: The road to Pike's Peak has no guardrails. Zip, zero, nada. (Note to my brother: No wonder Mom was livid when you and Mike D. swiped the car and drove up Pike's Peak during the debate tournament trip.) It was much easier to enjoy the scenery when none of us had to concentrate on driving, or, in my case, praying that Jim wouldn't launch the car over the edge. (After 18 months on mountain roads, he's become off-handed about switchbacks.)
Curiously, our alma mater was well represented on top of the world. Dave wore a Michigan baseball cap; I had on a UM sweatshirt. Two of the three people in the seats facing us on the train--seats that are reserved, by the way, so it wasn't our Wolverine regalia that caused them to sit with us--were Michigan grads; we chatted about the football team and swapped stories of running the Dexter-Ann Arbor race. And, rather wonderfully, at the summit, there was a little Wolverine theater of the absurd playing out as a guy in a UM t-shirt and cap showed the sights to his pal in a gorilla suit.
Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/Katharine.Gillette/PikeSPeak. Wolverine and gorilla shots courtesy of Dave.
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