DAY 37: Manitou Springs, CO - My Honda Man Is A Harley-Want-A-Be....

Tuesday, July 7 - Manitou Springs, CO

YEA!  I talked Chuck into 1 more day here.......we were scheduled to leave tomorrow and start heading home, but I convinced Chuck that we could stay one more day and still stay on schedule.  I have a big motorcycle ride planned for him tomorrow!  The biggest problem was talking the manager of the RV park, Margie, into letting us stay.  She was full up with more coming.  We just love staying at this Park mainly because of Margie and Chris, the managers.  They are, hands down, the nicest managers of an RV park we've ever met.  But she told us to go ahead and run our errands and do what we had planned for today and she was going to see what she could work out.  She was talking about moving a smaller RV from a larger spot and putting them somewhere else and moving us into their larger spot, etc.  It was incredible what they were willing to do to make this work out for us.  When we got back home a few hours later, she met us outside and said it all worked out.  So, we're good to stay one more day.......I'm not ready for vacation to end.....

First stop; Wal-Mart of course.  Chuck had some prescriptions that needed to be filled, so off we went to our second home, Wal-Mart.  Chuck stayed on the trike while I went to drop them off.   When I got back to the trike, he was talking with some dude from Virginia who was yacking about how great it was to be from the south and how these Colorado people don't like or appreciate people from the south and that his lady boss had withheld his check because he was from the south and that S. American people were the same way.....blah blah blah......I think he was a little, what we call in the south, "simple".  Could not get away from this guy.  I put my helmet on; he's still talking.  Started up the trike; he's still talking.  Told him to have a good day; he's still talking.  Told him goodbye; he's still talking.  Started to drive away; he's still talking.  

Anyway, Chuck wanted to head to this huge Harley store in Colorado Springs.  He's been chomping at the bit to go there and check out what they had since we've been here.  On a side note, you need to know how hard this is for my guy, Charlie, to be on a Honda instead of a Harley.  I truly feel for this guy.  He is a Harley rider at heart and here he is on a Honda trike.  Not that he's complaining, cause he's not, but in his heart of hearts, he so badly wants to be able to ride a regular Harley and he goes in and out of convincing himself that he can, yet he knows he shouldn't.  For those of you who don't know Chuck that well, he has MS (Multiple Sclerosis) and has no feeling in his legs.  His balance is practically non-existent, yet he refuses to give in to this.  So you can see that even though he knows the reality of this is he can no longer ever ride a 2 wheel motorcycle, his heart and mind so desperately wants to.  Bless his heart......I wish I knew how to help him.  I have told him we could get a Harley trike, yet, that's not what he ultimately wants.  He wants that feeling of riding a big, loud, chromed out two wheeled Harley where you can lean hard on the curves and look cool wearing leather.

So, he left the Harley store a little sad.  Thought I'd cheer him up by going to Arby's.  He loves Arby's.  So he got a roast beef sandwich and felt much better!  We then headed up for our 1:20 reservation to the Pikes Peak Cog Railway to take the train up Pikes Peak.  We have driven the road up Pikes Peak last October on the motorcycle which was WAY cool....but thought we'd try the train this time to see it from a different view.  Well, we got there early as they requested and discovered the 1:20 train had been canceled due to mechanical failure.  Ugh........so they put us on the 4:00 train.  Now this train ride is 1 1/2 hours up and 1 1/2 hours down with a 45 minute wait at the peak.  We went back to the RV, walked Murphy, who, by the way, is VERY attached to his John McCain doll; went and had another ice cream downtown and then headed back over to the train.  Finally got on and what a lovely ride up the 14,000+ mountain.

Once we got home, it looked like they were having an RV Social Hour around the park....everyone was sitting out visiting and so we jumped right in the middle of it and met a bunch of new people and visited with the old ones we knew.    Just a lovely evening!!

Tomorrow is a full day of riding on the motorcycle......Hope to have some awesome pictures to share with you and great stories to tell!