I first took her and her friends to Pike's Peak. Pike's Peak is a mountain in the Rocky Mountain Range that is over 14,000 feet above sea level. You can see it in the background in the picture below. We were at the visitor's center.
Zebulon Pike was the first American explorer to record the summit. However, he never had the chance to climb the peak. He actually only saw it from over 100 miles away. We were lucky. We did not have to hike the peak. Instead we drove a car on a twisting and winding road up to the peak. See the picture of the road below.
When we got up at the top, it was very difficult for this old gnome to catch his breath. Mrs. Fleenor had to carry be out to the edge of peak so we could take a picture. When humans and gnomes get so high in the air, the oxygen gets thinner. It is like it sinks to the bottom of the ground and there is very little for old gnomes like me to breath. This is the picture that Mrs. Fleenor took of me.
You can see that the top of this mountain is very rocky. It is not like the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia where there are a lot of trees at the top and the peaks are softer and rounded. Those mountains are older and eroded. Instead, these are newer mountains, made only about 100 million years ago. The Appalachians were made over 1 billion years ago.
We had a great time. Look at the smiles in the picture below! To read more about the history of Pike's Peak, visit: http://www.pikes-peak.com/Page/42.aspx
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