Chasing Clouds from Kansas to Pikes Peak

John Denver sings of golden windy Kansas wheat fields and long blue summer skies.  I like to think I might be crossing paths with where he penned that tune, somewhere between Kansas and Colorado.  Heading west, the hills rolled on ahead and the blue summer sky stretched for miles, only to be broken up by a few lazy clouds. 

I like those clouds.  They play hide-n-seek with the mountains somewhere in the distance.  It’s a game I have played since I was a kid; which one is a cloud and which one is a snowy peaked mountain.  Somewhere past Limon, Colorado the clouds lose and I’m greeted with the first glimpse of my destination, the Rockies.

I was destined for one mountain in particular, Pikes Peak. Rising 14,114ft from sea level, this Kansas boy was headed to the heavens.  And, there was only one way to get there - up.

Fighting unbelievably tight hairpin turns is the easy part. The real challenge for my car and I was the lack of oxygen.  The 996 was breathing well with it's twin turbos, I was not.  I pressed on. Turn after turn, cliff after cliff, I was constantly rewarded with beautiful God inspired views.

Reaching the top, and stepping out, my lungs filled with the chilled air of this majestic mountain.  I was standing in the clouds. They surrounded me. They enveloped me.  Everywhere I looked were hews of grey and white wisps of mist, filtering the sun's light into glimpses of small rainbows.  I knew that I had reached a very magical place somewhere in the clouds.