Seventy miles south of Denver on I-25, Colorado Springs was origi-nally developed as a vacation spot in 1871 by railroad tycoon William Jackson Palmer. He attracted so many English gentry to the town that it earned the nickname of "Little London." Despite sprawling for ten miles alongside I-25, modern Colorado Springs, a bastion of conservatism compared to liberal Denver, still retains much of Palmer's vision, thanks to a high military presence, fundamentalist religious organizations, the exclusive Colorado College and a well-to-do Anglo-American community.
Motorists whisk through the incredible Garden of the Gods , on the west edge of town off US-24 W, without bothering to get out of their vehicles. This gnarled, twisted and warped red sandstone rockery was lifted up at the same time as the nearby mountains (around 65 million years ago), but has since been eroded into finely balanced overhangs, jagged pinnacles, massive pedestals and mushroom formations. The visitor center , at the park's eastern border (tel 719/634-6666), has details on hiking and mountain biking trails. Hotels in Colorado Springs |