Is there anything better than being subjected to someone else’s vacation photos? Of course there is, but we promised you that there would be no days off at kerrydougherty.com and that when we went out of town we’d take you with us.

Welcome to Colorado in June.

Bring sunscreen, the rays are really intense out here because of the altitude, my friend warned a week or so before I left Virginia Beach.

Actually, it rained almost every day while I was in the Rocky Mountain State and when we got to the top of Pikes Peak, via the cog railway, it was 29 degrees and snowing.

Sunscreen? I needed mittens.

A cog railway is a railroad with a toothed central rail that engages with a cogwheel under the train, providing traction to climb steep mountains. Cog railways are found all over the world - the steepest is in Switzerland - but there are just two in the U.S.: one on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire and the other on Pikes Peak.

On a clear day you can see five states from the top of Pikes Peak, altitude 14,115 feet: New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and Oklahoma.

On the day we were there, you could see your feet.

Sun peeked out long enough to set prettily in Colorado Springs that evening, though!

Guess what appeared my last morning in Denver? Yep, the sun!

View from the roof of my hotel.

Oh, and my hotel had a rooftop pool. I planned to spend sunny afternoons there.

Never dipped in a toe! Never used my sunscreen…Had a marvelous time anyway!