This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Summer Break 2022, Part 2
Aug
3
2022
This is the second of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.
Day 1: Travel
We were out the door about 10:30am to get to the airport. Most of the packing was done the night before, and we had basic checklists for everyone. The main thing was that everyone had a carryon-size luggage plus a small backpack, so we had no checked luggage.
No pictures of the flight, which was unremarkable, which is a good thing. My headphones didn’t work, so I took one of the free headphones compliments of Delta. I chose to watch Uncharted, which finished about 5 minutes before landing, so that was a perfectly-timed movie.
The shuttle bus from Denver airport to the car rental facility seemed to take forever (how big is this airport grounds?), but we eventually made it there. It took them a long while to find our minivan, while we waited in the thin and very hot air. They drove it out to us, soaking wet as they just washed it, and we loaded up and headed out. Traffic was fine, and we made it to Colorado Springs with no trouble.
Here is a shot from the van, our first view of the mountains.
First stop was Costco for much of our food for the week, plus dinner for half the family. The other half of us got dinner from Noodles which was just around the corner from Costco. That was the exit for our rental house, so we drove a few miles to the other side of town and unloaded everything.
After eating and somewhat settling in, we had to go to the local Safeway for the rest of our groceries. Thanks to the convenient pick-up option, I pulled in and someone brought me the groceries. She was from New Jersey, which I learned because she was excited to see Pennsylvania license plates. I burst her bubble when I said it was a rental and we were from Michigan. But she moved to CO about 15 years ago and just loves it.
We got back to the house and the boys made themselves at home. Because the house had a fenced-in yard, the trees had low branches (deer nibble away our branches). So Delta was glad to have a tree he could climb.
Everyone went to bed at a decent time because of jet lag. Then it was evening then morning, the next day.
Day 2:
We had 3 main events planned for this first day, which started early. First up, seeing what Garden of the Gods was about.
GOGVC : Garden of the Gods Visitor Center
The rental house was conveniently located just a few minutes from GoG, so we swung by there to see the main view and to grab some brochures and figure out what trails we wanted to hit later in the week. The visitor center has a nice overlook of the main features.
And here is a closer look at the one rock formation.
Then we left and headed straight to our next event.
USOPM : United State Olympic and Paralympic Museum
The USOPM required us to buy tickets in advance, for a specific time. I chose the opening time, 10am, because I knew we’d be mostly on Michigan time so early stuff wouldn’t feel so early.
They have quite the process down at the USOPM. You get lanyards as your ticket, and it has an RFID unique to you. You can choose to enter your info to the system, so the various stations can greet you by name, or not enter info, in which each station will greet you by your lanyard number.
One of the first things you get to see is a collection of torches from the various Olympics. Those were interesting.
They had a number of interactive items – an archery simulator, a luge simulator, a couple other simulators. Plus a track simulator – it was just a short section of track but they time you and you can compare your statistics to various Olympians. Beta and Delta raced, and they fell a bit short of Jesse Owens’ times.
The architecture of the museum is such that all the exhibit spaces surround a central atrium. You start by going up the elevator to the top (3 or 4 stories up), then you wind your way down to the bottom in a spiral. There aren’t specific floors, everything just flows down gradually via ramps. Anyway, there are various places that are basically little balconies to look into the atrium. And one wall of the atrium is a very tall screen that displays various Olympians.
Near the end of the tour, they had a display covering what happened to the Israeli delegation during the 1972 Munich Olympics.
After that was a wall of medals from each Olympics, then the tour ended at a movie theater, where they showed a 10-minute film about the hopes and dreams and work that goes into becoming an Olympian. Up until going into the movie theater, we were free to walk wherever, go back and forth between exhibits. But the movie theater is the end of the line. Once you go in there, the exit takes you into the gift shop and then you’re back in the atrium and you’re done.
That took us about 2 hours, so it was noon and we were ready for lunch. I should note that I parked in a parking garage more in downtown. It was a few blocks away from the museum but closer to restaurants. Here is the view from the parking garage. That’s the Pioneer Museum in the background.
We didn’t have a plan, other than let’s walk through downtown and see what restaurant looks good. That did not work so well, as people were hungry and it was hot. So we had to stop and look at our phones to see what restaurant we should aim for. Alpha found a breakfast place, and it had some other things around it, so we headed there.
It looked a bit pricey, and didn’t have a bunch of options, and a wait to be seated, so I checked out the deli next door. Just about as pricey, but a lot of options and no wait. So we went there.
The food was good, portions were large, the only drawback was even though there was no wait to be seated, it did take a while for our food to come out. I’m not sure if that’s because we were a party of 6 or if they make everything by hand so it takes a while or what the reason was. But the waitress was attentive and at the end of the meal Delta told them he gave the place 7 stars out of 5.
Then we went back to the house and relaxed for an hour or two before heading over to Some Wife’s cousin’s house.
PPOBR : Pike’s Peak or Bust Rodeo
Our cousin happened to get tickets to the rodeo for our family and his family. So we spent a couple hours at his house, chatting and having dinner, then we went across town to the rodeo.
This was the first night of the rodeo, I think they were there 4 days or so. We got there just as it was starting, so all the official parking was taken and we had to find a neighboorhood and park on the street in front of someone’s house.
We got in, and got settled in our seats. Well, not exactly our seats, as some other people were in our spots. So we sat down nearby and no one ever came to claim them so we stayed there the whole time.
There were several events, from calf roping to bronco riding to barrel racing and finalizing with the bull riding.
Here’s a bucking horse:
And between each event, there was a commercial break. At the rodeo, this means that a couple people ride around the stadium carrying flags of the sponsor.
A big deal was made about the rodeo clown. He was introduced at the beginning of the night and he did a couple of things for entertainment purposes. But he only did his actual rodeo clown deal at the end of the night for the bull riding.
I don’t recall he had to do much, but he was there. He’s like an insurance policy I guess – most of the time you don’t need him but if you do then he had better be there.
It was about 10:00 when we got out of there, so midnight in Michigan, so we went back and slept well.
Then it was evening, then morning the next day.
To Be Continued…
Then you shall bring the bull in front of the tent of meeting, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.
Exodus 29:10
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:11 am and has been carefully placed in the Travel category.
August 14th, 2022 at 12:11 am
My last PPOBR, I chose bust: on the bus ride there was the first time I broke my nose.