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This is the last of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 6:

We had 1 main event planned for this day, which was a late-ish start, so we had a slow morning. By this day though, we had adjusted to local time so it wasn’t a problem to not be early.

USAFA : US Air Force Academy

Well, first of all we noticed the construction happening just outside the entrance gate. A new hotel is coming soon. Then on through the gate and we went to the airfield overlook.

The airfield was a long ways from the gate. The academy is a big place. But anyway, we got there at a good time – the weather was good and the skies were clear so the cadets were doing all the activities they could. We got to see gliders being towed up, being released, and landing. We also got to see parachute practice – planes taking off, planes landing, and people jumping out, and people landing (some rougher than others).

Then we drove to the grounds overlook. The large white box is the chapel, closed until further notice for renovation.

The grounds are surprisingly open. We helped ourselves to the NCAA Div I athletic facilities (i.e. we walked on the track).

Then we wandered through the visitor center and gift shop. One of the things they’re constructing at the entrance (besides the hotel) is a new visitor center. So if you want to see the old visitor center before they retire it, go soon.

After that, we made our way to the planetarium.

We were there at a time when they were showing a movie rather than an astronomy show, but we did get to see a bit of astronomy stuff before the movie.

Then it was lunchtime. We drove back into downtown Colorado Springs, and our plan was to go to the fancy food court. We parked in the parking garage, walked a block or two to the storefront, and found it was closed because they close on Mondays.

So now we had a hungry family and no plan. After consulting our phones, we decided on an Asian place. After walking a block or two to there, we found it was basically carry-out only, and we wanted a place to sit and eat.

The grumbling increased.

We then decided on a Mexican place a couple blocks away. We walked there, and since it was a sit-down place and they could take us, we didn’t check anything else, such as menu or prices.

Don’t worry, that’s not foreshadowing – the menu had all the typical Mexican restaurant offerings, plus slightly more. And the prices were inline with other downtown places.

The food took a little while to get there, but of course that didn’t matter since they kept bringing us chips and salsa and drink refills.

Once the food did arrive, I would say it was worth the wait. Everyone thought the food was good, and not just good but much better than a typical Mexican restaurant. Like fresh ingredients and stuff. Some Wife is the type of person who is not impressed with restaurants because she can cook better for cheaper, so to have her comment on how good the place was meant something. And Delta told the waitress it was 11 stars out of 5. So, rave reviews of Jose Muldoon’s all around.

Then back to the house for a rest and to digest all the chips and salsa. We decided on one last activity in the evening – a hike at a GoG trail we hadn’t done yet.

GoG2 : Garden of the Gods again

We found a trail that was not too long and not too short. It also happened to be a horse trail, as you can see by the variety of shoeprints and hoofprints on the trail.

The views from the trail weren’t too different from other parts of the park, but it was still scenic.

The difference this time was that we were there later in the evening instead of the morning, so the light was different, and there was rain in places that we could see in the distance.

And there was more wildlife on this trail than we had seen earlier. That was probably a function of the different time and also fewer people on the trail.

We got back to our house to pack for leaving the next day, and that was it.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

Day 7:

We really had one main thing planned for this day – get home to Michigan. But we had some extra time to kill so we filled in with an extra activity.

DR : Dinosaur Ridge

We had breadkfast, cleaned the house, packed the van, made sure nobody left anything in any room, then we left. Checkout was 11 but we were out of there shortly after 10.

Because I don’t like the uncertainty of traffic, we had decided to find an activity in Denver rather than Colorado Springs. There is a lot to do in Denver, but I wanted to find something we couldn’t do at home (zoo, museum) or didn’t already do in Colorado Springs (mountains, hiking).

That left dinosaur tracks. Denver has Dinosaur Ridge, which is a place with fossilized dinosaur prints. There’s a business that’s setup to run tour buses to take you up and down the I think 2 mile trail, for a fee. Or you can park and walk for free, so that’s what we did.

It was very hot, and very dry, and very windy. The complaints started pretty quickly, as it is a bit of a walk to the first artifacts. If you’re going to walk it, be ready for a half mile of walking uphill.

One of the things that bothered me, was this sign.

How can the rocks fall on you from the left, when the cliff is on the right?

They had a display of ripples on the sea floor that were petrified. Or fossilized. Not sure the right term.

And then lots of dinosaur tracks. They seem to have enhanced them by coloring them darker than the surrounding rocks.

It was somewhat interesting, especially because it was free and was nearby. Not exactly on the way, but something memorable so it was worth the short stop.

Lunch : Lunch

We had packed lunches to eat on the way. Since we still had a bit of time, we thought a good plan was to stop at a park in Denver and sit and eat there, rather than in the rental van.

We also thought it was a good idea to drive for a little bit, get closer to the airport and also keep our stomachs full later since dinner wasn’t going to be until after we landed in Detroit.

The only problem was that there aren’t that many parks near the airport. So we picked one in the middle of Denver on the way to the airport.

Probably not the best choice.

We had to drive about 3 blocks off the freeway to the park, and the houses and the church we passed had bars on the windows. We pulled into the parking lot and there were two minivans, looking very much like they were occupied by homeless guys. Plus there was a shabby-looking guy sleeping on the ground not too far (i.e. about 20 feet) from where we parked.

So we drove back a block to where there was a community pool and some picnic tables. We sat and ate, and it was fine. On our way back to the freeway, since it was just a few exits from the airport, I also filled up the minivan.

DEN : Denver Airport

Then back on the freeway and to the airport. I took the exit (off I-70, to avoid tolls) for the Denver airport, and we drove for miles and miles before checking the map and concluding that yes, we were on the right road. If you haven’t been to the Denver airport, it is way out of the way. We finally made it to the rental return and the gas gauge still said Full. Then we hopped on the shuttle bus for a ride of a couple more miles to get to the terminal. Then we were met with this sight:

The lines to get through security were the longest lines in an airport that I ever remember seeing. In the whole lobby, the line snaked back and forth, all the way back to the entrance doors. It took a while, but we made it through eventually (and without incident, unlike on the way out when the X-ray machine found the can of bug spray that was accidentally left in a bag and thus was confiscated).

We found our gate, and sat down to wait out the next 2 hours. I had a book to read, so no problem. But first, I had to get the seats assigned. Because we had the cheap seats, we just had boarding passes and needed the gate agent to give us our seat assignments.

It was 2 hours until the flight, a little early but that’s not usually a problem. I went up to the agent and she said she was working the arrival flight and I needed to wait for the next agent.

The flight from Detroit arrived, which was good because that’s the plane they clean and refuel and send back to Detroit. The other agent also appeared, so I checked with him and he printed off some tickets with seats assigned for me.

It was odd, each time I had to get seats printed off, the procedure was more relaxed than I expected, because they never asked for boarding passes or ID or anything, just verify my name.
Me: “Hi, I’m here to get seats assigned.”
Gate Agent: “Oh, are you Some Guy?”
Me: “Yes I am.”

It seemed to me that I could have easily passed for anyone else. But chances are the only other people who don’t have assigned seats at that point are in the cheap seats like we were, so it’s not like I’d get any sort of an upgrade. Plus no one else is flying with 6 people, so we’d still have to check in as ourselves to get enough tickets.

At this point I had new boarding passes, and I made sure everyone had everything ready to go, since boarding would start soon.

Half an hour before flight time, and people were lining up. We didn’t get too excited, since we board last. But the odd thing was that the gate person never announced that boarding was starting.

Finally, as people were milling about in front of the gate, the gate agent got on the loudspeaker and announced “We are sorry, but the 3:00 flight to Detroit is cancelled.” It was interesting seeing everyone (including myself) go through the five stages of grief in the span of a few minutes.

Denial? Definitely – no way can they cancel the flight 30 minutes before takeoff. The announcement itself was hard to hear, because it’s an airport loudspeaker. So the information was being spread by word of mouth, and as soon as someone heard it, they immediately looked up the flight info on their phone just to make sure it really was true.
Anger? – Don’t they know we have to get home?
Bargaining? – Look, that other flight is going to Grand Rapids and they’re boarding now. Oh, it’s another airline. Can I get somewhere else? Can I rent a car instead?
Depression? – well, I guess we’re stuck here.
Acceptance? – They rebooked us for 8pm. Everyone make yourself comfortable for a few hours.

So this was our second vacation home of the trip:

We got food vouchers from the airline, since they stranded us. Others who got rebooked for the next day also got hotel vouchers. Note: the vouchers are single-use only, so if you don’t spend at least $15 then you’re leaving free money on the table. So Beta came back from his choice of restaurant with an extra bottled water, just to full up his voucher.

Here’s what I got: a sandwich and a shake from Quiznos. It was about $16.50, so I had to throw in a little bit of my money.

Everybody ate, the food wasn’t too bad, and we eventually made it on the 8pm flight. To Salt Lake City, where we had a layover before getting on an after-midnight flight to Detroit.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day, all while we were flying.

So that travel day started at 10am Colorado time and we got back to our home about 7am Michigan time. That’s a long time with about 30 minutes of uncomfortable sleep total. But we made it home.

The End.

This is the fifth of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 5:

We had 2 main events planned for this day, which started early again. First, Pike’s Peak, which bills itself as “America’s Mountain”.

PP : Pike’s Peak

Pike’s Peak wasn’t too far from the house, I think about 20-25 minutes to get there. We got to the base of the mountain (the entrance gate) about 9:00. Then it was a slowish drive up the mountain. The whole road is 19 miles, but because of limited parking at the top, they make you but a parking pass for the top and it’s for a specific time. We went with the alternative, which is drive 16 of the 19 miles, park at a larger lot, and take the shuttle bus the rest of the way for free. Well, free other tha hte gate admission we paid at the bottom.

The drive up didn’t really need a speed limit, because anyone with a minimum amount of self-preservation would take these curves carefully anyway.

Because of the switchbacks, half the time we were on the inside of the curve (nice) and half the time we were on the outside of the curve (tense). Oddly enough the tense feeling of feeling too close to the edge was there on the way up but not so much on the way down. Either I was more used to driving on the mountainside, or maybe the effort of thinking about braking distracted from the thought of going over the edge.

The lower part of the mountain wasn’t so drastic; there weren’t such cliffs close to the road. But the upper part, which was a few miles long, was nerve-wracking.

I didn’t get a picture of the shuttle buses, but they were school buses, and the drivers were school-bus drivers who took this gig for the summer. I thought it was bad driving a minivan up the mountain, but at least it wasn’t a school bus.

Oh, if you didn’t want to take the shuttle bus, you did have the option of hiking or biking those last 3 miles. One thing that amused me was the sight when we got to the top – a small tour bus that people were just getting out of and they were wearing biking gear. Apparently you can hire a ride up to the top of Pike’s Peak so that you can bike down.

With my driving, then our getting on the shuttle bus and riding the last 3 miles, the total time from entrance gate to walking into the visitor center was 1 hour.

We took a quick tour of the visitor center, then walked around outside. They have a sidewalk that circles the parking lot and lets you see from all sides of the summit. This is what the ground looks like at the top:

The first area outside the visitor center is a popular place for people to go scrambling over the rocks.

If you look closely at the above picture, you can see some people out there, in the center/right section. That’s what I’m calling the closer ridge. Now here’s a picture that I zoomed in on the farther ridge, and I circled where Beta ended up.

And here is a view from a slightly different angle. Lots of good views from the top of Pike’s Peak.

Then we got to the official summit marker, and I couldn’t tell why they chose this particular rock out of all the others lying around to be the summit.

After all, I could have taken any of the other rocks and stacked it nearby and made a slightly higher summit. There must be some reason, but I couldn’t find it. The summit is well marked though, and a popular place for photos, like the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” sign.

We finished up by stopping at the gift shop and the restaurant. The main attraction there is the donuts, which were tasty. They are supposed to be a special recipe adapted for the high altitude, and rumor has it they will deflate at lower altitudes. So Delta bought an extra donut to take down the mountain and see if that really happens. Here is the before picture, taken right as we got in the van after being taken back in the shuttle bus.

Then begain the drive down, which as I said was not as white-knuckled as the drive up. There was still plenty of opportunities to get into trouble though, like taking this turn too fast.

We were planning on staying out all day and eating the lunch we packed. As we were driving, we were discussing when and where to eat.

Then we came to the brake-check station about halfway down. We failed the test, so we had to pull over and wait 30 minutes, so we took that time to eat our lunch. Everyone has to stop at this shack, due to the stop sign. There a park ranger has a non-contact thermometer that she pointed at the front brake rotor. The threshold is 300 degrees F, and we were just above 400.

There’s a large parking lot, and some picnic tables, and a gift shop area, so it was a nice place to have our lunch. From where we were sitting, we had a good view of the brake temperature check stop. It seemed that vehicles with more than 2 people usually failed, and vehicles with 1 or two people usually passed. Driving down Pike’s Peak is the perfect opportunity for a hybrid or electric vehicle with regenerative braking.

Also, it seems to be on the honor system. As I was watching other people being stopped, I noticed the ranger would tell someone that they failed, then she went on to the next car. There was no one ensuring that we stayed in the parking lot for the 30 minutes. And when we left we didn’t have to go back through the temperature check.

But I had no reason to put anyone in danger, so we followed the instructions. After a few miles, we came to the Crystal Reservoir. It was being remodeled or something, so they had drained it and it was not as scenic as it should have been.

Then we got to the end and left Pike’s Peak. We had aleady eaten our lunch, so our next stop was Manitou Springs, as it was on the way home.

MS : Manitou Springs

Manitou Springs is a tourist town, built upon the several mineral springs that occur naturally there. The springs were natural, but they have had fountain-type things built around them so they don’t seem it.

Our plan was to stop at the town visitor center and get our free cups, then drive to the middle of town and walk to the various springs. The visitor center went fine, but then finding a parking space in town was very difficult.

Manitou Springs likes their parking revenue, and they have a lot of spots, but they were all full. The first lot we tried was full, the street parking around that was full, and I finally found a spot the next block over.

We walked to the first spring, which was just outside a gazebo. It didn’t have much of a taste, just plain water.

Then we walked to the next spring, and it tasted nasty. As we walked from spring to spring (all the rest tasted nasty too), we passed by a lot of downtown shops. Like a good tourist town, there were multiple T-shirt shops, ice cream shops, souvenirs shops, art gallery, restaurants, etc.

It was hot, so we skipped the last two springs because they were farther away, and we headed back to the car, stopping to get ice cream along the way. Some Wife wanted a slushie thing instead of ice cream, so she went to the slushie shop next door, but they were out of ice.

We got back to our house in time to make dinner, and that was it for the day.

And if you’re wondering if the Pike’s Peak donuts deflate when taken to a lower altitude, I’m still wondering that myself. Delta ate that experiment before we got there.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

To Be Continued…

This is the fourth of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 4:

We had 2 main events planned for this day, which started early again. First, hitting up the farmer’s market.

OCCFM : Old Colorado City Farmer’s Market

Some Wife wanted fresh food for parts of some meals, so we didn’t buy everything from the grocery store. She had researched area farmer’s markets and found this one in Old Colorado City, which was about halfway between our house and downtown Colorado Springs.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the closest parking lot was free, as in no cost. That is a distinction from downtown Colorado Springs. We walked over about a block and there was the farmer’s market.

We wandered around for a while. The food vendors took up all the main square, and the arts and crafts people took up a smaller space the next block over.

One of the items we got was a bag of fresh peaches. And they were just about perfect.

Michigan has peach trees, but even peaches fresh off the tree here aren’t quite up to the level of Colorado peaches.

We were supposed to spend the morning there, then have lunch, then go hiking. But we got done quicker than we thought, so decided to go hiking now before it got too hot.

We stopped by the house to grab some snacks and I think some people needed to change footwear.

HHF : Helen Hunt Falls
Our goal was to hike around Helen Hunt falls, and maybe some of the Seven Bridges trail. It was about a 20-30 minute drive to the parking lot. We didn’t have the clearest idea of the parking arrangement. I had looked at a map ahead of time, so I knew about where to go, but there were so many switchbacks that I lost track of where exactly we were. We ended up at a parking lot that looked like the last place for vehicles to go, and it was full. So if you go hiking in that area, get there before 10am. We got there about 10:30 and we circled the lot once and found a spot at the end of a row, just barely beating another car coming around from the other aisle.

I had thought there would be a welcome area at this lot, or at least a sign with a map and a “You are here” marker. But there was nothing, and no cell service so we couldn’t look up where to go. We saw a sign that said “Helen Hunt Trail” so we went that way.

We didn’t quite know what we were getting into, but it was a quick introduction. The path was narrow and the sides were steep. This picture doesn’t do it justice.

The sides weren’t as steep as they could be because it was all loose material. If it was rocky it could have been more of a dropoff. But it was still disconcerting for certain family members.

But after a short bit, the trail changed from a long slide if you stepped off the path to having more things to break your fall, such as vegetation and switchbacks, like this.

But the views were nice on the trail.

After a long, hot hike down the trail, we ended up at a part of the road we had passed on our way to the parking lot. There was some parallel parking on the side of the road, for a picnic area. I think most of us were thinking “Ah, we could have parked there” but the point of this excursion was to hike, so we would have done less hiking. Plus it was all downhill, so better that than all uphill.

This picnic spot was at the river, so the valley of this area. We followed the river upstream, and eventually got to an overlook area.

In this next picture you can see across the way where we started – the road and trail. It doesn’t look too far, but that’s as the crow flies. The actual hike was a winding path down to the valley (to the right) and then back up.

A short hike around the corner from this overlook was the actual falls, which were rather unimpressive. Perhaps spring is a better time to view the falls if you want a decent amount of water.

And then the visitor center was right there, not far from the picnic area. The older kids and I hiked back up to the parking lot, and Some Wife and the younger kids waited at the visitor center, since we’d have to drive right past the visitor center on our way out anyway.

It was a bit of a workout, since our goal was to get back so we were moving briskly. We got to the van, and the parking lot was just as packed as ever. We made someone’s day because he had just pulled into the lot as we approached our van so we pulled out and he got a spot.

There’s not much room at the visitor center, so I pulled in front of an empty handicap spot and put on my flashers. The others were waiting and came right out – only had one truck stuck behind me for a minute while we loaded.

We got back in time for a late lunch at home. But then we had nothing else planned for the whole afternoon and evening. I got some reading done, and after so much relaxing I had to get everyone out for an activity.

Scheel’s : Scheel’s
We decided to go to Scheel’s, on the north side of Colorado Springs, near USAFA. For those not familiar with Scheel’s, think of a Cabela’s and double it.

It started with walking through an aquarium with 3 connected arches.

That’s comparable to a Cabela’s.

But after the aquarium comes the indoor Ferris wheel.

There was a small cost to ride, and there was a long line, so we skipped it. Scheel’s has all the various outdoor equipment and clothing and stuff, but they also have toys and home goods and a candy shop and an arcade. It was like a shopping mall, but one big store. Delta liked the arcade because someone left some money in the Big Buck Hunter game so he got to shoot some things.

There’s also a float plane hung from the ceiling. The perspective doesn’t make the plane look that big, but it is a real, full-size plane.

And they had an animatronic Abraham Lincoln giving the Emancipation Proclamation (which as far as I know has nothing to do with Colorado) and they had an animatronic football player. Plus they have a full-scale diorama of wildlife on a mountainside, similar to Cabela’s. But they don’t have a river with fish, like Cabela’s does.

We did end up buying a couple things – Delta got some candy at the candy shop and a small stuffed animal. Then it was dinnertime so we went to the house and had dinner, enjoyed a quiet evening and then went to bed.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

To Be Continued…

This is the third of a series. You can also read about the first part of our trip to Colorado here.

Day 3:

We had 2 main events planned for this day, which started early again. First up, hiking Garden of the Gods.

GOG : Garden of the Gods

The rental house was conveniently located just a few minutes from GoG, so we swung by there to see do some hiking. We opted for an early-ish start, so that we would be able to get a parking spot.

We picked a spot based on the handy map we had. The first trail was the main paved trail, Central Garden Trail. Most of the views looked like this, and it stayed around the base so it was fairly flat.

But there was one section/shortcut between the large rock formations that reminded me of a Star Trek set from the 1960s.

That was the most populated section of the park, as there’s direct access from the visitor center to that trail.

We got back in the van and drove to the south end of the park and then we hiked the Siamese Twins trail. We saw only a few other people. This trail was not paved, and sometimes there wasn’t a trail, and there was a bit of elevation change, so it was a good excursion, as the boys could scramble over rocks and explore.

The elevation of the Siamese Twins rock formation allowed for some good views of the surrounding area.

As per tradition, Delta took a bit of a tumble and scraped up his knee. The parking lot for the Siamese Twins trail is not far from the GoG Trading Post (AKA gift shop), which was friendly enough to give us a couple bandages from their first aid kit. The scrape wasn’t too deep, but it was wide. We rinsed it off with a bit of bottled water and put the bandage on and he was okay.

Our last stop on the GoG morning hiking tour was Balanced Rock, also just around the corner from the Trading Post.

This was a very popular stop, lots of people around. Not much hiking, basically walk 50 yards to the balanced rock formation, get some pictures, then walk back to your parking spot.

Maybe we could have found some more hiking at Balanced Rock, but it was lunch time so people were looking to go home not hike more.

So we made the short drive home, had lunch there, relaxed for a bit, then it was on to our afternoon activity.

GEC : Glen Eyrie Castle

The GEC was even closer to our house than GoG was. I had bought tickets about 2 weeks ahead of time for a castle tour, as they’re only at certain times and possibly sell out. So we showed up just before 2:00 for our tour.

The tour was supposed to last 90 minutes, but it was more like 2 hours. The tour was not what I was expecting. I have been on tours of old houses, mansions, estates, plantations, and castles before. This was not like any of those.

It starts out in the carriage house with a video that has probably been around since the VHS days. That gives a bit of history of the guy who had the castle built – Mr. Palmer. Then the tour guide comes into the room (we were 6 of about 24 people on the tour, and the small room was full) and explained a bunch more about Palmer, plus a little bit about the Navigators organization.

The we walked outside, up the road from the carriage house to the castle itself, getting more of a history of the grounds and of Palmer.

We stopped in the foyer of the castle, getting some more history of the castle and of Palmer. The we went upstairs to a hallway. We couldn’t go into the rooms because it is a functioning hotel and all the rooms were booked.

Then we went into another hallway that led to the great room or ballroom or whatever it was called. We got some more history lessons, then we went outside to the porch/fountain area and the tour was over. I’d say it was 2/3 about Palmer and 1/3 about the building.

Mr. Palmer like advances in technology, and the castle had the first of a lot of things – first telephone system west of the Mississippi, first ice cream machine west of the Mississippi, early adopter of electricity, etc. He did have an interesting life, but if you do go on the tour just be aware that it is not 90 minutes of touring a castle.

Then we went back to our house, had dinner, and relaxed for the evening.

Then it was evening, then morning the next day.

To Be Continued…

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…