Colorado Springs, Colorado-Garden of the Gods RV Resort

September 17-24, 2016

Whew! Colorado Springs kept us busy!! We had to be selective and pick the top few to fill our days.

First thing after parking the RV, we headed up Pike's Peak. We drove all the way to the top at 14,114 feet!  The altitude really makes you feel out of shape!

And it is no wonder that Katharine Bates was inspired to write America The Beautiful after visiting here.

The next day, we visited the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. It was beautiful and the kids really enjoyed themselves. We took the gondola across the gorge then walked the bridge back across. The bridge was built in 1929 and is 956 ft above the Arkansas river.

Jacob thought this was hilarious.

I tried to get a view from the bridge down to show just how far down that would be.

A fire destroyed all but one building and the bridge in 2013 so everything looks really new. They had a Playland area with a carousel and slides and towers.

But the kids favorite was the climbing wall. And since there was no one else wanting to climb when we went, they did it forever!

They also have a zipline across the gorge which looked REALLY awesome and a sky swing where they harness you in, pull you back and then you swing out over the gorge at 50 mph. Jordan and Greg were all set to do it but then we found out that Jordan is too skinny for the harness. Maybe in a couple years.

Up next was the Garden of the Gods. It was beautiful and very cool. The rocks are very narrow in some places and just stick straight up into the sky!

Then we checked out the Cliff Dwellings. The kids really enjoyed this. They were able to climb through some of the rooms and up a few ladders. I can't believe how tiny their one-room homes were! I couldn't even lay down straight in there, but of course, they were not as tall.

The kids and I did the rest of the activities on our own...

About 40 minutes away was the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument. Not a real big place but we learned about what types of fossils have been found in the different rock layers.

And I also learned that smooth edged leafs and saw-tooth edged leafs are found in different climates. So when they find leaf fossils that gives them one clue about the temperature environment at that time!

They have some REALLY big petrified tree stumps still preserved. When the Guffrey Volcano erupted, lahars flowed down into Florissant Valley and surrounded the trees to about the height of a small house. Over time, the tops of the rotted away. Minerals seeped into the stumps and petrified them. Here are a couple that are left today.

There was also a little homestead that we did a quick window peeking tour of.

Then we went to the Airforce Academy. We watched a video and toured a small visitor center about the life of a cadet. After watching the video which mainly focused on first year cadets, I asked Jacob if he wanted to be in the Airforce one day and it was a definite “No Way!”.

A nice surprise came shortly before lunch. We were able to watch all of the cadets line up in their squadrons while the band played and they proceeded in formation to the mess hall.

After that, we went to the Western Museum of Mining and Industry. I wasn't sure how I would like this but turns out it was quite good. They offer tours twice a day and so I made sure we made it in time for one. I don't think I would have really enjoyed it too much had we not. The tour guide did a great job and she included a lot of information about the roles of young boys (called nippers) in the mines which made it much more interesting for the kids. The young boys did some very “interesting” jobs like carrying the honeypot, carrying lanterns into tunnels where they were questioning whether the air was safe or not, preparing the dynamite fuse which was also explosive and hand-spreading the mercury over the the rocks for the amalgamation process!! All that fun for $1 a day!

Many of the engines and mining equipment pieces were still functional so she was able to turn them on so that we could see them in action and hear just how LOUD they were!

We all got a panning lesson as well and were able to keep what we found.

One last interesting thing was that the kids got to step inside one of the NASA designed spare escape pods that were used to rescue the 33 Chilean miners in 2010.

Then there was the Space Foundation Discovery Center. It was a fairly small museum but nice. They had scavenger hunts printed up and ready to help the kids explore. And right after we arrived they started a sphere presentation on the planets. It was pretty cool. The presenter gave some great information but the sphere itself was pretty interesting. It did not move, but the four projectors around the room made it appear that it was. Each planet could spin or even tilted to give different views. While not available to us on this day, it looks like they have some fantastic learning labs available to kids.

And lastly, we visited the Olympic Training Center and took a tour.   It was interesting to see the different training areas and hear about some of the every day life of the athletes.

Next up is Durango.