Although our primary reason for staying in this area was to visit with our son, Eric, he had a busy week scheduled between work and a weekend festival he had tickets to. So we had to squeeze a week’s worth of visiting into a few days. One night was spent having dinner together and the next couple of days we did an overnight trip to a couple of places west of Denver. We picked Eric up in the morning and…
We returned to Colorado on 7/23 and headed to a campground in Loveland. Amazing how hard it was to find a campground in the Denver area in July but we found a pretty descent one. I gave us one day of rest and then it was back to sight seeing. First stop was Rocky Mountain National Park. It wasn’t quite as spectacular as some of the other parks we’ve been to but it was nice and we had beautiful weather….
Next we went to a Renaissance festival they were having. Apparently it runs every weekend during the summer and turns out it was another thing Eric had been to before. If you’ve never been to a Renaissance festival and you’re not into role playing or dressing up in garb from a certain era it seem a little strange. Many of the people that attend these things really get into it. It’s not really our thing but we enjoyed the entertainment,…
After the Academy we went to visit the US Olympic training center. There are three around the country. One in Lake Placid that is mainly used for winter events, one in California, and the one we went to in Colorado Springs. This was very fascinating especially for Jamie as she once had aspirations of competing in the Olympics as a gymnast. We got about an hour tour of the facility and even ran across one of the male gymnast that…
Day 2 started with a tour of the Air Force Academy. We started with the base chapel which is world renowned and it didn’t disappoint. They have four sections. The main section is a Protestant or maybe non-denominational section. It was very large and had beautiful architecture and a huge organ in the back on the second level. The next level down had three more sections. One was for Catholic services, one was for Jewish services and the last was…
Next was a place called the Manitou cliff dwelling. We thought this was an actual Indian cliff dwelling but as it turns out it was built in the early 1900’s using stone from the actual cliff dwellings a couple hundred miles away. The stone was shipped by railroad by Dr. Edgar Hewett and reconstructed as a museum and tourist attraction. The original dwellings were built around 1200 bc by the Anasazi Indians. I was a little disappointed these weren’t the…
Next was the Garden of the Gods. A place our son Eric had visited recently that we had read about. Basically a bunch of unique rock formations. Was cool to look at but after some of the other parks we have visited like Bryce Canyon this one kind of paled in comparison. There was one unique formation that is kind of famous for being able to take a picture of Pike’s Peak through the hole in the rock. So of…
Next on the list was a place called Seven Falls. Nothing fascinating about this one other than it’s always fun to see large water falls. There were two sets of stairs you could go up to get a better view of the falls. They were both a couple hundred feet high and I forget how many steps. The first was to an overlook that sat across from the falls. That one had an elevator so we decided it would be…
We pulled into the Air Force Academy campground for 2 jam packed days in Colorado Springs, Co. We both had to work and we had to get the rv somewhere while we were both gonna be away for almost 2 weeks and they didn’t have availability there for that long so 2 days were all we could work out. Day 1 we hit 4 places. I have them listed separately in their own posts because each was worthy of quite…
The next morning Jim went to a place called Meow Wolf. A place that was recommended by a bar tender in Jerome, Az from the Haunted Hamburger and also by Jim and Cathy. We had a full day scheduled so he wanted to get there when it opened at 9am. Jim and Cathy had already been and Jamie couldn’t quite make the early wake up so he went alone. I guess the only way to describe this place is bizarre….
We pulled into Kirkland AFB in Albuquerue, NM for a visit with Jamie’s step parents. We got to play a round of golf at the resort where Cathy works but our initial stay was short lived. Jim had to go to work and Jamie decided to go visit Ashley who was in London doing some continuing work on her degree. We got back and the two Jims, Jamie and Cathy decided to do an overnight trip to Taos and Santa…