Day Trip

This last weekend we decided to turn our feet south and explore the Colorado Springs area of CO. We made three stops - well, actually four stops, the fourth was rather spontaneous - and had a lovely day of it!

Stop #1: Garden of the Gods.

Sophie and I at the Visitor's Center (that's Pike's Peak in the background)

Sophie thought this buffalo statue at the Visitor's Center was the coolest - giddy'up!
Bryce and I in front of just one of the amazing rock formations within Garden of the Gods.
(I think this picture is better, but there's a random person in it.)

Bryce and Sophie attempt to hold up Balanced Rock - what strength! Superman would be impressed

Ta-da!

Sitting on a ledge on Balanced RockI really truly did try to heave myself up onto the ledge, as well, but my massive belly is making things like that just a biiiiiit difficult these days...So we drove around the Garden of the Gods park for a bit, did a little rock climbing (perhaps I should say climbing of the rocks b/c what we did was a far cry from rock climbing!), enjoyed the scenery, then hopped in the car and drove to stop #2...

Stop #2: Manitou Cliff Dwellings

Native American Indians once lived in these preserved dwellings carved into the sides of mountain cliffs. They were mighty impressive and Bryce was giddy as a school boy to get to actually walk through them!

The outside...The inside...

While there, we also got to see some Native American dances which Sophie loved

At the end of the dancing performance, they invited all the kids to come up and participate in a dance with them. Sophie jumped right up and ran up on the stage with all the other older kids. It was too cute. Basically, they just all held hands and walked around in a big "S", but Sophie had a great time!However, her favorite part of the Cliff Dwellings BY FAR was...
the ROCKS.

Lots and lots and LOTS of rocks.

Everywhere.

(ps - those of you looking for belly shots... here ya go)

One happy girl.Then, back into the car for us for our third stop...

Stop #3: Air Force Academy

I'll let Bryce take over on the story-telling for this one. He knows wayyyyy more about this place than I do. I did think it was a beautiful - and ENORMOUS - campus and enjoyed seeing Bryce so excited about all the aircraft we saw.

Our first stop after entering the south gate was Thunderbird Airmanship Overlook. It looks out over the runway, and must be much cooler when there are lots of planes moving around, or anything moving around for that matter. However, they did have a couple of planes on popsicle sticks. The first is a T-38 painted in thunderbird-esque colors (there's no bird underneath, see here).

On the other side of the overlook, we just stared at perhaps the ugliest plane ever built, the A-10 warthog. However, if you're in a tank and you hear the grunting of its nose mounted cannon, it's probably the last sound in the world you want to hear. One of the benefits of this plane being so unique is that it's easy for me to remember that GE aircraft engines makes the engines on this plane. Because that's where my dad has worked for 30+ years, I'm spelling out GE in sign language just for him. (Actually, if the other plane on display were actually a real Thunderbird, it'd be an F-16 Falcon with GE engines too).

Sophie peeking through the window of a ________ (don't remember what this was, it's just the cockpit sitting on the floor though)



We didn't take pictures of the F-4, F-15, F-16 and F-105 on display on the Terrazo, nor of the B-52 on display just outside the north gate. When Sophie saw it, she said "that's a big, biiiiig, plane.

This is a "strenuous path" from the chapel to the visitor's center. The only thing strenuous about the path is that it's at like 6500 feet elevation! (You actually break 7000 feet driving on I-25 out of Colorado Springs!)



This is the interior of the protestant (upper/main) chapel. There are also Jewish and Buddhist chapels on the lower level. On display outside the synagogue was a 200+ year old Torah found along with 37 others in a warehouse in Eastern Europe after WWII. Also, the tiles on the floor are imported from Israel and were a gift from the IDF.


Our final stop was the Castle Rock outlets that we passed on the way down and decided that we should definitely stop at on the way back. Ahhh outlets. Good for the soul! There was a Children's Place outlet and we found a few items that we needed for the little dude (he will now have pants to wear with his onesies - hooray!). And then, of course, my favorite... the GAP outlet. Sophie was mostly cooperative and we found a smokin' deal on pants for Bryce, as well as a semi-smokin' deal on a super-smokin' shirt for Bryce! And me? Well, I looked around, surveyed the deals on the other side of the store and thought, "I will see you all again, my pretties, once I'm holding this baby in my arms and not my insides!!"

And that, ladies and gents, was the weekend. Well, almost. But we'll save the real exciting stuff for the next post. Stay tuned...!