Colorado Springs - Mountain Splendor

We spent a lovely day today in Colorado Springs. It has been COLD -- we had layers of warmies on. We started out this morning for the US Air Force Academy. Our GPS guided us easily to this military base, which, while right in Colorado Springs, is huge. Once we passed the inspection point (when a freshly scrubbed young man peered at our over laden car, looked in the over laden trunk, and just waved us on) we drove for about six miles before we reached the visitors' centre. We stopped at a static display of two Thunderbird planes -- a Warthog and a T-38 (I think).

We looked around a bit and watched a short movie about the Academy. It was okay, but not great -- mostly advertising for the Academy. However, then we walked a 1/3 - mile trail to the Chapel. What a beautiful building! Nita, of course, has some beautiful pictures, but, for now, here are a couple I took -- truly a unique building.

It's not really possible to describe the interaction of the stained glass windows and the shape of the building and the windows. The Protestant chapel on the main floor was glorious in the light. The Catholic Chapel is on the bottom floor, and has a lovely mosaic behind the altar. The Jewish Chapel and the Buddhist Chapel are on the lower floor and are quite small in comparison. There is an Islamic Chapel as well now, but we were unable to see it.

Our next port of call was The Garden of the Gods. This natural area is free and open to the public after being donated to the city of Colorado Springs many years ago. Again, pictures cannot do justice to the magnificence of nature. This area is right up there in terms of strange beauty. Again, here are some poor pictures. (I really should have waited till I could get Nita's photos.)

After a wonderful drive through the Garden of the Gods, we drove into Old Colorado Springs, expecting to see what the town looked like in the very early days. Instead, we found shop after shop selling antiques and such. It was a bit disappointing, but we poked around for a bit, and then headed back to our very modest motel. We entered some addresses into the Tom-Tom and headed out for supper. We have been saving a portion of our dinners (always too much around here) and using the leftovers for lunch the next day! We were going to get gas after supper, but some of the gas stations around here make it difficult to use a Canadian credit card (if you can believe it). Before you can pump gas, you have to put your zip code in. Of course, a Canadian postal code will not work. I tried putting either Donna's zip code or Mary Ann's zip code in, but they didn't match the address on the credit card so that didn't work. If I take my card into the cashier, they sometimes don't know what to do, and even if they do, I don't know how much gas the car will take. So, tonight, I just drove out. We'll fill up somewhere else. Many stations will take the card -- especially the major oil companies. Still, it's a nuisance!

We did an analysis of our time, the distances and the weather conditions and have decided to change our Yellowstone plans once again. The weather and road conditions are just unpredictable so we aren't going to try to even drive anywhere near the park. We aren't even going to go up to I-80 since there is some question of the conditions even of that Interstate through the Rockies. The best route we can find is I-70 from Denver to Salt Lake City and then north to I-90 at Ellensburg. It's still a long drive home. We're planning to go to Pike's Peak tomorrow and then on to a little place near Vail. The next night we're hoping to make it to Ogden, Utah and then to Kennewick, Washington -- getting us home sometime on Friday. If we are delayed by weather through the Rockies, we might not make it home till Saturday, but so far as we can see, we should be fine. We'll keep you informed if our plans change. Pike's Peak should be good tomorrow.