Tuesday, July 20

Another full day. We are staying at a brand new Fairfield Inn, still smells new and the "Now Open" sign is hanging on the side. I'm not a big fan of continental breakfast but this place has biscuits and gravy, YUM, so we ate outside this morning on the patio.

The weather was iffy today and since the mountains were covered in clouds we went to the Air Force Academy first. This was Jim's other destination spot in addition to the feed lots. I have been to Colorado Springs more than once and never went to the AFA but it should be on a must see list if you're in the area. We spent about three hours there. 18,000 acres. The Chapel is magnificent: Three levels, top level is a 1,000 seat 76 pews Protestant chapel with a pipe organ to die for. I would love to hear that on a Sunday Morning. The entire frame of the chapel is made of aluminum and glass just like the planes the cadets fly. There is a lot of symbolism to the Air Force inside but it is so nicely done. The stained/tinted glass, marble, it is all so beautiful. The second story is a 500 seat Catholic chapel, the third level is Jewish and Buddhist. Each denominations chapel has lots of the stained and tinted glass that appropriately displays that faith's beliefs. The guide did mention there was something for Muslims in the basement but tours weren't taken down there. The tour guide also tells about the dorms, etc. on the campus like the dining hall that feeds 4,000 people in 20 minutes twice each day. The Visitor's Center has lots of additional information and a short movie. It was a great choice to visit. Here is Jim's trivia fact for the day: Who did Iowa State play their first game at the new Jack Trice Stadium. DUH Air Force!!! How does he remember this stuff..............

After leaving the AFA we came back to the motel and ate our usual lunch. With the goal of going to Pikes Peak next, we changed to plan B as the weather on the mountain was looking bad, lots of lightning and you couldn't see anything because of the cloud cover. Instead we went to the Royal Gorge. That was not what I remembered. I thought it had become quite commercialized. It was $25 per person and that included all this "stuff" which to me was more for kids (the merry-go-round) and all we wanted to do was see the bridge. We were told if we didn't spend more than 1 hour we could get about 1/3 of our money refunded. So we opted for that. Our receipt was stamped with the time and we knew when we had to be back. (By the way, today I'm not old enough to be a senior price). I think the senior price needs to universally 55 but today the lucky number was 60. The walk across the bridge was breezy, gusts today were around 43 mph. You can see from the once picture the Iowa flag is standing straight out. While looking down into the canyon there were two kayakers. The one tipped over and fell out, the other guy kept going because that's where the current was taking him/her. We watched as the one guy made his way to the edge with rocks and the other guy attempted to get his kayak before it floated on down the river. To make a long story short, the kayak that lost it's driver was captured and put into a raft of other people floating down the river and the other kayaker kept going with the raft in front of him. We had about 15 minutes left before we had to report back to get our partial refund and Jim decided he wanted to ride the incline railway so we did that and got the last ride of the day both ways on the aerial tram so our one hour at the Royal Gorge turned into three!! It was worth it, we had a good time.

The Royal Gorge is just outside the town of Canon City, a town of 15,000. Jim made the comment I wonder what all these people do for work besides work at the Royal Gorge. Well he asked the aerial tram driver and the answer is the towns people work at the 12 prisons in the county. That's right 12. He said they have every prison imaginable in that county, federal, state, maximum security, minimum security, women's you name it. When we started back to our Prairie city annex for the day we noticed right along the main drag in Canon City was the Territorial Correctional facility.

We came home through Pueblo. Weird cloud formations all the way home. It did rain a little bit but didn't amount to anything. Upon arriving at our home away from home the fire pit on the patio was burning so we joined another nice couple from Montana sitting around the pit. They were having a vacation from their 4 kids aged 9-2. He is a full-time Air Force man. Been to Iraq once and going in Afghanistan in the fall. It started to rain so I am now in bed typing this and it's 10:30 our time.

A few more tidbits: Colorado has tons of Safeway stores, haven't seen those of a long time and I lost count today but I think I had 3 or 4 u turns one may have been illegal and I'm getting to the point I don't care. Whoever designed Colorado streets needs to go back to college. I know Iowa has a few but Colorado has a ton of weirdly designed entrance/exits and you can't figure out how to basically leave a place a go the direction you want to go, it's all one way crap, so I've reverted to U-turns.

Having a major thunderstorm here. Time to go to bed.
I think I have posted the following pictures: The AFA Chapel outside and glass inside from the Protestant Chapel, Royal Gorge Bridge, incline ride to the bottom.