CO Road Trip - Part VI

 The last stop on our vacation was Colorado Springs. We parked in this lovely city for three days and visited several tourist hot spots. On our first day, we checked out the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum. The museum wasn't quite open when we arrived, so we discovered this America the Beautiful Park nearby. It was perfect for some playtime beforehand and our picnic lunch afterwards. Not bad scenery, either!

This museum was very hands-on and so fun!

At the start, each of us got a badge that was digitally loaded with our name and whichever avatar we selected for ourselves.

As we walked around the museum, various kiosks would pick up our names from the badge and put our names on display. What fun technology!

Nearly every exhibit, like this Olympic torch display, had a screen where you could either watch a brief video clip or interact with maps, charts, or articles to get more information. The kids, of course, loved playing with the screens!

Other exhibits actually let you try out an Olympic sport.

The screen to the right featured an actual Olympic runner racing against you. Check out how fast she was!

We could even watch a post-race video of ourselves. Each time we participated in an event, our badges recorded the stats.

Other events included alipine skiiing (this one was very difficult, as it took you on a test race and required you to memorize each of the turns!),

skeleton racing,

archery,

and soccer. Jaden and Adley tried being goalie and blocking whatever shots came their way. It was tougher than it looked!

We also enjoyed learning some new info about various athletes and their events.

We even got to stand in a mini-theater where we were surrounded by screens and pretend that we were in the opening ceremonies.

What a great interactive, family-friendly museum! We definitely would recommend it to anyone in the CO Springs area.

That evening, we visited a Penny Arcade in nearby Manitou Springs. This arcade was huge, spanning at least 8 small buildings. It featured over 20 different small electronic rides (which Adley loved), pinball, racing games, skeeball, sport games, games dating back to the 1930s, and more modern games like Deal or No Deal (which Jaden and Cody played multiple times). Sadly, very few of the games were actually still a penny to play, but we were okay with a fun evening splurge.

 

The day was a great start to our time in CO Springs!

CO Road Trip - Part V

 For our next destination, our family drove to the Denver-area. We stayed overnight in Loveland and read about this cool sculpture garden near our hotel. The Benson Sculpture Garden was free to visit and contained over 150 sculptures across 10 acres of land. It was a perfect place to walk (or run) around after our time in the car. Our kids attempted to imitate many of the sculptures and were quite amused!

What a funny stop! The next morning, we drove to Rocky Mountain National Park. This incredible park declared the majesty of God's creation so clearly! The cool weather felt pretty amazing to us Texans.

We started by hiking around Bear Lake Trail. This section of the park is a very popular destination, and we quickly saw why. The crystal-clear water and mountainous views were breathtaking!

The trail around the lake was only 0.5 mi. With our frequent pauses to climb over rocks, however, this "quick hike" took us quite a while! The kids said this "rock climbing" was their favorite part of the park.

My favorite view of our whole vacation... isn't it just stunning?!

More rock climbing...

After going around the lake, we continued hiking to Alberta Falls. Jason found his happy place near some bubbling brooks along the way. So peaceful!

After 2.5 miles, we ended up at the base of Alberta Falls.

Not surprisingly, the kids wanted to climb up the rocks along the side to check out the waterfall from the top.

Being at the top gave us some great views of the rest of the park too.

We hiked another 1.2 miles to catch a shuttle at the Glacier Gorge Trailhead. The elevation changes on the hikes of the day weren't bad at all, so thankfully everyone handled the walking fairly well. When we were nearly to the trailhead, we spotted a large elk, our first significant wildlife spotting.

Once we made it back to our car, we paused for a picnic lunch.

After lunch, we were originally intending to drive up to the Alpine Visitor's Center and maybe hike up to the summit. After some morning car sickness for Jaden and Adley complaining about her legs being tired, however, we decided it was best to cut our time short. Plus, the weather was quite cloudy, so we figured our views might not be the best at the top anyway. Instead, we drove up part of the Trail Ridge Road to Hidden Valley. This stop had a cabin that was called the Jr. Ranger Headquarters, so Adley did all the requirements for her Junior Ranger Badge here. The kids enjoyed exploring some of the paths too.

We realize that we left so much of Rocky Mountain National Park unexplored, but we loved the taste of the park we received on this day. We're excited to return to the park some day in the future and explore even more. What an amazing place!