Mini Stay-cation

We took a mini vacation to Colorado Springs to visit friends and to do some sight-seeing. Seems that we are always driving through Colorado Springs and never spend enough time to go to some of the attractions. We drove to Colorado Springs on Thursday and stayed with the Hamilton's. Jamie & Spencer were thrilled to get to spend a couple of days together.

Friday, we went to the Air Force Academy and Garden of the Gods while Michelle & Richard were at work. The boys managed pretty well, although I think they were getting bored toward the end of the chapel tour.

Protestant Chapel

Catholic Chapel

Jewish Chapel

Buddhist Temple

We ate lunch at Subway inside the AFA visitor's center and, on our way to Garden of the Gods, stopped at the AFA airfield and watched planes and gliders take off & land. I could've stood there and watched the planes for hours!

On our way to Garden of the God's, we saw this herd of Big Horn Sheep.

It was a very hot day, close to 100 degrees, so we knew that our trip to Garden of the Gods would be a drive through. Too hot for any hiking & climbing! Jamie & Spencer both fell asleep before we were half way through the park.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese for dinner...the boys had lots of fun playing the games.

Saturday, the boys wanted to go swimming so we headed to the apartment complex's pool. The outdoor pool had been closed earlier in the week to clean out an algae problem but when we got there, it had reopened. But, they were still in the process of filling it with ICE COLD water. Jamie & Spencer jumped in but it was too cold for them to stay in so we went to the indoor pool. Mini golf was next on the agenda...we all had fun playing mini golf.

Spencer already had plans to go to a birthday party, so we dropped him off and we went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I LOVE zoo's...I love to take my time and see all of the animals & exhibits and I love taking photos. Bill & I went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo on our honeymoon, 24 years ago, and hadn't been back since. It really is a nice zoo and I hope to visit it more often. We kind of rushed through it because it was sporadically sprinkling rain and we didn't have too much time before the zoo closed. We picked the animals we wanted to see and skipped some of the others. Jamie seemed to really enjoy himself, probably the first time that he's been really interested in all of the animals.

Giraffes

Meerkat

Colobus Monkey

Zebras

Tabirs

Jamie, petting the baby Wallaby

adult Wallaby

River Otter

River Otter (under water)

Mountain Lion

sleepy Porcupine

Mexican Gray Wolf

tunnel crawling human

Moose

Mister & fan

Chipmunk

Peacock

Naked Mole Rats

baby Orangutan

Hippos

Beaver

Beaver (under water)

Mountain Goat

We left early on Sunday morning to head to Pueblo for Jamie to participate in the Regional competition for the Rockies Skills Challenge. I'll post a separate blog entry for this event.

We had a great mini vacation, enjoyed visiting friends and the entire trip was not budget breaking. I know that I would like to do a repeat visit to both Garden of the Gods and the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo when the weather is cooler so hope that the Hamilton's can put up with us for another visit sometime.