One thing I love about living in Colorado Springs is how close we are to the mountains. I mean, the mountains is literally in our backyard. It took a mere 15 minutes to get out of the city and into roads like these....
We first explored the "Cave of the Winds".
Here are the kids in the front of the cave entrance. I told him to pose with the bear statue and first thing they did was hop on over it. Funny kids!
The cave was on the top of the mountain and they had a place where you can see down to the valley. If you don't know, I'm afraid of heights so to get this photo, I quickly stepped out of the viewing area, clicked the camera and went back inside the lounge.
The cave admission was a bit pricey but in our quest to be "tourists" today, we didn't mind it much. It was good though that we got a discount for Mitch since he was past military.
We were lucky that they allowed cameras (with flashes) inside the cave. There are bats inside the cave but the tour guide said that they were hibernating in a part of the cave where we won't see them so it's ok to use the camera flashes.
Some rock formations that I just couldn't pass taking a photo of.
Apparently when the cave started to become a tourist attraction (which was over 100 years ago) they would let people take stalactites home for souvenirs. The owners back then didn't know that it takes centuries for it to grow back. After learning of this, of course they stopped the practice and have protected the small stalactites growing. Look at these baby stalactites.
There were a lot of places/rooms we toured. Some were narrower and smaller than these. I even bumped my head at one point during the tour. Lesson learned....cannot take photos and tour caves at the same time.
Then after our cave tour we ate lunch at a nearby Wendy's and headed to downtown to visit the Pioneer's museum.
the admission was free so we were very happy about that.
inside they had a wing dedicated for WWll artifacts.
but most of the displays was about life in Colorado Springs in the beginning of it's being a city. These old books were donated by one of the oldest residents in the city.
there were also an area where paintings were displayed depicting the beautiful landscape of the area. I was attracted to this painting cause it looked very unique. It looked cartoonish at first glance.
I love looking at these plates. Makes me wanna find a souvenir shop and get me a Colorado Springs plate to display in my home.
The building that they used for the museum was actually an old court house. They kept one of the court rooms in tact and it was cool being in it. I'm in awe at how much detail in architecture (both inside and outside) was put into this building. It's so awesome.
There were two levels open to visitors in the museum. To get to the upper level you have a choice to either use the stairs or go on one of these old time elevators. It was cool riding on it.
They also had an area where they displayed medicine artifacts during the start of the city. I was very impressed how they got this lot of pharmacy cabinets full of prescriptions they used back then. Very interesting.
On the other side of these cabinets was a ceiling to floor mirror. We took this photo, just for fun.
Here's some photos of us outside the museum
and then after that we went to the old Train Depot downtown. They made the depot into a restaurant but across the street was a park where they placed this...
Mitch read the information that went along with the display and according to it, this train ran for 50 years.
and then on our way home, here's what I glanced upon. It's snowing today so you can see the dark clouds coming upon us but on the other side of the mountains, the sun was setting and it's rays looks like a burst of fire on the other side of the range. So cool.
So there you have it. A glimpse of our new community.
Thanks for stopping by.
Till next time,
Grace
1 comment:
beautiful photos!!
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