The Springs, Days 3 &4

Well, it's been a crazy summer - and I was terrible at keeping up with blogging. When I used to scrapbook, the experts always said, "Don't work backwards." Basically, you'll never catch up if you keep trying to work from months or years back. Keep it recent! I will do that for the most part, but feel I should at least wrap up my "Colorado Springs Vacation Series." Here it is...

Brad and I had a pretty long/productive day on Friday and we wanted to jam pack our Saturday as well. We started with a trip to the very prestigious Air Force Academy. Honestly, it was something that Brad really wanted to see, and I really only obliged to please Brad. But, I was pleasantly surprised when we got there - it was BEAUTIFUL! It was a free, self-guided tour and we got to see the amazing Academy Chapel. I was actually really impressed with and very ignorant about the requirements for admission into the Academy and what is expected of you while you are there. It's not just a regular college. You live there year round for 4 years taking classes and doing basic training, learning to fly, parachute, etc. It's crazy! Pictures are below!

The chapel was so beautiful. The main chapel was the protestant chapel, but they also had a Catholic chapel, a Jewish chapel, and a Buddhist chapel. In the basement, there is a multi-functional room used for other, smaller religious groups to worship. Thought it was pretty cool! 

The inside of the main (Protestant) chapel. There was a wedding scheduled there the afternoon we were there.

(Top Left): Jewish chapel, (Top Right): Organ in the Protestant chapel, (Bottom Left): Catholic chapel, (Bottom right): Buddhist chapel.

After we left the Academy, we ate our usual cooler lunch and then headed to the Cave of the Winds. When you arrive, there is beautiful scenery all around, but if you are brave enough, you can take a tour of the cave. There are several different tours: some for families with kids, some that are "haunted," some that are a little strenuous and hard to maneuver through. We just picked the "non-family" tour that was leaving the soonest. Apparently we ended up on the "strenuous, haunted tour." :) Lovely. Before we went into the cave, they had each of us crawl through a hole in the wall that was 3 1/2 feet wide and 3 feet tall. They needed to know that everyone could do it without being claustrophobic. They warned us that we'd be traveling for several hundred feet through cave walls that were that small. I hesitated, but decided to put my brave face on....and it turned out to be probably my favorite thing we did in Colorado.

Our tour guide was a really charismatic, young guy and a lot of fun. We had some rude, lame-o people on our tour and our guide was just determined to make it fun for everyone else. Everyone was getting really irritated with the handful of "Debbie Downers." He just made fun of them - kept blowing out their lamps, made them go to the back of the line, etc. It made the tour even more entertaining seeing the rude people get put in their place. Again, we were on the haunted tour, and we had to blow out all our lamps at certain points in the pitch black. But it was all in good fun - nothing scary. The guide had a lot of good information about the man that discovered the cave in the 1800's and his passion for it - and apparently how he and his wife haunt it now. :) Pictures below...

Brad looking out at the scenery at Cave of the Winds.

Inside the caves - it was dark and COLD!

Not an amazing picture, but it shows a few of the original supplies used when they first discovered it and our awesome little lamps!

Right after the tour, we headed back out to the veranda. It was such a beautiful view!

I just had to take a picture of the winding road down the mountain and the GPS trying to keep up! It was so funny!

After Cave of the Winds, we headed back to our favorite little spot, Manitou Springs. We found an awesome wine bar that is tucked away behind a few builidings. The entire thing isn't any bigger than the size of my parent's living room, but it was so cool and intimate. We enjoyed a few glasses of wine and then grabbed a quick dinner and went to bed.  

You can see here how the wine bar really is hidden down an alley way behind a few other buildings. :)

On Sunday morning, we woke up, packed our stuff up, and hit the rode to Denver. We had been told about a pretty amazing little breakfast spot there called Snooze. We got there about 7:30am and there was already a 35 minute wait. CRAZY! It was pretty packed inside and it got a little overwhelming for both Brad and I. We considered leaving, but were glad we stayed! I had the most amazing meal - breakfast pot pie (which was basically sausage and vegetable gravy in a puff pastry), scrambled eggs, and delicious hashbrowns. It was very good food - but the craziness was a bit much for us. When we left, the line was out the door and around the entire building.

We arrived home at about 5:30pm that night and started the lovely task of unpacking. :) We really enjoyed our trip to Colorado - it was a good getaway and a nice time of relaxation.