Pikes Peak

Our next adventure in Colorado Springs took us up to 14,115 feet!  Pikes Peak is a Colorado Springs must, but the more I looked into it, the more I realized driving the Pikes Peak Highway, with its 152 hairpin turns, 7000 feet of elevation gain, and cliffs with no guardrails, sounded like a good way to ruin our vacation!  Haha!  So we booked tickets on the historic cog railway that took us up peacefully, scenically, and with narration!

The train ride was an hour and half each way.  We saw waterfalls, wildflowers, forests of aspen trees, lakes, the end of the tree line, snow, and tons of yellow-bellied whistling marmots!  It was just lovely.

At the summit, you are given exactly 50 minutes to explore.  It was explained that this time is specific because it's about all our sea-level bodies can handle without getting altitude sickness in the 30% less oxygenated air!

But, 50 minutes was plenty of time to do all the things. 

Like 1. See the iconic old sign (I think my mom had a picture by this!).

 2. Take a spin through the Visitor's Center.

3.  Get an order of high-altitude donuts from the café.  Supposedly they're better up here, but we thought they tasted like regular donuts.  They did come with a view! Fun to eat donuts on the summit of a mountain!

4.  Walk the whole path to take in all the views, and more marmots.

5.  Read the lyrics to America the Beautiful in the actual spot that inspired the writing of them!

6.  And make it back to the train right as headaches and heart flutters were setting in.  No biggie, we were fine once we dropped a few thousand feet on the train.  But, we definitely felt it!

This is the highest elevation we've ever stood in!  The views were incredible.  And it was all enjoyed without a bit of hiking or stressful driving!

Olympic Education

Heather and Andrew had to get back to operating on patients, so our next leg of vacation took us a few hours south to Colorado Springs.  This city is known as "Olympic City USA"  because of its famous, high-altitude training center.  It was VERY cool to be in Olympic City during the actual Olympics!  On our first day here we did all the Olympic things.  We went to the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum, and then toured the training center.

The Olympic Museum is pretty new.  It's super interactive.  The first thing we did was get a digital badge we could register.  Whenever we walked up to an exhibit, it recognized us and greeted us.  We met a real Olympian right away too!  A strong young woman who competed in Clean and Jerk Weightlifting for USA in 2016.  She was interesting to talk to! 

Lots of cool exhibits here!  You start by walking past the world's largest collection of Olympic torches.  

A whole floor is dedicated to simulations of Olympic events.  Dave and Delia raced Jesse Owens (you could pick your Olympic competition).  They got killed.

We tried sports like downhill skiing, skeleton, archery, and long jump.  Mostly, we did terribly.  You know that funny movement to put a regular guy in each event so those watching at home can appreciate the caliber of talent?  We appreciate it!

Another floor was all Olympic artifacts from former Olympians.  Again, as a mega fan from the 90's, it was things like Shannon's Miller's scrunchie, Nastia Liukin's pink leotard, Dan Jansen's speed skates, or Kristi Yamaguchi's figure skate that were coolest for me to see.

The actual scoreboard from the Miracle on Ice.

Wall of signed Wheaties Boxes.

A huuuuge wall of Olympic medals, going far back to most recent.

A cool bridge that led to a neat outdoor Olympic Park.

Then, it was on to the Training Center for a tour!

We sat in a bobsled, shopped in the Team USA store, and interacted with computers that had records of every US Olympian-- including ones that became famous mere days prior, like our new favorite pommel horse specialist, Stephen Nedoroscik.  

Olympians who train here were obviously in Paris, but we saw some Paralympians getting ready for their games at the end of the month.  Our tour showed us the weight room, the pool swimmers like Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps trained in, the shooting range, and gymnasiums all built special for sports like wrestling and basketball.

And gymnastics!  The springy floor was SUPER tempting, but we followed the rules on the sign and stayed off. ;)

We had some fun in the sculpture garden too.  

From watching the Opening Ceremonies at Heather's the night we arrived, to our own Family Olympics, to the daily viewing of every event from diving to rugby, to this day dedicated to Olympic History and learning...Olympics were a neat theme of our vacation! 

We So Sporty

After church, Heather and Andrew took us to Noosa Yoghurt's Headquarters where they milk the cows and manufacture their goodies.  They have a lovely café and picnic area where we could enjoy our uniquely-flavored yogurts, sandwiches, and specialty coffees by a pretty pond and fountain.  Heather told us to "carbo-load and caffeinate" because she had PLANS for the afternoon.

Like most of the world, we grew up binging the Olympics every 4 years.  We did not have cable, so for 2 weeks straight, our TV was on and playing the games.  Athletes of the 90's, like Dan and Dave, Shannon Miller and Summer Sanders, were household names for us.  Our family loves the Olympics!  What great timing to share the first week of the Paris Summer Games with Heather!  To celebrate, she created our own Family Olympics with 7 wacky events for us to compete in!  We each picked a country to represent, mostly ones with funny names who've never won Olympic medals before.  We earned points for our standings after each event.  The faster you finished, the more points.  You'll quickly see a trend emerge when it came to point-earning! 

First event: Dizzy Bat.  Spin 10 times, then land 3 bean bags in the board.  I can hardly land bags in the board when I'm NOT dizzy.  I came in last.  Andrew won.  Dave fell over.

Next event: Baby Bottles.  Drink 3 ounces of water from the bottle.  Competitive, fun, AND hydrating!

Third event: Playground Obstacle Course.  The monkey bars spun and the slides were hot, yo.  This was harder than it looked!  A big last place finish for me.  Heather flew; she won.

Fourth event: Fruit by the Foot.  No hands, first to slurp it up won.  Delia and I were laughing so hard we were a choking hazard.

And then: Garbage Bag Race.  Get in the garbage bag and hop around the whole perimeter of their house.  Neighbors must have loved this one! Haha!  We all found our own way to move.  Delia sashayed, I waddled.  Dave won.  

Sixth event: Cotton Ball Scoop.  Put on the blindfold and get as many balls in the bowl as you can.  Kitchen utensils are my jam.  I actually won this one.

Up next: Balloon Race.  Squeeze the balloon between your legs and race around the dining room and kitchen.  Don't drop the balloon...or run into Annabelle's toys! 

And the Grand Finale: Cup Bowling.  Pretty straight-forward...except the bowling ball is in a pantyhose leg dangling off your head.  HILARIOUS!  Lots of different strategies here, all funny to watch.  Dave and Andrew pioneered a crazy whip/tornado movement that got them top points.

Heather made the medals out of Hershey's Nuggets.  Bronze for her.  Silver for Andrew.  Gold for Dave!  Delia and I were not surprised to be the big loosers.  She handed out the medals while I played Oman's anthem and raised Dave's chosen country's flag.

The podium.

The final standings.

The after snacks!

The little napper slept through it all, but woke in time to snuggle on the couch and watch the REAL athletes on TV! :)  So much fun planning and supply-buying by Heather went into this favorite activity!  We had a blast.

The next day, we strapped the SUP to the roof of the SUV and headed over to Heather and Andrew's nearest reservoir for some water sports.  This was a beautiful morning on the water with quite the view!

Annabelle was even brave enough to take a little float around the shallow end with each of us on the SUP.  Future adventurer!

A little sandy beach area for the those not on the SUP gave all the summer vibes.

Sadly, while we were on the water, we saw the start of a forest fire and heard the first trucks responding to it.  That fire continued to rage for days, with no containment-- closing the reservoir the day after we we were there, evacuating Heather's friends from their homes, and covering those lovely views with smoky haze.   We live in states that have "Fire Seasons" and this is just an annual thing, we're dealing with our own here too, but still devastating.