Our Last Days in Colorado

2 1/2 months after our Colorado trip ended, I'm finally wrapping up with our last blog post. Whew. Technology is difficulty sometimes. 

At this point in our trip we are staying just outside of Cripple Creek, Co. We were camping on the back side of Pike's Peak and about an hour from Colorado Springs. 

And do you know what's in Colorado Springs?

The Airforce Academy.

And of course, DJ knew a guy and it's never a true football family vacation unless you visit another university. So, he called up his friend, and we had a VIP tour to the football offices at Airforce. 

We also saw their ice hockey arena and chatted with a female GA who is learning to be a pilot and was interviewed by the national news. She was pretty bad ass and awesome to talk to. She may have also tried to convince the girls to go in to the airforce after high school, and in the back of my head, I was all like 'nope, not a chance."

We stopped by to see the B52 monument, because DJ's dad worked on B52s while he was in the airforce.

After our tour, we stopped for lunch. At a real restaurant, and we all had cell phone service. So while we were waiting on our table, I looked up and every single person was on a device. 

That evening we all kind of split up, had some errands, ate a quick dinner of whatever leftovers we could find at the campsite and went to bed. 

The next day, we visited cliff dwellings. Somewhere, behind the girls in this picture is Pike's Peak. We had talked about driving up, but you have to make reservations and it's $50.00 just to drive to the top. 

So, we explored cliff dwellings. 

When I was little, my grandparents took us to Mesa Verde and this is like a very mini Mesa Verde. 

Then we drove through Garden of the Gods. This would have been fun to get out and hike, but we were all meeting back in the afternoon and our time was limited. But, it was easily driveable, and there were so many people! So, we drove through, took a few pictures, and ketp on driving. 

Then, we all met up and went to the famous Mollie Kathleen Mine and all went 1,000 feet underground. 

I won't lie, we were all a little terrified, but the mine tour was cool. This is the 2nd time we've done a mine tour- I'm not sure I need to do one again, but it's fun for the kids to see, and the elevator ride down and up 1,000 feet was pretty petrifying in a good way. 

This may have been one of the only group photos we took the entire trip. 

We drove in to Cripple Creek, and took the girls to.......

A Parlour House!

This parlour house was one of the most famous in Cripple Creek and I was excited it was open. We walked in and the lady was like "I see young girls here, you all do know what this place is." And I was all, "Yes, it's a hotel." Wink, Wink. And she was like "no, it's a brothel." Gretchen of course knew what it was, and about halfway through the tour Megan and Amelia figured it out too. Adalyn still has no idea, but I was like, come on lady, we want to see this old house straight out of a western movie, but can you give us the G rated version, and she definitely did not. 

Apparently, business was good here. 

The rest of Cripple Creek was a bummer. It's a bunch of casinos and supposedly there are donkeys roaming the streets, but we didn't see any. There were also like 2 restaurants, and one wouldn't seat us because they were short staffed and we had too big of a group. The other was in the back of a bar, and those miners or casion goers were enjoying their happy hour. 

The next day we packed up and headed toward home. 

We had a quick overnight stay in Amarillo and made it home the following day. 

Our vacation was full of memories. I'm so glad we went. I hope this is a trip the girls will remember for a long time!