Colorado is so beautiful, at least the northern Rocky Mountain region. We’ve seen Fort Collins, Boulder, Golden, Denver, and Littleton, and today we are going to Colorado Springs. There is so much to see in Colorado Springs . . . . Pikes Peak, Garden of the Gods, Focus on the Family, the United Stated Air Force Base, Olympic Center, and our new favorite restaurant, Cracker Barrel. I got to drive today for the first time in a week, and my foot was feeling much better. We started out at Focus on the Family which is about an hour south of Littleton. Barb and the girls came with us for the day since they were out of school.
We came to Focus on the Family in 2004, 8 years ago, and as I drove into the parking lot it brought back all kinds of memories. My kids were little and they loved going to Odyssey which is on the bottom floor of the main building. It seems like yesterday that we were here and here we are again. We started our visit in the Bookstore . . . not sure if that was a great idea, but they sure did have many wonderful items in their store.
I have been listening to Focus on the Family since I’ve been married. And I still remember going to a conference at my church in the late 70’s where my parents watched Dr. James Dobson’s videos on parenting. Focus on the Family is a global Christian ministry dedicated to helping families and parents to raise their children according to morals and values grounded in biblical principles through education and resources. They help couples to build healthy marriages that reflect God’s design through books and radio talk shows. They support families as they seek to teach their children about God and His design for the family, protecting themselves from the harmful influences of culture and equipping themselves to make a greater difference in the lives of those around them. Adventures in Odyssey is a radio series which began as an experiment. In 1986 Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family wanted to produce a high-quality drama series for the radio. He hoped that it would appeal to Christians looking for alternatives to Saturday morning cartoons or simply families in search of wholesome entertainment. Steve Harris and Phil Lollar, the show’s creators, brainstormed what the series could be and decided that it should be set in a small town, called Odyssey, somewhere in the Midwest and refer to the golden age of radio without sounding out dated. In 1987, a 13-week test series was aired on the Focus on the Family broadcast. It was called Family Portraits and followed the lives and adventures of Odyssey residents including John Whittaker, Connie, and Eugene in a special "soda shop and discovery emporium" called Whit's End. The audience response was so amazing that Focus on the Family went one step further and created the weekly radio program that eventually changed its name to Adventures in Odyssey. We probably have at least 50 of the CD sets which have 12 adventures each and my kids have been listening to them since they were very young. They have a gracious Gramps who buys them each 2-3 per year so we have collected almost all of them now and we listen to them over and over. We brought some on this trip and we used them as a bribe to get school work done, saying, “If you finish . . . . then we’ll put on an odyssey tape, and Oh, how it worked!!!
The Focus on the Family facilities are beautiful and look out right at Colorado Springs famous Pikes Peak. We didn’t need to climb to the top of it, we could see the whole mountain right from the back door of the building. Pikes Peak is a mountain in the front range of the Rocky Mountains, 10 miles west of Colorado Springs. Originally called "El Capitán" by Spanish settlers, the mountain was renamed Pike's Peak after Zebulan Pike Jr., an explorer who led an expedition to the southern Colorado area in 1806. At 14,115 feet it is one of Colorado's 54 mountains that rise more than 14,000 feet above sea level, and rises over 8,000 feet above the city of Colorado Springs.
Gold was discovered in the area of Denver in 1858, and newspapers referred to the gold-mining area as "Pike's Peak." Pike's Peak or Bust became the slogan of the Colorado Gold Rush. This was more due to Pikes Peak's visibility to gold seekers traveling west across the plains than any actual significant gold found anywhere near Pikes Peak. It was breathe taking looking out at the beautiful mountain range which still had snow on it. I would love to drive up the mountain because I’ve heard that the view is spectacular, but we figured that “Old Bessy” (the RV) wouldn’t make it up the grade. Next time we come to Colorado Springs we definitely have to take the Cog Railway up the mountain. I’ve heard that it is amazing but we had too many things we wanted to do and we were a little short on money because it’s the end of the trip!
We ate lunch at the picnic tables outside of the Odyssey area with the beautiful view of Pike’s Peak.
Barb bought these heavenly cupcakes from a local bakery and we indulged as the kids were anxiously waiting for the huge slide in Odyssey to open after lunch.
. It’s a 3 story slide that winds outside the building and then back inside, ending at the entrance to Odyssey. All the kids, even the big girls, had a blast sliding down the slide!! We explored all the other areas of Odyssey such as the stage with dress up clothes, the radio station, the Narnia area, and our favorite . . . Whit’s End soda shop. It was adorably decorated and they served yummy fountain treats . . . we ordered yummy smoothies and ice cream.
It was hard to leave Focus on the Family because we were having so much fun, but we needed to move on to the Olympic Training Center.
Next we drove to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, just 15 minutes away from Focus on the Family. We just made it for the last tour of the day which walked us around the whole training facility. This is the biggest facility out of 3 in the United States. The other 2 are located in Lake Placid, NY and Chula Vista, California. Athletes that reside here are in the top 10-15% of their sport in the US. Each athlete’s respective success in their sport identifies them as a Olympic caliber or Olympic development and they are selected to live and train at the Olympic Training Center. There are a certain number of resident beds allocated each year for resident spots. Although there are many athletes also training here, this roster only contains resident athletes living at the Training Center. The resident athlete programs include triathlon, fencing, men’s gymnastics, swimming, weight lifting, boxing, track & field, wrestling, shooting, judo, cycling, and several Paralympic sports.
The aquatic center is primarily used for training and testing of the USA's finest swimmers (Olympic & Paralympic), pentathletes, triathletes, and water polo players, but is also utilized by other athletes for cross-training. An overhead catwalk and underwater cameras allow for filming athletes both above and below water for testing purposes. The Olympic Sports Center which is the first multi-sport gymnasium built on the Colorado Springs complex, is a 59,000 square-foot facility containing six gymnasiums. It is used for the training of 14 Olympic and Pan American sports including volleyball and basketball, and smaller, more internationally-renowned sports like team handball and archery. This facility is also used to train Paralympics sports such as goalball, wheelchair basketball, and sitting volleyball. The Olympic Shooting Center is the largest indoor shooting facility in the Western Hemisphere and the third largest in the world. All residents eat at the training centers cafeteria and we were told that they will eat anywhere from 5000-10,000 calories a day depending on how much they are working out. Can you imaging preparing that much food for every athelete? Unbelievable!!
We had fun posing at many of the statue, displays, and plaques around the center and then we shopped in the gift store. When we were leaving the center, Barb talked us into going to Cracker Barrel for dinner . . . yum! Cracker Barrel is famous across the US for its good ol’ fashion southern country food! They brought us biscuits and corn bread while we waited for our food. I had been craving meat so I ordered beef stew with side dishes of sweet potatoes, cold slaw, and corn . . . . it was the next best meal to the amazing barbeque that we have had. Cracker Barrel is now our new favorite restaurant . . . too bad they are not in California! The waitress was telling us that they are trying to open them in California so hopefully someday one might come to Santa Rosa since we are somewhat in the country!
We finally said goodbye to Barb, with tears in our eyes, after we closed down the Cracker Barrel. The kids all had fun being silly in the rocking chairs outside as they waited for us.
We drove to the middle of nowhere, south Colorado, to the Pueblo KOA. Who are these people who stay at these remote KOA’s and what are they doing there is my question?? This particular one was full of older folks I guess because they like the desert?? I have no idea why all of the RV’s and folks are out this way.
No comments:
Post a Comment