Tackling Mountains: Labor Day Weekend (pics after all the stories)

Labor day weekend was awesome! My parents came to town to visit! They had never been to Colorado before and had never seen the mountains. I was in this same situation just a few months ago when we visited Mike and Rach for Thanksgiving, so I knew how cool and excited they would be, so this made me even more excited that they were coming.

They got into Denver (the cheapest airport around) on Thursday night. I was kinda bummed about that cause it meant that they wouldn't get to see the mountains until the next day when I was at work! I really wanted to be there when they saw them for the first time. But my dad had to drive me to work so that my parents would have a car during the day, so I got to be with him as the clouds rolled back to unveil the Peak! YAY! Fortunately, I had a work day and could get off a few hours early. I got to show my parents around the school and introduce them to my co-workers. Friday night we took them to this little Italian place in Old Colorado City. A bit of a wait, but very worth it. And, since the only way we know how to get to Old Colorado is through the Garden of the Gods, they got their first glimpse of the huge formations in great evening lighting. That night they got their first glimpse of Colorado wildlife, a deer running across the road by the hotel. Not too exciting. We were hoping for a bear! (I saw one a couple of weeks before)

Saturday was lots of fun. We took them up Lower Gold Camp Road (an old train route now dirt road) to Helen Hunt Falls. There we hiked up to another set of waterfalls. It was a short, but very beautiful hike. Dad stopped every few minutes to take pictures of the "wildlife" he saw - some weird looking bugs. I don't know why anyone would want a picture of a bug. Anyway, Micah and I had been trying to do this hike for several weeks, but it was a lot of fun to experience it with my parents. Micah and I had been to the falls in November, so we had my parents take the same picture that we did.Then we drove up High Drive. It was beautiful.

We stopped a lot and took a ton of pictures all day. After stopping for lunch at the Spicy Pickle, we went to the Olympic Training Center. There we took the tour and looked around. The Para-Olympic tennis and basketball teams were getting their pictures taken, so we got to see them. That was neat. It was also really neat to see the pool that they practice in. It was all empty of water for cleaning when we were there, so that was kinda weird to see. Before we left, I got a couple of USA Swimming articles. Yeah swimming!

We took a rest and ate a good dinner of burgers from the grill (thanks Mom and Dad). Then headed off to the Balloon Glow in Memorial Park. Micah and I had tried to go to the Balloon glow in St. Louis last year, but it was windy and there were hardly any balloons up. This was so neat to see.

Sunday we went to the Air Force Academy and walked over to the chapel. That was the neatest chapel - building - I think I've ever seen. That night we went to dinner at this great Mexican place called Amanda's Fonda.

Monday we went up to the top of Pike's Peak. We took the Cog Train. For some crazy reason, my parents didn't want to climb up 14,100 feet. That was an awesome view and a great ride all of the way up. It takes a long time to get to the top, but not a lot of time at the top. Oh well, it was still really neat and cold. After that, we went to the Garden of the Gods and walked around. That night we finished up with pizza from Louie's. That place is really good, but not as good as Chicago pizza.

The Chapel: The colors are not lights, but stained glass. That's how bright it is.