U.S. Air Force Academy

We slept in this morning - till about 8:00 a.m., that is.  Ruth claims she was up all night, but the only proof that she didn't sleep well is that when Jeff and I got up, she was sitting outside playing on the iPad. 

Jeff got some work done this morning and had a conference call at 9:00 a.m.  We had hoped to ride the Cog Train up to the summit of Pikes Peak, but the only seats available were on the 5:40 p.m. train.  It's about a 3 and a half hour ride, so we passed on that.  Instead, I booked seats on the earliest train available tomorrow, at 2:40 p.m.  It's later than we wanted because it tends to get cloudy and rain in the late afternoon, but it's the best we could do.

With the train out as an option, we headed out to the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.  My second cousin went there, and I've always wanted to see the Chapel on campus. 

The tour is free; they just check your ID and the trunk of your car to make sure you don't have anything dangerous in it at the security gate. 

We went to the Visitor's Center and saw exhibits on the life of cadets and the Air Force.  They kids wanted t-shirts.  They had lots of nice ones there for adults too, but Jeff and I thought we would mar the reputation of the academy by wearing the shirts in public.  We're just not that fit. :-)

We went to the Chapel, and it's just as beautiful in person as it is in pictures.  It's very modern.  It's made of steel with lots of stained glass.  There are actually four chapels in the building:  a Protestant one on top, and Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist chapels on the lower level.

While you're on the Chapel level, you can see cadets going to and from class and getting their lunch.  There are some airplanes on campus that you can look at too.

We drove by the football stadium to check it out.  It would be fun to come out here for a football game sometime. On the way out, we stopped to look at all the athletic fields on campus. If you go to the Air Force Academy, you have to play a sport - either at the collegiate or intramural levels. There were soccer, rugby, baseball and football fields, as well as a track.

As we were heading out on I-25 South, we pulled off to a overlook to watch cadets parachuting out of planes as part of their training. Pretty cool.