Below is the summation of our trip - days 5, 6 and 7.
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Wednesday, August 7th - Day FIVE
Leaving Breckenridge
Stop one - Florissant Fossil Beds NM
Along with mining precious metals, Colorado also has ample natural resources in other interesting rocks and minerals, including fossils. Being that most three year old boys love dinosaurs, and keeping with our "stamp the passport" goal, the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument seemed like a no brainer.
After packing up at the hotel, we drove about 1 hour from Breckenridge to Florissant and headed directly to the park. Of course, we could have timed our arrival a little better, I suppose - arriving at 8:30am to a national park that opens at 9am isn't exactly great planning. Whoops! Good thing the historic farm nearby (the reason this park exists) wasn't gated - thecorn dogs prairie dogs there kept my son entertained for quite some time.
Finally, when 9 o'clock rolled around, we headed directly to the main park entrance. There we signed or son up for the Junior Ranger program and stamped his passport.
Using the ranger program as a loose guide, we wandered around and took things in. Disappointingly, the fossils at Florissant are not dinosaur related (my own fault for not researching this point), so my son had a hard time getting terribly excited about fossilized tree stumps. Though we adults found it interesting, as apparently Walt Disney did in the 1950/60s (read more here and here).
Mostly, we utilized the hiking trails that lead to various fossilized stumps and enjoyed the views. Since my son really enjoys hiking (a surprise to all of us), this was enough to keep everyone entertained for about an hour.
Eventually, we completed the tasks required of the Junior Ranger program, and helped our son get his "badge".
Once his "induction" ceremony was over, we packed up for more driving.
Stop two - Pike's Peak
Another stop on our "long way to Colorado Springs" tour was Pike's Peak. I had never been here before, but my husband insisted it was worth the experience. By experience, I later learned he meant "we will be driving up a steep and narrow mountain pass, with sheer drop offs on almost every corner, and you will feel like you might die".
Obviously, I did NOT die. That's not to say I didn't suffer some fairly extreme sweaty palms along the way, though. Well, that and some minor lack of oxygen giddiness at 14,115'.
Since Pike's Peak is currently renovating their summit visitor's center, and parking at the top is limited (being occupied by various construction vehicles that I was trying to picture how the HELL they even got up there), driving the full distance to the summit was not allowed during our visit. I was OK with that after seeing how much elevation the road started gaining around the 10 or so mile marker.
Our options were to park at mile marker 7, 13 or 16 and then ride a courtesy shuttle the rest of the way up. Originally I figured we'd head to 16 and then shuttle up, but after the elevation change around 10 ... I changed my theory and suggested we select 13. This actually worked out in our favor, as we could park our questionably preforming rental car and leave the driving to a seasoned shuttle person. Plus, there was a gift shop at 13 that proved useful as a pre-summit potty stop, and a post-summit refreshment prior to departure.
Overall, I did think the trip was interesting, and definitely one of those bucket list items everybody should do once if they can. Due to the renovations at the peak, it was a little hard to appreciate that portion of the experience - but I may have also been a tad distracted because of how close my son desired to get to the mountain's edge. I think if you had older children or only adults in your party, you'd likely get even more out of the experience than I did due to your freedom to hike around and explore a bit. With a three year old just coming off several previous days of hiking and mountain views, our son didn't really understand the novelty and just kept saying how cold it was ... or trying to follow the old train tracks down off the cliff edge, heh.
Of interest - mile 13 was also the point where a mandatory full stop break check was preformed with a laser temperature probe. And clearly they took proper downhill driving seriously at this park, as we saw rangers pulling over violators several times during our trek.
Stop three - New Hotel, Hampton Inn Colorado Springs
We ended up 2 for 2 on early hotel check-ins, thankfully getting into our Colorado Springs hotel room with ample time for a nap. And even better, the stay at this hotel was much improved over Breckenridge. I later discovered the hotel was displaying a "best of" award in their lobby from a year's previous. "Well", I thought, "they definitely deserved it!"
Stop four / Dinner - Phantom Canyon Brewing
While my son napped, I did some covert tap room research. Since we hadn't hit up any local breweries in Colorado yet, I felt like we were due for at least one on this trip. Unfortunately, the articles I read led me awry.
Phantom Canyon Brewing as a restaurant - good food, decent service, ok price.
Phantom Canyon Brewing as a brewer - meh.
It's not to say that anything was bad while we were there. I just got the feeling that Phantom Canyon was a restaurant that backed into a brew shop. This makes me sound like a beer snob, I know. I'm just not a big fan of brew pubs who spend more time on a food menu than on their beers. When I seek out a brewer, I'm not worried how good their cheeseburger is, you know?!
Regardless, our meal was good. With full bellies, we headed back to our much improved hotel situation and enjoyed a very restful night of sleep.
Each of these trail heads had access points via separate parking lots, so with little legs on board we decided to drive to each starting point (rather than just hike the entire park on foot). Even with driving from point to point, we spent about 2-3 hours in the park.
If it weren't for the fact that the mid day sun was really starting to get roasty, and it was soon to be lunch, I would have said "let's stay longer". But, considering it was also getting more and more people-y, I was OK with calling it quits for lunch.
Stop two - Manitou Springs
You may notice I gloss over some meals on this trip. I figure no one cares what fast food options we dropped in at out of convenience. So if we fast forward over our fast food lunch and nap, that brings us to Manitou Springs.
I had read online that Manitou Springs has an old fashioned penny arcade to die for, and I wasn't disappointed. Or rather my son wasn't, as there were quarter operated novelty ride on vehicles as far as the eye could see.
Speaking of eyes seeing - my husband dropped a nickle in an old timey sailor peep show. Meanwhile, I enjoyed wishing to be BIG.
After letting my son drop $5 in quarters, which lasted a surprisingly long time, we began the painful process of cashing in our hard earned tickets. Leaving 3 saltwater taffy candies, 3 rainbow tootsies, and one TINY plastic airplane "richer", we decided to explore the rest of Manitou's little main street area.
Most of the area was typical tourist shops, and the infamous Colorado-legal CBD friendly stores, but one thing was particularly interesting: the namesake of the town.
My son enjoyed splashing his hand in the free flowing "healing waters of Manitou" so long that I eventually had to cut him off in order to redirect us to dinner.
Stop three - Manitou Springs Brewing Company
Having basically done zero research on food options in Manitou Springs, we happened to stumble across Manitou Springs Brewing Company along our walk and thought - if they serve food, we're in!
Lucky for us, they not only brewed excellent beers, but served delicious and reasonably priced burgers, and mac and cheese for kids!
Having not much enjoyed our previous night's brewery visit, this stop was kind of like a redemption for us in Colorado tap rooms. Thumbs up for the happy accident.
Since my son was being such a good sport with the lack of nap and all, at the suggestion of my local friend, we stopped in at old timey candy store Rocket Fizz - AKA child heaven.
Leaving one giant bag of gummy worms heavier, and sweating like bandits due to the heat, we gave up on shopping and headed to O'Dell to cool down.
Stop three - O'Dell Brewing
Knowing we would spend a fair amount of time at O'Dell chatting, I had packed a selection of things to keep my son entertained. Two things I hadn't planned on were: (1) the giant bag of gummy worms we picked up at Rocket Fizz, and (2) that my husband and I would be too distracted managing other things to jointly monitor said gummy ingestion. Whoops. At least the gummies provided a solid 30 minutes of entertainment. And besides, he didn't eat the WHOLE bag ... there was ... maybe half a serving left in a 5 serving economy bag? Yeah, I definitely killed it at momming on that one.
Quite honestly, though, my son was a self-entertainment champ at O'Dell. My husband and I even got to enjoy a few flights of beer ... and some Ghostbusters.
Eventually, my husband ended up taking my son out on the patio to run off his gummies while my local friend and I chatted.
Not wanting to leave - both good company and good beer - it was becoming apparent that my son's limits were coming to a max. Saying our goodbyes, we departed Fort Collins for Denver ... and flew out at 8am the next day.
Sigh - vacations: the only bad part is when it ends!!
Leaving Breckenridge
Stop one - Florissant Fossil Beds NM
Along with mining precious metals, Colorado also has ample natural resources in other interesting rocks and minerals, including fossils. Being that most three year old boys love dinosaurs, and keeping with our "stamp the passport" goal, the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument seemed like a no brainer.
After packing up at the hotel, we drove about 1 hour from Breckenridge to Florissant and headed directly to the park. Of course, we could have timed our arrival a little better, I suppose - arriving at 8:30am to a national park that opens at 9am isn't exactly great planning. Whoops! Good thing the historic farm nearby (the reason this park exists) wasn't gated - the
Finally, when 9 o'clock rolled around, we headed directly to the main park entrance. There we signed or son up for the Junior Ranger program and stamped his passport.
Using the ranger program as a loose guide, we wandered around and took things in. Disappointingly, the fossils at Florissant are not dinosaur related (my own fault for not researching this point), so my son had a hard time getting terribly excited about fossilized tree stumps. Though we adults found it interesting, as apparently Walt Disney did in the 1950/60s (read more here and here).
Mostly, we utilized the hiking trails that lead to various fossilized stumps and enjoyed the views. Since my son really enjoys hiking (a surprise to all of us), this was enough to keep everyone entertained for about an hour.
Eventually, we completed the tasks required of the Junior Ranger program, and helped our son get his "badge".
Once his "induction" ceremony was over, we packed up for more driving.
Stop two - Pike's Peak
Another stop on our "long way to Colorado Springs" tour was Pike's Peak. I had never been here before, but my husband insisted it was worth the experience. By experience, I later learned he meant "we will be driving up a steep and narrow mountain pass, with sheer drop offs on almost every corner, and you will feel like you might die".
Obviously, I did NOT die. That's not to say I didn't suffer some fairly extreme sweaty palms along the way, though. Well, that and some minor lack of oxygen giddiness at 14,115'.
Since Pike's Peak is currently renovating their summit visitor's center, and parking at the top is limited (being occupied by various construction vehicles that I was trying to picture how the HELL they even got up there), driving the full distance to the summit was not allowed during our visit. I was OK with that after seeing how much elevation the road started gaining around the 10 or so mile marker.
Our options were to park at mile marker 7, 13 or 16 and then ride a courtesy shuttle the rest of the way up. Originally I figured we'd head to 16 and then shuttle up, but after the elevation change around 10 ... I changed my theory and suggested we select 13. This actually worked out in our favor, as we could park our questionably preforming rental car and leave the driving to a seasoned shuttle person. Plus, there was a gift shop at 13 that proved useful as a pre-summit potty stop, and a post-summit refreshment prior to departure.
Overall, I did think the trip was interesting, and definitely one of those bucket list items everybody should do once if they can. Due to the renovations at the peak, it was a little hard to appreciate that portion of the experience - but I may have also been a tad distracted because of how close my son desired to get to the mountain's edge. I think if you had older children or only adults in your party, you'd likely get even more out of the experience than I did due to your freedom to hike around and explore a bit. With a three year old just coming off several previous days of hiking and mountain views, our son didn't really understand the novelty and just kept saying how cold it was ... or trying to follow the old train tracks down off the cliff edge, heh.
Of interest - mile 13 was also the point where a mandatory full stop break check was preformed with a laser temperature probe. And clearly they took proper downhill driving seriously at this park, as we saw rangers pulling over violators several times during our trek.
Stop three - New Hotel, Hampton Inn Colorado Springs
We ended up 2 for 2 on early hotel check-ins, thankfully getting into our Colorado Springs hotel room with ample time for a nap. And even better, the stay at this hotel was much improved over Breckenridge. I later discovered the hotel was displaying a "best of" award in their lobby from a year's previous. "Well", I thought, "they definitely deserved it!"
Stop four / Dinner - Phantom Canyon Brewing
While my son napped, I did some covert tap room research. Since we hadn't hit up any local breweries in Colorado yet, I felt like we were due for at least one on this trip. Unfortunately, the articles I read led me awry.
Phantom Canyon Brewing as a restaurant - good food, decent service, ok price.
Phantom Canyon Brewing as a brewer - meh.
It's not to say that anything was bad while we were there. I just got the feeling that Phantom Canyon was a restaurant that backed into a brew shop. This makes me sound like a beer snob, I know. I'm just not a big fan of brew pubs who spend more time on a food menu than on their beers. When I seek out a brewer, I'm not worried how good their cheeseburger is, you know?!
Regardless, our meal was good. With full bellies, we headed back to our much improved hotel situation and enjoyed a very restful night of sleep.
Thursday, August 8th - Day SIX
Exploring Colorado Springs
Stop one - Garden of the Gods
Hands down, anyone who's been to Colorado - when hearing I was going to Colorado Springs - unanimously said "Garden of the Gods". And as much as it might be one of those people-y, tourist-y spots ... I have to admit, I agree.
The best part about this park is the approachability and predictableness of it from the perspective of being a parent of a young child. From what I saw, every trail was well maintained and walkable for pretty much any able bodied adult - not to say you won't have to work on some of the trails that are basically staircases to heaven, but my point is ... at least there are well defined "stairs" and not scrabbles up loose rocks, etc.
Yes, Hollywood sign, I'm looking at you.
And also, the park is well mapped and well staffed - so if you simply tell the staff at the visitor's center your hiking ability and time available, they will recommend the exact spots you should visit. This is how we ended up hiking:
The main garden area
The Siamese twins trail
And stopping to see the balancing rock
Exploring Colorado Springs
Stop one - Garden of the Gods
Hands down, anyone who's been to Colorado - when hearing I was going to Colorado Springs - unanimously said "Garden of the Gods". And as much as it might be one of those people-y, tourist-y spots ... I have to admit, I agree.
The best part about this park is the approachability and predictableness of it from the perspective of being a parent of a young child. From what I saw, every trail was well maintained and walkable for pretty much any able bodied adult - not to say you won't have to work on some of the trails that are basically staircases to heaven, but my point is ... at least there are well defined "stairs" and not scrabbles up loose rocks, etc.
Yes, Hollywood sign, I'm looking at you.
And also, the park is well mapped and well staffed - so if you simply tell the staff at the visitor's center your hiking ability and time available, they will recommend the exact spots you should visit. This is how we ended up hiking:
The main garden area
The Siamese twins trail
And stopping to see the balancing rock
Each of these trail heads had access points via separate parking lots, so with little legs on board we decided to drive to each starting point (rather than just hike the entire park on foot). Even with driving from point to point, we spent about 2-3 hours in the park.
If it weren't for the fact that the mid day sun was really starting to get roasty, and it was soon to be lunch, I would have said "let's stay longer". But, considering it was also getting more and more people-y, I was OK with calling it quits for lunch.
Stop two - Manitou Springs
You may notice I gloss over some meals on this trip. I figure no one cares what fast food options we dropped in at out of convenience. So if we fast forward over our fast food lunch and nap, that brings us to Manitou Springs.
I had read online that Manitou Springs has an old fashioned penny arcade to die for, and I wasn't disappointed. Or rather my son wasn't, as there were quarter operated novelty ride on vehicles as far as the eye could see.
Speaking of eyes seeing - my husband dropped a nickle in an old timey sailor peep show. Meanwhile, I enjoyed wishing to be BIG.
After letting my son drop $5 in quarters, which lasted a surprisingly long time, we began the painful process of cashing in our hard earned tickets. Leaving 3 saltwater taffy candies, 3 rainbow tootsies, and one TINY plastic airplane "richer", we decided to explore the rest of Manitou's little main street area.
Most of the area was typical tourist shops, and the infamous Colorado-legal CBD friendly stores, but one thing was particularly interesting: the namesake of the town.
My son enjoyed splashing his hand in the free flowing "healing waters of Manitou" so long that I eventually had to cut him off in order to redirect us to dinner.
Stop three - Manitou Springs Brewing Company
Having basically done zero research on food options in Manitou Springs, we happened to stumble across Manitou Springs Brewing Company along our walk and thought - if they serve food, we're in!
Lucky for us, they not only brewed excellent beers, but served delicious and reasonably priced burgers, and mac and cheese for kids!
Having not much enjoyed our previous night's brewery visit, this stop was kind of like a redemption for us in Colorado tap rooms. Thumbs up for the happy accident.
Friday, August 9th - Day SEVEN
Leaving Colorado Springs, visiting Denver area and O'Dell Brewing
Stop one - Dinosaur Ridge
With our trip nearing an end, we needed to start heading back towards Denver in preparation for departure. That meant trying to find activities near our new and last hotel - in the hopes that we could have a fun morning and immediately check in for nap.
Giving our son the choice between something dinosaur themed or something airplane themed, he chose dinosaurs. So, in an effort to make up for lackluster fossils in Florissant, we headed to Dinosaur Ridge.
We opted for the shuttle tour during our visit, which ended up being very kid friendly and entertaining, although fairly short at less than 45 minutes total. Regardless, my son thought it was awesome to see dinosaur bones embedded in bedrock, and LOVED that the tour guide encouraged him to climb a wall in order to walk in real dinosaur footprints.
After the tour, we visited the on site museum (pretty small, but well done given the limitations), and then we "dug for fossils" in the sandbox out front. Moms and Dads, fair warning - be prepared to spend lots of time "helping" scoop sand with kitty litter sifters in an effort to find one teeny, tiny, oh so precious and important, replica fossil. It's all in the name of learning and memory making, I promise.
Though I felt like this stop was a bit of a tourist trap, the dinosaur presence is very real, and for that I thought it was at least an OK visit.
Stop two - Hotel whoops - let's adventure!
Somehow at this point in our trip, our early check-in luck at hotels ran out, and we couldn't get a room at our new Denver hotel in time for nap. Since we had no other option, we crossed our fingers that our son could make it through the last day of our trip without and carried on.
Since our intention post-nap was to pop into Fort Collins for a quick beer with a local friend before heading back to Denver and wrapping up our trip, we just pushed our agenda up and hit the road. Before we knew it, we were wandering around Old Town Fort Collins - which is yet another Disney connection for this trip, who knew?!
We had anticipated going to Fort Collins only for O'Dell-and-go, so with zero agenda and running over 2 hours early, we were somewhat at a loss. Randomly exploring stores, we were amused by whatever came our way - including one gift shop where the owner let their large white dog with a PINK MOHAWK roam around ... my son is STILL talking about that weeks later, LOL!Leaving Colorado Springs, visiting Denver area and O'Dell Brewing
Stop one - Dinosaur Ridge
With our trip nearing an end, we needed to start heading back towards Denver in preparation for departure. That meant trying to find activities near our new and last hotel - in the hopes that we could have a fun morning and immediately check in for nap.
Giving our son the choice between something dinosaur themed or something airplane themed, he chose dinosaurs. So, in an effort to make up for lackluster fossils in Florissant, we headed to Dinosaur Ridge.
We opted for the shuttle tour during our visit, which ended up being very kid friendly and entertaining, although fairly short at less than 45 minutes total. Regardless, my son thought it was awesome to see dinosaur bones embedded in bedrock, and LOVED that the tour guide encouraged him to climb a wall in order to walk in real dinosaur footprints.
After the tour, we visited the on site museum (pretty small, but well done given the limitations), and then we "dug for fossils" in the sandbox out front. Moms and Dads, fair warning - be prepared to spend lots of time "helping" scoop sand with kitty litter sifters in an effort to find one teeny, tiny, oh so precious and important, replica fossil. It's all in the name of learning and memory making, I promise.
Though I felt like this stop was a bit of a tourist trap, the dinosaur presence is very real, and for that I thought it was at least an OK visit.
Stop two - Hotel whoops - let's adventure!
Somehow at this point in our trip, our early check-in luck at hotels ran out, and we couldn't get a room at our new Denver hotel in time for nap. Since we had no other option, we crossed our fingers that our son could make it through the last day of our trip without and carried on.
Since our intention post-nap was to pop into Fort Collins for a quick beer with a local friend before heading back to Denver and wrapping up our trip, we just pushed our agenda up and hit the road. Before we knew it, we were wandering around Old Town Fort Collins - which is yet another Disney connection for this trip, who knew?!
Since my son was being such a good sport with the lack of nap and all, at the suggestion of my local friend, we stopped in at old timey candy store Rocket Fizz - AKA child heaven.
Leaving one giant bag of gummy worms heavier, and sweating like bandits due to the heat, we gave up on shopping and headed to O'Dell to cool down.
Stop three - O'Dell Brewing
Knowing we would spend a fair amount of time at O'Dell chatting, I had packed a selection of things to keep my son entertained. Two things I hadn't planned on were: (1) the giant bag of gummy worms we picked up at Rocket Fizz, and (2) that my husband and I would be too distracted managing other things to jointly monitor said gummy ingestion. Whoops. At least the gummies provided a solid 30 minutes of entertainment. And besides, he didn't eat the WHOLE bag ... there was ... maybe half a serving left in a 5 serving economy bag? Yeah, I definitely killed it at momming on that one.
Quite honestly, though, my son was a self-entertainment champ at O'Dell. My husband and I even got to enjoy a few flights of beer ... and some Ghostbusters.
Eventually, my husband ended up taking my son out on the patio to run off his gummies while my local friend and I chatted.
Not wanting to leave - both good company and good beer - it was becoming apparent that my son's limits were coming to a max. Saying our goodbyes, we departed Fort Collins for Denver ... and flew out at 8am the next day.
Sigh - vacations: the only bad part is when it ends!!
