We spent a weekend in the Colorado Springs area for a very special reason. When we were in Coimbra, Portugal, back in 2025, we were lucky enough to meet a great couple. At the time, they were living there for work though their home is outside Colorado Springs. The great thing about traveling and being open to new experiences and people, is sometimes the stars align and you meet kindred spirits. With these folks, we just clicked. So when their time in Portugal came to an end and they landed back in Colorado, we were excited to get to connect up again.
Their house had a spectacular view of the front range including Pike’s Peak. We went to a great distillery and Mexican restaurant, and did the touristy things of visiting the new Air Force Academy Visitor Center. It is spectacular, though not completely finished. A real eye-opener into the experience new cadets have, the day-to-day activities, rigors of study, and exacting requirements for their living quarters. On that latter one, Trev and I were both gobsmacked about all hanging things needing to be 2″ apart, drawers having to be organized almost like a map of shirts taking up 6″ here and pants in their specific location. And yes, beds had to be made with a 6″ turn down and tight enough for a bouncing quarter.
I didn’t realize cadets become members of one of 40 different squadrons with nicknames ranging from scary stuff like sharks to cartoons like the Pink Panthers. They are made up of cadets from all four class years. We also learned about ranks and the bars and chevrons (apologies if I’m saying it wrong) that are on their uniforms.
There was a great map of Colorado at the end where our friends pointed out some cool stuff about their home state. It is impressive how diverse Colorado is and it was fun to look at where we were headed next – which was Crestone, Colorado.
However, before we ended our day we were able to squeeze in a walk in the Garden of the Gods. Trev and I had a pet sitting gig a couple of years ago in a neighborhood right next to it. We had the good fortune at that sit to walk dogs daily in this amazing place. That pet sit was in deep winter when there was snow on the ground, temps were quite cold, and there were very few people around. This visit was quite different. Summer temps, in fact pretty warm weather for the season, and lots more people. It was wonderful to get to see plants in leaf and bloom and share it all with our friends. There is a special quality to those monumental rocks which I was reminded was/is a sacred place for the Ute.
