Visiting with Friends - Olympic Training Center

(AF Academy, Colorado Springs, CO)  Hi 91 Lo 63 – We had special plans for today. My former boss who I worked for before going on the road has a sister that lives in Colorado Springs. As luck would have it my boss's two kids are visiting their aunt this week. We made plans to see them all, and met for lunch.

On the way to Colorado Springs we marveled at how much Pikes Peak looms over the whole area. The mountains here are much closer to us than they were in Denver and look much bigger.

We met at Fargo’s Pizza. The place was built back before anything else was around, and has the decor and charm of an old west saloon. The staff dresses in period costumes, and the pizza is great. We loved it. Notice Pikes Peak in the background? :)




This is one of several Fredric Remington bronze statues that decorated the place.




You order your food then come pick it up.


Jim, Heidi, Holly, Jessica, Hunter


We hung around and visited for a couple of hours, then we all headed a mile or so down the road to the Colorado Springs Olympic Training Center. It's the largest of the three Olympic Training Centers in the U.S.


It's a complex of several buildings that covers about four square blocks, and along with several athletics buildings includes residence halls. The central part of the complex has some beautiful courtyards, including this area that has the flags of all the countries that compete in the summer games.


We started inside the visitors center where they had a few exhibits. Here's Holly skipping along an exhibit showing the length of the world's record long jump. It's amazing how long it is when you look at it like this.

They conduct narrated tours every half hour. We started out by watching a 10-minute movie about the Olympics, then one of the resident athletes (his sport is fencing) took us on a half-hour tour.

















We got to go inside some of the buildings. This large gymnasium is where training for gymnastics and other floor sports is conducted.




The weight lifting room was huge, with more weights and machines in one place than we've ever seen.

Here's the central courtyard looking back towards the visitors center.

On top of the visitors center is an Olympic Flame.

The countdown is on for the Winter Olympics. Only 553 days to go!

It was great to see this fine facility. And we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it's supported entirely by private and corporate donations. No government money is spent on our Olympic athletes.

We left just in time for the afternoon storms. They only last a couple hours, but it was neat watching the clouds grow bigger in the mountains. The lightning is wild here.


We had a wonderful day, with more fun to come.