Colorado vacation post #4

Monday morning we headed back into Colorado Springs to the Air Force Academy. When we first got there we watched a short movie in the visitors' center about life in the academy and the things that they do to promote leadership. One of the interesting things that the cadets do is to teach each other to fly. Now this isn't flying fighter jets or anything of the sort. Rather, they have some smaller plane (I don't really have any idea what it is) that they use and 95% of the instruction is done by the upper classmen. These planes are yellow and we saw several of them flying while we were there. After the movie we walked around the visitors' center and looked at pictures that chronicle cadet life. After viewing them I decided that they definitely need to do some updating. Most of the pictures look like they were from the 80's--you know, wispy hair for the girls, really bad glasses on the boys (military haircuts for boys haven't changed much in the last 20 years so that wasn't a distinguishing characteristic).

After the visitors' center we walked over to the chapel. This is the chapel that houses four different worship areas--Protestant (the largest chapel and most beautiful), Catholic, Jewish and Buddhist. The Buddhist temple area has only been open for about a year. In the movie that we watched they stated that they really wanted the cadets to be spiritually healthy and promoted this. I'm not sure what they do (or if it really happens), but I found it very interesting that the military, a government branch, would actually promote spiritual health. Now I realize that the military isn't promoting just Christianity, but in today's world when Christians are discriminated against and the government seems to be anti-Christian, having a branch of the government promote this was intriguing. And the Protestant worship area is the largest part of the chapel. Doesn't it seem in our litigious society that there should be a lawsuit coming saying that since the Protestant worship center is the largest they are discriminating against others or promoting Protestantism over other religious beliefs?

When you enter the top floor of the chapel you are entering the Protestant worship area and it is gorgeous. There are stained glass windows that run floor to ceiling between the peaks of the chapel and when the sun shines, there is a blue hue to the whole room.

Here is a pic I took of the ceiling. It doesn't really show the blue hue but you get the idea.

After we were done at the chapel we stopped at a B-52 display that they have near the entrance, and then drove over to Focus on the Family (FOTF). When we arrived at the welcome center at FOTF they had just started a Last Chance Detectives movie in their theatre so we sat in on the rest of that. Then we toured the main floor of the visitors center where they have an Adventures in Odyssey (AIO) movie playing and displays about all of their ministries. They also have a gallery of paintings that Dr. Dobson's father did. Apparently he went to art school and was first in his class but gave it all up to go into the ministry.

Downstairs was where the fun stuff for the kids was. They have several different rooms down there in which kids can explore. They have a room for toddlers (kind of like the ones you see in some malls), a Narnia room (you walk through a wardrobe into Narnia and try to find a list of 20 things), a room with a stage/puppets/dress-up clothes, various other things and a 3-story slide. Ellie and Kara loved the slide and went down it several times. Darin got to the top of the slide but refused to go down.

Here are Ellie and Kara in the dress-up room pretending to be characters from AIO.

After we were done at the visitors center we walked over to the administration building for a tour of those facilities. The tour took about 30 minutes and we saw where they tape the broadcasts, where they have the capabilities for national television broadcasts and where the constituent response area was. The tour guide (a young lady from Georgia) also talked about the various programs that Focus has and about Dr. Dobson. They joke that he has been a volunteer for the longest amount of time (he doesn't take a salary) and the biggest supporter (all royalties from his books sold through their resource center get put back in the ministry). Focus doesn't publish Dr. Dobson's books so he makes his living from the royalties he gets from the books he's written that are sold elsewhere.

After the tour when all of the other tour participants had left, the tour guide gave us some CDs to listen to on our drive back to MN. She gave us an audio copy of Dr. Dobson's Family Man, a radio drama of Anne of Green Gables, an AIO CD and a radio drama of on of the Narnia books. After the tour we walked over to the bookstore and the kids all got to pick something out. We had two 50% off coupons so that helped with the total cost. Ellie picked out a book that she's been wanting to read, Kara got a hat, Darin got a Veggie Tales movie and Natalie picked out a stuffed animal that opens up to a pillow. Dan and I got a few books as well.

After our visit there we went out for an early supper to the Cracker Barrel which was absolutely delicious!! And it wasn't even that expensive. I really wish we had one closer cuz the food there is so good.

After supper we went to the Garden of the Gods in south Colorado Springs. We purposefully went there in the early evening because we had heard that the sun setting over the rocks was just gorgeous and we weren't disappointed. Thankfully the person who used to own the land where the Garden of the Gods is located it donated it to the city so that it would remain free to all. Otherwise I'm sure they'd charge for it.

While we were there we saw several rock climbers and the kids had fun climbing on a few of the rocks too.