Hello, and welcome back to Nomad Dad Life! Today we continue our journey in Colorado. If you haven’t read the first part about Colorado, please do so here. Here we go–it’s time to look at Colorado Springs. As mentioned in the last post, pretty much everything in Colorado involves beer. That theme will continue with the first place we talk about today, an indoor playground!
Lost Island
This was by far the coolest indoor playground we have been to during our travels, not just for our children, but for Fae and me as well. Lost Island has a liquor license so you can get a beer or drink so you can relax while the kids play. Now if that isn’t a great business plan, I don’t know what is! We actually came across this place because it had huge dinosaurs outside on their mini golf course. Arkyn saw them from the road one day on our way back home from a park and he asked to stop there. We looked online and found out it had a lot more than mini golf so we told him we could go there the next rainy day.
We went to check it out and it was more than we all could have imagined. The indoor playground was huge, just as big as most of the outdoor playgrounds we had been to. There were multiple slides, trampolines, ball pits, and plenty of area to climb. The bar window to order a drink was right in the seating area for parents so you didn’t have to leave the supervision area to order a drink. It was a nice surprise for us as parents to be able to enjoy ourselves a little bit while the children played.
We went back there multiple times; it was close to Arkyn’s Dojo where he had karate lessons, so as extra motivation for him to listen and be respectful at karate we would go there afterwards sometimes when he did well. It was designed well enough so Ayla could keep up with Arkyn wherever he went and they could both have fun! There was one area she couldn’t keep up, though, and she ended up getting stuck in some netting so Arkyn rounded up some other kids playing to go on a “rescue” mission to get his sister unstuck from the net.
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo
Continuing the theme that everything in Colorado involves beer, there is the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo! With an elevation of 6,714 feet, it is the highest zoo in the United States. It was ranked the 4th best zoo in America in 2018. It has over 750 animals, but it is best known for its giraffe herd. Over 200 giraffes have been born at the zoo. They are one of the first exhibits you see upon entering the zoo. They have a huge platform so you can feed them lettuce!
The zoo offers 3 restaurants, 2 coffee shops/cafes, and multiple beer carts throughout the zoo. Rocky Mountain Wild Barbecue Co. offers some of the best views of the city from their outdoor patio/beer garden. The zoo also has a mountaineer sky ride that is a chair lift that goes over the middle of the zoo right over the grizzly bears and tigers.
During the holiday season the zoo also offers a lot of different events and activities. October 20-31 they have “Boo at the Zoo” for kids to go trick or treating. During the Christmas season they have their electric safari featuring Christmas lights and light sculptures. The zoo also offers 21+ events with samples of local beer, wine, spirits, and food.
Black Canyon National Park
Our first big day trip in Colorado was across the state to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. The drive through the mountains across Colorado was amazing. There was no shortage of views, and we had many opportunities to pull over, let the children get out of the car seat, and enjoy what Colorado had to offer.
It was the off season at the National Park, and after a quick look online we decided to go to the north side of the canyon. It is more remote, doesn’t have a visitor center, and only has gravel roads, but it has better views. The North Rim Drive is 4.5 miles along the canyon and has 6 overlook platforms for viewing. We only saw one other vehicle our whole time, and the ranger station wasn’t open, so we pretty much got the whole north side to ourselves!
The canyon gets its name because of how steep and narrow it gets, so most places get less than an hour of sunlight, causing shadows to make the rocks look black. The canyon is 2,700 feet deep and at its narrowest is only 40 feet wide. It is the least visited National Park in Colorado, and one of the least visited in the National Parks in the lower 48 states. It is one we would recommend visiting though; however, you don’t need to spend days here. Our couple of hours were enough for us. We could have made it longer and gone to the south side of the canyon, but we didn’t think we needed to make more time in the car seats for Arkyn and Ayla.
The drive across Colorado was worth it and the canyon was something you truly have to experience to appreciate it. During the drive we passed by many unbelievable sites, but one stood out in particular that we would be visiting before our time in Colorado was up; it’s called Royal Gorge and that is where we will start our next post with.
Thank you
I want to end this post by thanking everyone for taking the time to read these posts, and keeping up with our lives. We have been doing this for almost a year and a half now and time is just flying by. We have been in Alaska since the middle of January. Our list of things to do here is longer now than when we got here! Our journey has led us to some amazing people. We have appreciated the support and genuine care from our friends and family back home. There hasn’t been a week that someone hasn’t reached out to see how we are doing, where we are going next, or what we have been up to.
There are a lot of awesome places to see in the world and a lot of awesome people to meet along the way. Get out of your daily routine, take a trip, or take a chance on a new hobby. You never know what you could be missing out on until you try. Start small, take a different route to work, try a new restaurant, or try a new food.
We had no idea if this lifestyle would be possible for us. It would have been easy for us to play it safe. Both Fae and I had decent jobs and could have been comfortable staying in Minnesota. We decided to try it, get uncomfortable for a while, and I’m sure glad we did. We have a lifetime of amazing experiences and we have been able to do it all with our children.
Please continue to follow our journey on social media by clicking one of the links below.
Links
Lost Island: https://lostislandminigolf.com/
Cheyenne Mountain Zoo: https://www.cmzoo.org/
Black Canyon: https://www.nps.gov/blca/index.htm
Joni Marusak
June 13, 2023 — 10:02 pm
Sounds like you are having quite the adventure. You out into words just what I was thinking. It would have beeen so easy to stay in your comfort zone but just imagine all the adventures you and your children would have missed out on!! Keep on keeping on🙂
christopherrylander
June 16, 2023 — 6:35 pm
Thank you Joni! Hopefully the kids don’t get bored when we move back to Minnesota for good! Hope you are doing well!