Colorado Springs

Our trip to Colorado got off to a rather inauspicious start.  For some unknown reason that I’m sure made sense at the time, President Obama decided to embark on his trip to the Middle East from Dulles International Airport, instead of from Andrews AFB, like he’s supposed to.  So instead of taking off on time,  we sat on the tarmac and waited for the President to leave.

Finally he was gone and we were allowed to take off.   By the time we arrived in Colorado Springs it was 1:00 in the morning.

We spent all the next day looking at houses.  It was rainy and cold, and of course we were wearing summer clothes.  But we trudged on, trying to find the perfect house.  But mid afternoon we were all tired and our real estate agent let us go while he took everything we’d said about the houses and put together a more precise list of homes that were what we wanted.

After a nap and  a huge rainstorm, Pike’s Peak finally emerged from the clouds.

I’d been talking about wanting to see it all day, so when Philip came back to our room from getting groceries, he asked the children if they wanted to go outside and see “Mama’s Mountain.”  And that’s what everyone calls it now.

I have to say that I’m enamored with Colorado Springs.   The area where we looked for homes was wonderfully suburban with every shop and restaurant you could want.  They even have “Five Guys” – a burger place that started in DC and is one of our favorites.  Everything was wide and spacious, which is a huge change from the overcrowding of the DC Metro area.  Not that DC doesn’t have a lot to offer, I just love the mountains and I always have! The Rocky Mountains are visible from pretty much everywhere and during our house hunting we saw rabbits, deer and a fox.

We hit the local mall and let Bip work out some extra energy playing in the kids area called “Tyke’s Peak.”  It was the first thing we saw in the mall and while he played I went to check the directory to see what kinds of stores they had.  I was thinking to myself that if they had an Orange Julius, I’d be in heaven.

So do they?  Of course they do!  Not only that, but a store called “All Things Catholic.”  A Catholic store! Right there in the mall!  I have only ever seen one other Catholic store and that one is here in Old Town Alexandria and run by Pauline nuns.

So we were more than a little bit pleased with the mall.  You can tell so much about a community by the quality of the local shopping.

When we left the mall it was 5pm.  On a Friday.  By all accounts, it should have been rush hour traffic at its worst.  What we saw made us laugh so hard and was so unbelievable that we had to take a picture..  Ladies and gentlemen…Colorado Springs on a Friday at 5pm:

Go ahead and click on that picture to make it larger and enjoy the wide open highway. And the bird poop on our window.

As Little Orphan Annie once sang, “I think I’m gonna like here!”

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