Colorado Springs, Part III, Air Force Academy and Broodmoor Resort, April 27, 2016

The Air Force Academy is nestled up against the "front range" and is a huge sprawling campus and  open to the public.  Joel has been to the West Point and Annapolis campus and wanted to complete the trilogy by visiting the Air Force Academy and see the men in Blue.

After perusing the Barry Goldwater Visitor Center and watching a very informative movie on cadet life,

we walked the 1/3 mile over to the chapel and campus quad. The Chapel is quite a landmark with it's seventeen spires.

This is the protestant section of the chapel.  There is also a Catholic, Jewish, and Buddhist,  section but we didn't visit those areas.  I really liked how the clear glass mixed with the stained glass so you can see the surrounding landscape.

The organ is on the balcony:

The class rooms buildings circle  a large quad and classes are all within a ten minute walk. The quad was completely empty at 11:20.  We hit it just right because at 11:30 classes let out for lunch and the various squads lined up for formations and followed the color guard into the cafeteria.

The whole ceremony took less than a few minutes and was pretty impressive.

We stopped at one of the overlooks on the way out.  You can see how the chapel provides a great landmark.

 One other area had an open quad with replicas of plains from the different conflicts and wars.

Next was the  famous Broadmoor Hotel located on 5000 acres with numerous golf courses and spas.  The largest room is 60,000 sf which can accommodate 6,500 people.

The grounds are beautiful, but the weather was not so we cut our visit short.  Its a 5 star diamond hotel and I have seen room advertised on Trivago starting at $195 per night which really translates to almost $300 per night after taxes, parking, and services charges which are all tacked on.

The breweries for the day where the Phantom Canyon Brewing and Trinity Brewing, both local micro breweries. Yep, it  appears this is turning into a brew tour. Boulder and Ft Collins are next pending how the jello shakes.