The beautiful View Inside of a Mountain Cloud

Right after our return from Pagosa Springs we were treated to a visit from Justin's parents.  They were only there for a few days, and Justin's dad was working remotely most of the time that they were in town.  Justin was also working every day that they were there.  The first day they arrived in the late morning, and it was a little too close to nap time to do anything without feeling like we were rushing out and rushing right back, or dealing with a tiny angry bear on our hands if she missed nap time all together.

The second day there we (and by "we" I mean myself, my mother-in-law, and Vivian)  toured the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.  Justin and I had considered doing that several times since we'd been there.  Every time I mentioned it Justin had countered that it was probably a crappy time to visit since most of the athletes were probably already in Rio.  That was actually the case, but I still thought the visit was interesting.  I didn't take many pictures.  As it turns out, it wasn't really a picture kind of place.  I mean, how interesting is a picture of a swimming pool or a weight room?  In my opinion, not very.  I did get this little photo of Vivian in the gym:

Apparently the gymnasts don't actually train there or something, because they don't meet the age requirements of the training center.  So it was a bit unclear to me why there's a gymnastics gym there in the first place.  I might know if it weren't for the fact that Vivian was determined to go jump around on the equipment while the tour guide was talking, and I missed probably 90% of what he had to say in that particular room.

She climbed all the way up to the top and was teetering dangerously for a second before her grandma could  rush over and start easing her back down "the ladder."

Olympic athlete isn't anything I'd ever hope for her...

So it was interesting, and I'm glad we did it, but Justin might be right about it being more interesting when the athletes are all there.

The next day we set out a little earlier and decided to visit the local zoo.  My Viv loves animals, so this had been on the list to do for some time.  This zoo turned out to be really great.  There seemed to be an unusual number of "interactive" animal exhibits, and a lot of the reptile exhibits had a very unique design that allowed for little kids to easily spot the animal.

One of the first things we did was feed the giraffes.  Vivian was pretty enthusiastic at first, but once that tongue was out there searching for the food she was content to just observe someone else get licked.  The experience however, does seem to have placed giraffes at the top of her favorite animal list, and she still occasionally talks about feeding them. 

Those tongues really are crazy.

Petting some sort of lizard.

An example of the exhibits in the reptile house

Touching a snake

Touching a turtle

She really seemed to be pretty enthusiastic about touching all the animals, and we were impressed with how unafraid she was about it.  Then we got to the goat farm...

She was only okay touching them if they weren't looking at her.  As soon as they turned she would run.

And of course she was thrilled to take a turn on the carousel

We were out of time before we were out of zoo.  I think that there was still a fair amount of stuff that we never got to see.  All the same, we left to go meet up with my father-in-law for a very late lunch.  

As soon as we finished lunch we met up with Justin, who was just off work and left to go ride the cog train to the summit of Pike's Peak.  This was something else we'd had our eye on doing since we first arrived in Colorado Springs.  We had read that the views from up on top are spectacular.  Unfortunately, we had bought our tickets two weeks out, and somehow managed to pick the coldest day in Colorado Springs since we had arrived back in May.

This is the view from shortly after we left.

The long napless day at the zoo quickly caught up with Vivian.

The view about halfway up had turned to this.

At the summit

They said it was only 33 degrees outside, it didn't feel quite that cold, but not exactly sunny weather either.

So our view from 14,000 feet was a lot like standing in a small room with a blasting fog machine, but at least we can say we did it, and I still found the experience to be pretty enjoyable.  The in-laws had to leave again the next morning, but we were glad that they were able to come spend a few days with us this summer in Colorado.