Colorado - Caves, Animals and a little shopping

Well, the title pretty much tells our day, so....

Just kidding, I will go into more detail ;)

Amazing landscape!

We breakfasted at the hotel, which is the Holiday Inn Express Broomfield. Plenty of seating for breakfast which I always appreciate. Food was fine, nothing to really talk about one way or the other.
And we hit the road. We are off to the Colorado Springs area for a few activities today.
We drove about an hour and a half to our first destination, The Cave of the Winds.

Check out that view!

Entrance to the Cave of the Winds area

None of us did the crazy zip-line ride or swing - this time. We all did the Discovery Tour of the Cave. It was a really nice tour taking us and a dozen others through the intricate tunnels and caves. The path was paved and it was all lit. Even had ample handrails along the way. I am not one who would look forward to caving.. neither is our son. But this tour looked like something I could handle and we have all ridden enough trains over the years for him, we figured we could make it today. Our young lady and hubby really enjoyed it and hope to return again someday for a more adventurous tour.

On the tour we were told to remember that on the tour "right is right and left if lost", in hopes of not losing any of us along the way. I found the phase delightful and have been using it a lot.... a lot a lot. At least one of my kids is already sick of it.

Some pics from in the cave...

After the tour and customary stop at the gift shop we headed to lunch at Noodles and Co. Still don't have one at home, so it's always a treat.

Next stop - Cheyenne Mountain Zoo.

Before we get into the zoo can we talk about elevation?
We live in LOW country... we are talking sea level people, so the Denver area is quite a change. I knew this going into the trip and driving past Mile High Stadium twice today, I commented on it.
I really felt it in the cave. We had some steps here and there on the tour... not too many, but we were all winded.
And now we get to the zoo......

6714 Feet!

So, this zoo is on a mountain. And instead of being spread out horizontally, it's vertically, up the mountain. Which is cool... but, hold on, let me catch my breath.... tiring.

Our young lady was feeling the elevation/altitude when we got to the zoo. So we paced ourselves and worked on getting her hydrated.
Being zoo fans (you know we are) we really enjoyed this unique layout. Starting with feeding the giraffes.

This was soo cool.

Soo Amazing!

We followed the path around. The zoo closed early today for an evening event, and by the time they were closing we were ready for a rest. I'd love to come back someday and spend more time.

View back towards Colorado Springs from the Zoo

MOOSE!

On the way back to our hotel we made a stop at the Castle Rock Outlets. I was interested in a specific store we don't have back home and picking up a pair of shoes for one of the kids. We got our items and continued on our way.
Dinner tonight - Infinitus Pie. This place only makes single person size pizzas. So you get to pick exactly what you want . It turned out to be great. The kids both thought the red sauce was a little spicy, but they had a train running around the restaurant, so somehow that made up for it a little.

Dinner Venue

We picked up some cookies on the way back to the room and were able to relax and plan tomorrow.

All in all a really fun day. We all need to drink more, but we will get the hang of it.