Someone just gave me and my two young daughters a trip to Colorado Springs in late August. We sill be staying in the Broadmoor Hotel which looks really old-school and sweet. Any advice/tips while I am there? I have family in the area and they can cover the basics but they might not think of everything. I have never been to Colorado before.
In addition, what is the economic forecast for the area? I am supposed to look some ranch properties with houses while I am there to see if I want one as a gift to serve as an investment property but I don’t know enough to know if it is a good idea even if it is essentially free to me.
Any opinions are appreciated.
Wish I could give you up-to-date info, but I haven’t lived near the Springs since 1982, and haven’t been to the Broadmoor since 1981, but at the time it was a lovely grand dame type of hotel, with wonderful high end restaurants and a cute little ski slope where I learned to ski. Beautiful grounds to walk around. Lovely place. Miss seeing it. And like I said, great food. Oh, and I saw “Being There” at their theater…first time I went to a movie alone.
The Broadmoor is awesome. Just strolling the grounds you’ll likely see a lot of wildlife, so bring a camera. A year or so ago they had the U.S. Senior Open golf tournament and a black bear strolled onto the course, scaring the shit out of the female announcer who was only about 50 feet away.
Other things to do - Garden of the Gods, kids will love the cog railway to the top of Pikes Peak, maybe the Air Force Academy or the U.S. Olympic Training Center.
Colorado Springs is a good bet for real estate as it attracts a lot of retired military with their lifetime pensions. It is a very pretty city.
That said, it is just as right-wing as you’ve heard. They really don’t like to pay taxes, and city services are suffering because of it. Cite.
Horseback riding at Garden of the Gods was cool, and the kids might like Cave of the Winds…
Just got back from there. My daughter is 6.5 years old and she loved the zoo, especially the giraffes.
Santa’s workshop was also enjoyed.
Edited to add:
We spent one day in Denver. Here the children’s museum and Aquarium were tops.
I was there for a conference about 5 years ago. It was absolutely beautiful. It was my first such trip, and have been to many others since then at other similar resorts. The Broadmoor was the best of them all. Colorado Springs is gorgeous. We may have just been real lucky, but the weather was perfect. It was mid-spring and perfect is the only way to describe it.
I played a round of golf, but was too hungover to appreciate it. I’m more the urban happy hour bar type, but I really loved this piano bar on the resort. A list of songs goes around the bar. If you want the piano player to play a song, you just yell out the number. You then give the piano player a couple of bucks and he plays the song. And you sing the sing. It’s great. Being the mike hog that I am (and in fairness to me, I will break out into song randomly in front of anybody), I belted out a couple of tunes, met 2 girls who were there with one’s wealthy mom…they came back to my room…we drank from the mini bar…they made out for me… they took most of their clothes off for me…i was married at the time so I didn’t do anything… now I’m divorced and I kick myself for not doing anything…and yadda yadda yadda.
Maybe drinking single malts at high altitude had something to do with it, but that trip rates higher than any one of my Vegas trips.
*Edit: Forgot to add that the bar gives out these stickers that resemble bees that you throw at random people. They stick on clothing…and thus facilitate a flirting environment. Neat idea. Anyway, I was able to grab a whole stack of these bee stickers and still give them to my kids from time to time.
I go there every year for a conference. It’s a lovely place, buildings around a lake and the foothills of the Rockies rising just behind. All the rooms I’ve stayed in in the different buildings have been at least nice and comfortable (in the newer buildings), and some luxurious (the room I had in the old building). Also, there’s a little coffee shop off to the left of the front desk lobby, where you can go and get something chocolate and fancy right after you register.
Basically all I know is that my mom waited tables there during summers some time back in the early 40s.
