What I like about Colorado Springs (rules, largest, personal)

[Mike from back east]

- Minor League Baseball at dirt cheap prices, talk to the players before and DURING the game, lots of freebies, tons of fun.

- College football at the USAFA, at affordable prices, with a great crowd, see Army one year, Navy the other, sometimes teams like Notre Dame too.

- Housing prices are half that of the DC area.

- Low Humidity. Variety of weather, always changing.

- No traffic, compared to big cities. People here have no idea how good we have it here.

- Close enough to Denver that you don't have to live in Denver to take it all in.

[treedonkey]

Originally Posted by Mike from back east

- Minor League Baseball at dirt cheap prices, talk to the players before and DURING the game, lots of freebies, tons of fun.

Oh yeah! I forgot about that one... I'm wearing my 'SkySox' Jacket right now... only two more months to go!

[chaz77]

Originally Posted by love colo summers

[FONT=Verdana]- Good beer brewed right here and all over Colorado.[/FONT]

I SECOND THAT ONE!

[chaz77]

Originally Posted by treedonkey

I haven;t been to ANY of those places yet, can't wait! (might skip the youth symphony though -- snore ;-))

Good, let's keep a positive thread goinf for a change... Anyone else? What you like?

Agreed! I don't know about the symphony either. I just recently went to Garden of the Gods for the first time and loved it. I spent the whole day there.

And what do you mean about positive for a change? Is this place usually negative?

[Mike from back east]

Parking meters for 25-cents!

You can't even FIND a parking space in DC, much let get enough time for a quarter to go in a get a cup of coffee.

[reginhild]

James, There is a "Colorado Springs Mountain Biking" book 5"x8" size that you can find in some stores around the springs. It has trails listed within about 50 mile radius of the Springs. The book has line maps with geo-coordinates and altitude profiles. It rates the trails on physical difficulty and technical difficulty. Great book to get for enthusiasts.

Have you tried the Air Force Academy Falcon Trail yet? It is one of the top rated trails in the US for mountain biking. Technically and physically it is moderate to tough.

[toxicavenger]

There is also alot of trails in the Helen Hunt area. Plus I think there is a mountains trials course at Red Canyon Trail. My family spends alot of time in the Bear Creek park area too.

[treedonkey]

Originally Posted by chaz77

Agreed! I don't know about the symphony either. I just recently went to Garden of the Gods for the first time and loved it. I spent the whole day there.

And what do you mean about positive for a change? Is this place usually negative?

No, it's just that there was a torturously long post recently about what I DON'T like about COS. So I just wanted to counter that with this one.

Thanks for the great suggestions all, unfortunately the site won;t let me hand out anymore rep points for y'all...

[YoYoSpin]

I especially like the city’s trail system. It’s an opportunity to see parts of this town you’d never know existed otherwise. And perhaps best of all – at least half of the time, you’re going downhill

Here's a link to the city bike trail system (http://www.springsgov.com/units/planning/TransPlan/BikeInfo/bikemap.pdf - broken link). It's a large pdf, so give it a minute to upload. And this link leads to a short video I shot last fall - triking the Cottonwood trail.

[Mike from back east]

City Auditorium. A gem of an old city centerpiece, designed by a local architect in the "Classic Revival" style in 1923. The original structure was designed with room for a large theatre pipe organ (popular as accompaniment for silent movies). The Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ was shipped from Tonawanda, New York, to Colorado Springs, November 1927. Today, the facility is used for trade shows, meetings, concerts, auctions, antique shows, sporting and social events, Hawaiian Luau's, graduations, weekly bag lunches with organ recitals, roller derby, model airplane flying and other uses.

The basement has a long narrow room that once was the indoor pistol range of the local PD, and there are still bullet marks in the concrete ceiling beams (the gang that couldn't shoot straight?). Our model railroad club is now in the old pistol range. Every weekend is already booked for 2009 and into 2010. Some evenings, I'll go to the main level to use the men's room and I'll stick my head in the main room to watch the COLO SPGS Derby Dames in practice. Some of those gals are six-footers, have more tattoo's than a veteran sailor, and could put quite a hurting on you!

LINK: City of Colorado Springs - Topic Pages

LINK: Friends of the City Auditorium: http://cityauditorium.org/contact.shtml (broken link)