October 2022: Part II

 

On the 2nd week of fall break, I took the kids to play at Lost Island Adventure Park. They have really neat life size dinosaur statues throughout their mini golf courses. The Spinosaurus, one of Allison's favorite dinosaurs, was so big I could barely get it all in one shot. Look at Allison for perspective.

T-Rex! Rawrrrrr!!!

It's a fun course with some neat obstacles and interesting things to see besides dinosaurs, like the shark in the middle picture. I didn't get a picture of it then since there were several people in front of us, but there's also a Giant King Kong. You walk through its belly as part of the course.

In addition to mini golf they also have 5 fun bounce houses. I'd seen a similar bounce house at a place in Utah, and they had a big sign there that said "land on your bum, not your feet." I told the kids to do that, which Tyler did, but Allison landed on her feet. It sends a shot of pain through your legs if you land on your feet, so she went over to the other courses and found a friend. Later after watching Tyler do the cliff jump successfully several times, she tried again, landed the right way, and loved it.

Here are the kids on the obstacle course bounce house. They used to love this when I'd take them to Pump it Up in Washington. This place is better, though, since it's open daily when there's nice weather, as opposed to Pump it Up which is primarily a party place that only offers an open jump once a week. 

On Thursday Oscar took off work to spend the day with us. We started by driving to the Shrine to the Sun at the zoo. 

It was a perfect day for it. The views were outstanding! On your left is a great view of Garden of the Gods and on your right is the Broadmoor hotel's fancy golf course.

We also went up through the building and saw its rooms and chapel, but the outdoor views were more interesting to me. 

From there we drove over to the Cave of the Winds Mountain park. The kids got a little play time in on their giant slide before we started our cave tour. 

According to wikipedia, "it is believed that both the Apache and Ute Native Americans knew about the cave. The name, Cave of the Winds, relates to a legend involving the Apache, who were said to believe the cave was the home of a Great Spirit of the Wind." 

My favorite part was the Oriental Temple, a section of cave formations that look like they were intentionally designed for a Buddhist temple.

The quote on the top left says "Dreams of Mountains as in their sleep they brood on things eternal." It's there because a donor who provided the funds to continue excavating this portion of the cave made it a condition of the contract.

Also according to Wikipedia "the first documented mention of the cave came in 1880 when two brothers, John and George Pickett, discovered the cave during a hike in Williams Canyon. The boys noticed that their candles flickered in a small shelter cave they had found and wind was seen to be blowing from a nearby crevice. Crawling through the opening they emerged into a large chamber." You can see the opening of that crevice in the picture on the left. It's very high up from the ground. I'm not sure how they managed to get up there safely.

After our tour we went back in the visitors' center for some lunch before purchasing our adventure passes for their other activites.

The first thing we did was the "Terrordactyl." This was the main reason I wanted Oscar to come with us. I wanted to try the ride, but you have to have two riders, each of whom are at least 100 lbs. The kids are much less than that, so I needed Oscar in order to be able to ride it myself. Fortunately they did have a caged viewing platform for the kids to watch us from. We gave Tyler my phone and asked him to take video ad pictures for us, and we bought the professional photos and video they take from the ride itself. His video is mostly him telling Allison to stop humming. It cracks me up. The professional video has sound, but it is incredibly soft. You won't really hear anything until I scream when we go down the drop. When I listen to it from the flash drive they gave me I can hear everything fine, but when I uploaded it to the internet the sound got compressed.

The drop itself was great, and it was fun to do a little sightseeing as you swing around the canyon while they bring you back up. I was pretty nervous before the drop, especially when they tilt you down before dropping you, but the drop itself was about the same as any straight drop ride at a theme park. The operator tricked us by saying "the most important thing you need to know before riding is..." and then he let us go. 

It's definitely worth doing once, but it was a bit pricey for just one ride. I wish they had a multi ride punch pass. I'd come back and do it again for half the cost. 

From there we went over to a seated zipline type ride called the "Batapult." It's just like Soaring Eagle rides or the Santa's Sleigh Ride we did at North Pole Colorado Santa's Workshop except that you start high, zip down, and get slowly pulled back rather than starting low and getting slowly pulled high before zipping down. I've always liked these types of rides, but doing it right after the Terrordactyl made it feel pretty tame.

Allison and I stayed in line while Oscar and Tyler went on the ride first. From that angle I got much better shots of the scenery than I did of them.

After his ride Oscar came out the other side and got some nice shots of Allison and I with the scenery. 

Tyler wanted to play on the big slide some more while Allison and I went over to the rock wall. She made it to the top for the first time!

Tyler came over a few minutes later to climb with her. 

Oscar hopped on the ropes course when Allison did, though he went up to the top level while she stayed on the lower levels. The barrel roll was torture, but he made it look easy. I did it once and had no interest in doing it again. My heart was racing the entire way across. You're harnessed, so you're not in danger, but if you fall off it hurts when your harness kicks in, and getting back on and stabilized is also very uncomfortable.

Allison took her time on Geronimo's leap, but she figured it out eventually and made it all the way to the top multiple times. 

Allison still struggles with frustration when she can't get her rope to move over a lip. She did the ropes course for awhile but definitely preferred climbing the rock wall and Geronimo's Leap.

Here's my sweet Tyler on Geronimo's Leap. He was able to stand on the highest pillar, and I got Oscar in a few pictures and video with him.

And here's me on the ropes course and Geronimo's Leap. The leap really challenged my quadriceps tendon, so I only did it once, but I made it to the top and even stood on the highest pillar.

Ty did some more ropes course, Allison did some more climbing, and then she wanted to look in the gift shop. She crashed hard on the drive home. My sweet tired girl!

That night I went to our "Witch's Night Out" Relief Society activity. We got "Booed" by some friends from church, and Fry continued his tradition of sitting around holiday things. He usually sits on pumpkins, but these were all a bit too small for him.

Tyler painted a Minecraft pumpkin and Oscar carved one for him.

On October 22nd we took the kids up to Elitch Gardens. We got some lighter lines at the beginning of the day, so we were all able to ride "Dragon Wing" and Oscar and Tyler were finally able to ride Mind Eraser. After that the lines all became long and slow (as usual), so we spent the rest of our time watching the kids go on the kid rides. They also had trick or treating. It was 78 degrees and sunny, which made their chocolate candies melt instantly. I couldn't believe it was that hot in late October. That certainly never happened in Washington!

Allison figured out how to control the bumper cars this time and loved it! She probably went on it at least 7 times. I love this picture of them on the left.

The next weekend we went to Allison's classmate, Brennan's, birthday party. They served me my favorite fall beverage - hot chocolate with pumpkin spice creamer. We also went to several trunk or treats, including one at the kids' school where Allison saw her teacher, and one at church where Allison lost her 2nd tooth.  Allison went around once at the church trunk or treat then wanted to hand out candy with me. It was so cute when she'd grab the candy with the rubber dinosaur and say "trick or treat if you dare!"

Halloween night was great! I took the kids trick or treating from 5:30pm - 7:45pm. Our surrounding neighborhoods have lots of fun decorations, and there was no shortage of homes handing out candy. At one point Allison got too sleepy to keep going, so Oscar picked her up while Tyler and I continued on to a few more homes. One house had a legitimate haunted house for us to go through! After that Tyler was too tired to continue and he fell asleep soon after eating dinner. 

Tyler learned how to play a 10 second melody of Hedwig's Theme from an app on his tablet well before he started taking piano. When we started using Piano Marvel in January, we found a level 3 version with an optional level 5 duet and made it a goal that he would learn it someday. It was well beyond his abilities then (lots of accidentals and tricky rhythms), but he made it happen in October just in time for Halloween.