United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

 

July 19, 2021

United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

Colorado Springs is known as Olympic City USA, as it home to the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee Headquarters, 20+ National Olympic Governing Bodies, more than 50 National Sport Organizations, the Colorado Springs Olympic and Paralympic Training Center and the sparkling new U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum.

Athletes and coaches have long recognized Colorado Springs as the epicenter of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Movements. The region boasts incredible natural training grounds, inspirational views and vistas and a commitment to excellence that transcends sports and infuses itself in the city’s educational, medical, technological and cultural assets. The newly opened museum boasts 60,000 square feet of display space spread over twelve galleries. The museum showcases the history of some of America’s greatest athletes and features artifacts, interactive exhibits and immersive technology that embody the Olympic and Paralympic movements. 

Kathy and I have watched the construction move along during our previous visits and now that the museum is actually open, we wanted to make sure that we headed into downtown Colorado Springs to check it out.  The exhibits housed in the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Museum showcase the evolution of the Games, from their birth in Ancient Olympia to the current Team USA hopefuls who are training just around the corner at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center. 

There are walls lined with more than 150 Olympic and Paralympic medals that were awarded to athletes for competition over the course of history and an impressive collection of Olympic and Paralympic torches. Among the artifacts on display are the “Miracle on Ice” scoreboard from the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Games, where the U.S. men's ice hockey team stunned the Soviet Union, along with Shannon Miller’s famous white scrunchie she wore while competing in 1992 and 1996.

The collection is very impressive and the interactive features are plentiful and state of the art. The building itself is an architectural achievement and it is certainly worth a visit, but overall, the entire experience seemed a bit disingenuous as it focused almost exclusively on the rah, rah patriotic element of the Olympic experience with barely any reference to the scandals and negative aspects of the games throughout history.

Other than a well-done and interesting display about the terrorist attack in 1972 at the Munich games, there was barely any reference to other scandals including the recent sexual abuse scandal in women’s gymnastics. Not that they should necessarily bring focus to the negative when there are so many positive and heroic moments in any Olympic games, but to almost ignore such a huge story that casts the USOC in a negative light seems self-serving and a little misleading.

With the summer Olympics on tap for Toyko this summer, it seemed like a good time to visit the museum and it was pretty cool, I really enjoyed seeing the artifacts that they did have on hand and they had a decent selection of items related to the USA’s Olympic history. I wasn’t as taken by the interactive displays, though I am sure that has a lot to do with me being old and stodgy when it comes to museums in general. I am old school and prefer just seeing static displays of actual artifacts but I know that those exhibits no doubt appeal to a younger generation.

https://usopm.org/

 

El Paso County Fair

July 16, 2021

El Paso County Fair

There is something about a fair that I just love. I was raised in Indianapolis, maybe a mile away from the Indiana State Fairgrounds which I would attend, usually on multiple occasions. So now whenever I have the opportunity to attend a fair, large or small, I tend to go. So when Kathy and I learned that the El Paso County Fair was happening while we were in Colorado, I pretty much insisted that we go, even though the fair itself was located, not in Colorado Springs, but thirty-five miles to the East in Calhan.

Calhan is a rural, small community located on the vast plains east of the Rocky Mountains. It has the distinction of being the highest elevation non-mountain city in the country at an elevation of 6,535 ft. Originally founded in 1888 as a water station for the Rock Island Line, Calhan is now home to roughly 890 people, a giant wind farm, the El Paso County Fair, several local businesses, Paint Mines Interpretive Park, and a popular roadside attraction – a giant 15-foot bicycle.

Basically, there is not a lot going on in Calhan with the exception of the annual El Paso County Fair which runs for a week in July each summer. This year marks the 116^th edition of the fair, which like most things was canceled last year due to Covid. I was excited to check it out though my expectations were not real high, it was a fair and I was ready.

The fair lived up to my modest expectations as it was small, but featured pretty much everything you might expect to see at a county fair. 4H displays, live farm animals being shown and auctioned, carnival rides and displays and vendors selling all manner of crazy products. There was even a set-up where you could get a tattoo right there on the spot. It seemed a bit sketchy to us, people getting tattoos in the seemingly less than sterile conditions but people were lined up to get theirs.

There was entertainment as well, the highlight for us was the very impressive horseback trick riding performed by Cirque Ma’Ceo which we really enjoyed. The fair seemed to be punching above their weight to get these guys and it was pretty cool to see. There was also a cool display of raptors that had been injured and were being rehabilitated that was impressive. To my chagrin, the demolition derby was sold out, but we had enough bad (but wonderful) fair food to compensate.

When we got back to Colorado Springs there was another spot we wanted to visit that we had never been to before, Rainbow Falls in Manitou Springs. I had read about Rainbow Falls on the Atlas Obscura website, which I often utilize to find strange and unique places and things to see. Locally known as Graffiti Falls due to the large amounts of graffiti that adorns the canyon walls, bridge and area around the falls.

For more than 100 years this small piece of real estate near Manitou Springs has been of interest to residents and visitors as well as the intersection of many man-made endeavors. The early residents of the area included the Tabeguache, or Sun Mountain people, a band of the Ute Indian tribe. The children of the Sun Mountain were considered to be the spiritual leaders of the tribe. The Utes, unlike most western plains Indians, were generally not nomadic and made the Colorado and Utah mountains their homes. They were the experts on the land and were sought out for their guidance as the area developed. They recognized the Falls as a special place. The Falls were originally thought to be named after the rainbow seen in the mist that came from the waterfall.

One of the dominating features of the site is the historic 1932 Highway 24 Bridge into Manitou Springs. This bridge crosses the creek at the Falls. The bridge is listed on the National Register of Historic Bridges and is documented by the Colorado Historical Society. The bridge was one of many new bridges designed by the Colorado Department of Transportation in the 1930’s and was noteworthy because of its technologically significant open-arching concrete structural design.

Parking is tough, but it is an easy walk to the Falls which are just under the bridge. The extensive graffiti has been a source of controversy as many claim it destroys the natural beauty of the falls, but in my opinion the place is already an interesting mix of human activity (the bridge itself) and nature and in this instance the graffiti really did not bother me all that much. It was an interesting and fairly easy place to visit an we are likely to return.

https://www.elpasocountyfair.com/