Glenwood Caverns

The first three days of our Colorado vacation were on the rainy and cold side, so once the sun came out, we knew we wanted to get right to some of the fun outdoor things we had planned.

One of the first places we visited was Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park. It is located in Glenwood Springs, CO, which was about an hour's drive west of our timeshare.

In order to get to the park and go on the cave tours, you have to ride the tramway up Iron Mountain.

Here's Dad and Mom in our cable car.

My mom, Henry, and I knew we wanted to do the cave tours, but we weren't sure about any of the rides. (My dad has very bad knees, so he knew doing a 90-minute cave walking tour wouldn't be fun for him. He stayed under a tent and read a book instead.)

Once we got to the top, Henry and I saw the alpine coaster and wanted to do it. I'm glad we did. It was definitely pricey; it cost us $18 to ride it one time, but you only live (and possibly only visit Colorado) once, right? Now I can say I rode the first alpine coaster in the United States and had fun doing it.

Is this view beautiful or what?

You get to ride in individually-controlled cars on the alpine coaster, and Henry thoroughly enjoyed pushing us full-speed ahead.

The walking cave tour was good too. We got to see lots of impressive cave formations--cave bacon, soda straws, popcorn, and huge cave rooms with old stalagmites and stalactites. Pretty cool.

 King's Row cave room

Just an aside: there was a cute Chinese family on our cave tour, so Henry surprised them by asking them in Mandarin if they wanted their picture taken. I like it when he gets to practice Mandarin.