Colorado,  Family Travel,  West

A Day in Manitou Springs, Colorado

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While researching things to do in the Colorado Springs area, I ran across several articles that mentioned stopping at the Penny Arcade in Manitou Springs. I thought that sounded like a fun stop that the kids would enjoy.

The arcade is made up of multiple buildings as well as a whole section of games and rides outside. So as you walk from building to building you can also stop and enjoy a game or two, or the kids can go for a quick ride on one of the many coin-operated character rides.

We were very impressed with the size of the arcade and how many games they had in their vast collection. It was neat to see how games have changed over time. Unfortunately we didn’t find that many that only cost a penny, but there were several that were 5, 10 and 25 cents.

There was a Changeomatic machine where you would insert a quarter and get back 3 nickels and 1 dime.

A word of caution for those traveling with kids, there were several games that were not family-friendly (adult-themed), so we just steered our kids away from those.

There were lots of sports-themed games – baseball, hockey, soccer, etc. Other popular themes were hunting, gun shooting, and race car driving.

The girls favorite part was the ride on section. There were so many different ones to choose from that they had trouble deciding.

After spending a while at the penny arcade we decided to walk around the town and go on a hunt for the springs. There are several places around town where you can sample the natural spring water.

At each of the tasting areas you will find placards with helpful information about the water as well as the history of the area. We learned that some of the spring water has a light taste of soda while others are more carbonated. This is caused by the route the water takes through dissolving rock before it rises to the surface. The white deposits you see are dolomite, a sedimentary rock that contains calcite. In the late 1800s Manitou Mineral Water Company made Manitou Springs well known by producing up to 20,000 bottles of water in a day.

There’s a map showing where you can taste all of the spring water. We all had different thoughts after tasting the water.
Rob – fizzy mineral water
Sara – bitter soda water
Silas – rotten 7UP with dirt in it
Micah – really watered Pepsi
Hadassah – yucky!

Manitou Springs itself was a very picturesque and fun area to explore. There were lots of artisans and gift shops, and wonderful photo opportunities. We could’ve easily spent a whole day there just leisurely exploring the town, but we only stayed a few hours.

For another look at our visit to Manitou Springs you can check out our YouTube video below. You can also read about Day One of this trip and our visit to Red Rocks Amphitheater and Casa Bonita, or the first part of Day Two and our visit to Garden of the Gods and the Manitou Cliff Dwellings.

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