Air Force Academy

Today our tourist destination was the Air Force Academy located just north of Colorado Springs.  The academy is situated at the base of a mountain and has spectacular views.  The grounds and buildings are just beautiful.

A tour of the facility includes the iconic chapel that most everyone has seen on TV, in a magazine or such, the visitor center, the Doolittle Center and overlooks along the road to take pictures of the chapel and of a B-52.

Here are some pictures of the famous chapel

Taken from an overlook on the road

Up close

Interior, alter

Interior, pipe organ

Alter

The above pictures are of the Protestant chapel.  One floor below is the Catholic, Buddhist and Jewish chapels.  Only the Catholic chapel was open.

Catholic Chapel

The chapel was closed when we arrived so we had to wait a few minutes until the function inside finished.  While we waited we were able to view the cadet area of the academy.  Classes were letting it out and hundreds of cadets filed out.  What was fascinating was to see some of the cadets only walking on the marble portion of the walkway and making sharp turns to stay on the marble.  We could only speculate that those cadets were first year or “doolies” as they are called.  Fourth year cadets, or seniors, get to wear a blue beret. 

Cadets leaving class

What was funny to watch during this class change was when an officer would walk by.  The officer had to return salutes from all these cadets.  I think if I was an officer stationed here I would only move around while classes are in session, otherwise you would have to ice down your arm each day!

Some other pictures from the academy

Doolittle Center

View from the academy

B-52 on display