USAFA, Pikes Peak Highway & Florissant Fossil Beds

Two days covering the cultural range between the present (US Air Force Academy, the most visited attraction in Colorado) and the deep past (Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, preserving an Eocene ecosystem 34 million years old). The Air Force Academy campus is a masterpiece of Cold War modernist architecture — the Cadet Chapel (Walter Netsch, 1962) is the most recognized piece of modernist American religious architecture, its 17 aluminum spires rising from the granite mountain backdrop. The campus is open to the public for self-guided tours. Florissant Fossil Beds NM on day two preserves volcanic ash deposits from a lahar that buried a lake ecosystem 34 million years ago; the beds contain the most diverse fossil insect assemblage in the world and massive petrified sequoia stumps (some 12 feet in diameter) that remained in their original growing positions when the ash hardened.