Colorado Springs Airport

A 1,367-acre city park of dramatic red sandstone fins and spires at the foot of Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs. The vertical sandstone slabs are remnants of an ancient sea floor pushed up onto edge during the formation of the Rocky Mountains 250 million years ago; the deep red color comes from iron oxide. Charles Elliott Perkins, a railroad executive, bought the land in 1879 and his children donated it to Colorado Springs in 1909 with the stipulation that it must remain free to the public forever — admission is still $0. The signature view: Pikes Peak rising 8,000 feet straight behind the red rock formations.

At 14,115 feet, the easternmost fourteener in Colorado — and the one Katharine Lee Bates climbed in 1893 before writing "America the Beautiful" inspired by the view from the summit. Zebulon Pike never actually summited the peak named for him; he tried in 1806 and turned back in November snow. The Pikes Peak Cog Railway has been running to the summit since 1891 — at 14,115ft it's the highest mountain railway in the US. The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has roared up the 12.4-mile highway every July since 1916, second-oldest motorsports race in America. The mountain's sheer prominence — 5,500 feet above Colorado Springs — makes it the most visible peak in the state.

A 10-mile-long slot canyon of the Arkansas River, cut 1,053 feet deep through Precambrian granite — narrower than 50 feet at its base in places. The Royal Gorge Bridge, completed in 1929, spans the chasm 956 feet above the river and was the world's highest suspension bridge for 72 years (until China's Sidu River Bridge opened in 2001). A historic narrow-gauge railroad still runs along the canyon floor, threading under the bridge — one of the most dramatic train rides in North America. The Hanging Bridge section, where the canyon narrows to 30 feet, required cantilevered ironwork to hold the tracks above the rushing river.

Colorado's official air and space museum, housed in something a pilot can appreciate on sight: Hangar No. 1, built in 1939 on the old Lowry Air Force Base. Lowry was a technical training center from 1937 to 1994 that put more than a million airmen through schools in everything from aerial gunnery to photography; when the Air Force left in 1994, volunteers turned the surviving hangar into this museum. Inside the 1930s hangar are 50-plus aircraft and space vehicles — a B-52, a B-1A Lancer (one of only two), an F-14 Tomcat, Century-series fighters, and a replica X-Wing signed by the Star Wars cast. A B-52 is posed out front as if lifting off. Its sister site, Exploration of Flight, is down at Centennial Airport with flight simulators and ride flights.