KAPA - Centennial. Rent a car or convince someone to give you a ride to Light Rail. That takes you downtown (Rockies baseball, Bronco's playtime games, Elitch's, Larimer Square, Denver Art, theatres). Wings over the Rockies Museum just opened it's annex at KAPA. Haven't seen it yet, but supposedly, quite nice. The main musuem is not on light rail and not that easy to get to without a car. The Broncos' home and practice arena is walking distance (well, a long walk but it's a reporting point) from KAPA. Practices often open to the public.
Transportation in Denver assumes everyone works downtown, lives in the 'burbs. Not a great design but for the limited design, very effective.
With a car, everything is possible including Peoples' Republic of Boulder (Colorado's answer to Marin County) an hour drive south to Colorado Springs, or I-70 west into the mountains and have dinner in Frisco, Breckenridge, or Vail (1.5 to 2 hrs assuming minimal traffic) Don't forget to stop by Red Rocks, just for the view.
Closest airport to Royal Gorge is Canon City (1V6) (and Florence) about 40 sm/60 nm south of COS but there's no local transportation other than cab or rent a car. Many years ago the county declared no one may use the crew car other than county employees. Hence locals rarely fly down there. However, if you want to drive down, the Royal Gorge train ride (evenings) is fantastic. Dinner (optional) and an open car for riding thru the gorge. If you want to fly down and rent a car you get to fly right over SuperMax. Wave to
Ted Kaczynski as you fly by. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence) There are 9 prisons in Florence. Guess what the main revenue stream is?
Salida is not near COS - long drive over the mountains. Salida/Buena Vista have airports but unless you have mountain training/experience, not recommended. Salida, on the other hand, has 2 crew cars, each with county plates and you are more than welcome to use them. Both are nice little mountain towns at the bottom of the valley. Head north from Buena Vista and...Leadville! Grab a mountain CFI, fly to Leadville (officially Lake County Airport but I've heard that used only once in 20 years and that was an obvious tourist) to get your certificate for landing at the highest paved airport in CONUS. Relatively new office, nice crew cars, great people.
Another fun trip flying from COS is south past PUB then turn west, climb to 13.5K over Mosca Pass. As you come over the pass, you're flying over Great Sand Dunes Natl Monument. Make a stop at Hooper (dirt strip) for the hot springs then into Alamosa.
No matter what you do flying, the west side of I-25 is heavy with Restricted and Alert areas. Plus both the USAF Academy (COS) and the USAF IPT (PUB) are out flying all the time. Be on flight following but don't depend on it. I've seen zoomie traffic long before it was called to me (when it was waaaay too close!)
Cheyenne Zoo got hit really bad last week in the hail storm. Every car in the parking lot was damaged/trashed and a number of animals were killed.
If you're a fan of Stargate, you can drive up CO route 115, turn onto Norad Rd and I think you can still get to the parking lot and see the tunnel entrance. No tours anymore, you must be VIP to visit. Sorta disappointing because the area around it has become the 'burbs, altho it must be fun to have a mailing address of XXX Norad Rd.
