Visiting "Focus Family"

Nestled away in the suburbs of Colorado Springs, with the snows of Pike's Peak in the background is the headquarters of Focus on the Family.  They have a visitor's center.  We tried to visit it in 2006, but they were closed for the Thanksgiving holidays.  Now we have had our revenge.

The pictures in this post are likely of little interest, save for a few people, and I am related to all of them.  There are, I guess, entire rooms and sections of the visitor center that are not directly related to Adventures in Odyssey, but I can't say that for certain.  And I may go back (after all, it's a free place for the kids to have a great time playing!), but I have little intention of explored the non-Odyssey sections.  And I know my family will resonate with that.  Without further ado, our visit to (as Maggie says) "Focus Family".

Outside the building

You have to take an elevator to the Odyssey section, but if you look closely, it's not really an elevator!  It's the Imagination Station, ready to transport you (and an obligatory novice friend who doesn't quite get it) off to another time, where a virtuous person of history is striving to make the right decisions!

Inside, just push the red button (behind Maggie)!

Here is the Whit's End soda shop.  We didn't buy anything there, but it's fun nonetheless.

After that, you have to travel through the Secret Passage, once used for transport of slaves during the Underground Railroad, to get to the rest of the areas.

I don't know who Maggie is supposed to be, because the only girls I can remember are Robyn, Lucy, and Donna Barclay, and I never pictured any of them with reddish pigtails.  But, in the back, there is a window into the KYDS radio station.

Maggie played with some of the puppets and costumes available for shows at "The Little Theater".

Out in the hallway, the staff offices (I guess) are all decorated with Odyssey names, such as this one as Bart Rathbone's Electric Palace.  There was also a "Harlow Doyle, Private Eye", and a theater poster for a Shakespearean drama starring Edwin (not Dr. Regis) Blackgaard.

Our kids hung out in the toddler room a good bit, which is painted to resemble Camp What-A-Nut.

And the best non-Odyssey moment went to the room that had a wardrobe, that you could open and walk through into a magical Narnia room (you may remember that FOTF did radio theater versions of many of the Narnia stories.)  It was like living a childhood dream.

Overall a great trip.  Things I would have liked to see:

• That secret room with all the knobs for controlling Whit's End
• Timmy's cabin, stayed in and possibly built by Johnny Appleseed
• Less of the cartoon characters from the videos, who never looked quite right to me (especially Eugene and Whit)
• A timeline of the various exploits of the Barclay family
• A timeline of the various generations of Odyssey children, whom I guess had to be retired when their voices changed.
• A to-scale model of Whit's End.  They had one from the outside, but it would have been fun to see how all the rooms fit together.

Maggie wants to go back.  Given that it's free and that my parents are coming out to visit, I foresee a good chance of this happening.