Springs and Things: Your Insider's Guide to Colorado Springs Culture & Community

Looking for things to do in Colorado Springs this October? Carly and Lauren share their favorite fall events, Halloween activities, and date night ideas around the Pikes Peak region, recorded live from Pizzeria Leopold. Whether you want family-friendly fun, a spooky night out, or a new fall tradition, this episode has you covered.

In this episode:

• Venetucci Farm themed weekends: Great Pumpkin Weekend (Oct 10–11), Scarecrows & Flannel (Oct 17–18), Witches & Wizards (Oct 24–25), Costume Party & Pupkin Fest (Oct 30–31)
• Colorado Springs Cool Science Festival: 16 days of mostly free STEAM events for all ages, including a bats and cave tour at Cave of the Winds
• Folk & Flannel Festival: Chili cook-off, line dancing, brews and inflatable archery, supporting outdoor access for all (Oct 17)
• Bristol Beer Choir: No auditions, all voices welcome; rehearsals are Sunday nights through Nov 15, ending with a Greatest Showman performance
• Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center: Wolves get meat-filled pumpkins, followed by a bonfire (Oct 25, reservations required)
• CC Tigers hockey: Come for the energy, stay for the ice cream
• Edward Scissorhands with the Colorado Springs Philharmonic: Live score at the Pikes Peak Center (Oct 30–31)
• Manitou Springs Ghost Tours: Historic legends and lore, family-friendly; Fridays and Saturdays in October
• Experience FVS at Fountain Valley School: Be a student for a day (Oct 30, pre-registration required)
• Breakfast of Champions: Signature annual fundraising event hosted by Peak Vista Community Health Centers in Colorado Springs.
• Pick of the week: Pizzeria Leopold (try the beet salad and eggplant pizza) and the fall drink menu at Frankly Coffee down the street

We Love Our Sponsors

• Colorado Springs Airport
• Vanguard Aesthetics
• Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival
• Core Collective

Love the show? We just hit 100 episodes! The best birthday present is a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, since it helps other Colorado Springs locals find us. Subscribe so you never miss an episode, and share this one with a friend you'd want to bring to one of these events.

It's our 100th episode, and we're celebrating by kicking off Arts Month live from Yobel in downtown Colorado Springs! We sit down with Angela Seals and Luke Harper Prince from COPPR (the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region), which is marking its 20th anniversary this year.

Arts Month brings more than 200 events across 31 days to the entire Pikes Peak Region, not just Colorado Springs. We talk about why the Springs was founded as a cultural home, how the local arts scene bridges political divides, why this year's theme is "Made for the Moment," and how to find your way into the arts even if you don't consider yourself an "arts person."

In this episode:

• Why Colorado Springs was once the largest U.S. city without a local arts agency
• General William Palmer's vision of Colorado Springs as a home, not an industry town
• How the arts bring together faith communities, activists, and everyone in between
• What would amaze someone from 2006 about today's arts scene
• The 2026 Arts Month theme: "Made for the Moment"
• Why investing in the arts matters for the local economy
• Tips for first-timers: you don't need an invitation

Arts Month picks mentioned:

• Colorado Springs Philharmonic's 100th (centennial) season
• Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival (mid-October)
• First Friday in Downtown Colorado Springs, Old Colorado City, and Manitou Springs
• Stronger Together exhibit: 21 artists honoring 34 arts organizations
• Stronger Together open house at the Cultural Office, Saturday, Oct. 4, 1–4 p.m. (yes, there's an ice cream truck)
• PeakRadar.com for the full Arts Month event calendar

We Love Our Sponsors

• Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
• Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.
• Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival: Join us October 16–18, 2026, in Colorado Springs for three days of documentary, narrative, short, and animated films that honor the drive, spirit, and diversity of women.

Love the show? Leave us a five-star review, share this episode with a friend who needs to get out to Arts Month, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. See you next week on Springs and Things!

We sat down at the Manitou Springs Heritage Museum with museum president Manitou Mike Maio and Sam Driscoll of Theatre D'Art, the two people behind the Manitou Springs Ghost Tours. Mike tells the full Emma Crawford story (that you likely haven't heard), and Sam makes the case for Soapy Smith, the con man who sold bars of soap, and talks about playing Robert "Rattlesnake" James, the hairdresser who married and murdered five or six wives.

And that's just scratching the surface of the stories they have! Also in here: the museum's own ghost, the tall, thin man who appears only in window reflections, and the gunshots that ring out on the west end of town at one in the morning. What?!

Want to hear more? Don't miss the ghost tours! Tours run Friday and Saturday nights, October 2nd through 30th. Kids under 11 get in free. 

Tickets at manitouspringsheritagecenter.org.

Timestamps

• 02:19 Meet Manitou Mike Maio and Sam Driscoll
• 04:43 Soapy Smith, the soap-selling con artist
• 05:53 Why the tours use actors instead of guides
• 08:19 The museum's own ghost
• 10:42 The legend of Emma Crawford, told in full
• 15:33 The arcade reflection and the 1 a.m. gunshots
• 20:21 The homicidal hairdresser
• 25:04 Tickets, timing and accessibility

Links

• Tickets: manitouspringsheritagecenter.org
• Facebook: Manitou Springs Heritage Museum
• Picks of the week: Poor Richard's, Armadillo Ranch, Kinfolks, Townhouse

Share this with the friend you want to bring on the tour with you, and leave us a five-star review on Apple or Spotify. It helps more locals find the show!

We Love Our Sponsors!

• Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
• Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.
• Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival: Join us October 16–18, 2026, in Colorado Springs for three days of documentary, narrative, short, and animated films that honor the drive, spirit, and diversity of women.

Did a monkey bite really launch the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo? Did Spencer Penrose actually ride his horse into the Antlers Hotel lobby? And why is the Shrine of the Sun named after Will Rogers instead of the man who built it?

In this episode of Springs and Things, host Carly Ries sits down with Sarah Woods, Vice President of Collections for El Pomar Foundation, to dig into the archives and separate Colorado Springs legend from fact. As the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo celebrates its 100th anniversary, Sarah pulls back the curtain on some of the wildest, most fascinating stories in our city's history and reveals what the primary source records actually say.

This is one of our most information-packed episodes to date, covering everything from a mysterious box of 1940s newspaper-wrapped clothing to a crash car sitting in a museum exactly how it landed on Pikes Peak.

In this episode, you'll learn:

→ The real reason Spencer Penrose's exotic animals were moved off the Broadmoor Golf Course, and yes, the monkey bite was real

→ How a 21-year-old Spencer Penrose wrote a Harvard thesis that still guides El Pomar Foundation's mission today

→ The story behind the Heritage Gallery's never-before-seen photographs, hats, and personal artifacts of Spencer and Julie Penrose

→ How Michèle Mouton became the only woman to earn the title King of the Mountain, and why she insists on keeping that title

→ The harrowing 2012 crash on Pikes Peak and what the wreckage reveals about safety, thin air, and the psychological demands of the race

→ Why Julie Penrose created the original El Pomar Carriage Museum in 1941, and how a newspaper clipping from the 1920s changed everything we thought we knew about its origins

→ The connection between Spencer Penrose's cancer diagnosis and the founding of the Penrose Cancer Center at Glockner Hospital

→ Why the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun bears that name, and how Spencer Penrose's promotional genius may have played a role

→ What Penrose Heritage Museum has planned for families, accessibility, and community programming

Resources Mentioned:
- Penrose Heritage Museum
- El Pomar Foundation
- United States Olympic and Paralympic Museum

We Love Our Sponsors

Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.

Subscribe to Springs and Things on Apple Podcasts and Spotify so you never miss an episode. If you loved this one, leave a five-star review and share it with a friend who loves Colorado Springs history and lore.

This week, Carly and Lauren welcome Kelly Bull, Executive Director of Hey Neighbor (formerly CONO, the Council of Neighbors & Organizations), for a conversation that's equal parts hilarious and heartfelt. 

Kelly moved to Colorado Springs five years ago and experienced total isolation, until a scary morning made her realize how unsafe it is to not know your neighbors. What she did next turned zero phone numbers into a 30-person text chain, five neighborhood planting parties, and a block that now does dinners, cornhole tournaments, and driveway hot chocolate nights.

In this episode:

• Three very different experiences of "neighboring" in Colorado Springs
• The morning a SWAT team changed how Kelly saw community forever
• The one simple trick to overcome shyness and meet your neighbors (hold something in your hand!)
• Free coffee through the Neighborhood Café program with Kangaroo Coffee
• 150 Tables Across Colorado Springs and the Nominate a Neighbor program
• Neighborhood University (the free 12-week civic education program)
• How gardening brought out the Mayor, Governor Polis, and a whole lot of neighbors
• Kelly's Pick of the Week: morning hikes up Cheyenne Cañon & Red Rocks

Whether you're brand new to your street or you've lived there an "awkward amount of time," this episode will inspire you to knock on that door.

Learn more & register a table: heyneighbors.org

Loving Springs and Things? Leave us a five-star review, share this episode with a neighbor, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. New episodes every week.

WE LOVE OUR SPONSORS
Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.
Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival: Join us October 16–18, 2026, in Colorado Springs for three days of documentary, narrative, short, and animated films that honor the drive, spirit, and diversity of women.

This week, we're recording from the couch at Treehouse Cafe, kicking off our September picks for things to do around Colorado Springs, and let's just say the calendar is packed! We're genuinely excited about every single pick.

In this episode:

• Why we love Treehouse Cafe (and the hidden strip-mall gems nearby: Bazinga Vintage Toys & Collectibles, Brush Crazy & Uptown Cheapskate)
• Jasmine Dillavou's poetry pop-up at Novus Mortem Collective (Sept 5)
• Labor Day Vintage Baseball at Rock Ledge Ranch (Sept 7)
• Colorado Short Circuit Film Festival at Ivywild (Sept 11–13)
• New Moon Sound Bath at Cave of the Winds (Sept 11)
• Parade of Homes for the Zillow-at-11pm crowd (Sept 11–27)
• Pawtoberfest at Union Printers Home, benefiting the Humane Society (Sept 12)
• Unity Metaphysical & Craft Festival (Sept 12)
• TEDx Manitou Springs at Cave of the Winds (Sept 13)
• EPIC Chamber Music Series at the Ent Center (starts Sept 18)
• Annual Powwow at Rock Ledge Ranch (Sept 19)
• Bristol Brewing Oktoberfest at Ivywild (Sept 25 21+ / Sept 26 family-friendly)
• Forest Bathing returns at Starsmore Discovery Center with guide Serena Vogel (Sept 26)
• Green Box Farm & Art Market (Sept 26)
• Gather Mountain Blooms Harvest Hootenanny (Sept 26)
• Bonus: Breckenridge Film Festival + Girls in STEM at Keystone

Plus Movies Under the Stars on Saturdays all September and October at Bristol, a turtleneck chase that turned into a friendship, and Carly's ongoing campaign to convert Lauren into a Savannah Bananas superfan.

Loved this episode? Please leave a 5-star review; it helps other locals find the show. Subscribe on Apple or Spotify, and share with a friend looking for things to do in September.

Not every kid is a team sport kid, and that's totally okay. In this episode of Springs and Things, Carly and Lauren share their favorite kids' activities in Colorado Springs that fit a wide range of interests, from artsy to athletic and everything in between.

In this episode:

• Fencing at Rocky Mountain Fencing with a three-time Olympic gold medalist coach
• Youth triathlons through USA Triathlon (the Colorado Springs Kids Triathlon is September 13!)
• Theater programs at the Academy of Children's Theater, including a stage combat "saber wars" class
• Music programs at the Colorado Springs Conservatory (with a private lesson included)
• First Tee golf for beginners
• Rock climbing at City Rock (plus a restaurant, beer, and parent yoga)
• Homework help, tutoring, and business resources at Pikes Peak Library

And that's just the beginning! There's still time to sign your kids up!

Plus: a recap of Tessa's Pasta in the Park fundraiser, and this week's Picks of the Week: Newport in the Rockies and the Commonweal Art Festival over Labor Day weekend.

Loving the show? Leave us a five-star review, share this episode with a fellow parent, and subscribe wherever you listen.

Springs and Things is your local guide to life in Colorado Springs.

Carly sits down with Joy Armstrong, curator of art at GOCA (the Galleries of Contemporary Art), and Matt Giles, general director at Theatreworks, both housed inside the Ent Center for the Arts at UCCS. Together they unpack why the Colorado Springs arts scene has shifted from safe and traditional to bold, risky, and genuinely alive.

In this episode:

• How Colorado Springs arts and culture has transformed over the past 20 years
• GOCA's current exhibition, Simulacra, and why contemporary art doesn't have to be intimidating
• The Radiant Blue Marble collaborative film event (August 29th) bringing five organizations together
• Theatreworks' bold 51st season, opening with Sweeney Todd, plus Sweat, Private Lives, and What the Constitution Means to Me
• Why every UCCS student gets a free ticket to every Theatreworks show
• How the Ent Center is cultivating the next generation of arts lovers
• Why locals no longer need to drive to Denver for a great night out

Plus, Joy and Matt share their Colorado Springs picks of the week: a downtown museum rewriting the stories it tells, and a coffee-shop crawl worth lacing up your shoes for.

Whether you're an arts lover, a Springs local, or brand new to town, this one's a celebration of a creative community on a serious upswing.

WE LOVE OUR SPONSORS
Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.

Enjoying the show? Leave a five-star review and share this episode with a friend you want to take to the Ent Center.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Colorado Springs farmers markets are in full swing, and this week we're sharing our absolute favorite vendors from markets across the city!

From Old Colorado City to Acacia Park to Meanwhile Block, we've been on a mission all summer to find the best local makers, and we're spilling all our finds. Whether you're a produce person, a skincare lover, or here for the local artisans, this episode is your guide to shopping local in the Springs.

A few of the vendors mentioned in this episode: 

• Hoshi Matcha: The cutest matcha stand with tons of flavors (including cold foam)
• Humble Abode: Clean-ingredient fragrances and candles
• Hair Sparkles by Brittany: Long-lasting hair tinsel your kids will love
• Soul Tides Herbal Hair Care: Plant-based hair syrup from a new local herbalist
• Green Magick Apothecary: The Resplendent Rose Complexion Balm we're obsessed with
• Farm to Fork Colorado: The farmers market delivered to your front door
• Ellen's Flowers
• The Gilded Whisk: Rosemary garlic sourdough, blueberry cinnamon rolls, and so much more!
• The Soft Life Baker: New course for launching a home bakery
• Pasta in the Park supporting TESSA

We Love Our Sponsors
Vanguard Aesthetics: Skincare treatments with real, noticeable results.
Core Collective: Our favorite spot for pilates! Use code SPRINGSANDTHINGS for 3 classes for $30.

If you loved this episode, leave us a five-star review and share it with a friend you want to bring to the farmers market. See you next week on Springs and Things!

Carly and Lauren are back and this time from a table inside Provision Bakery downtown, with their can't-miss picks for August in Colorado Springs.

From Sunday strolls through the Acacia Park Farmers Market to the last of Food Truck Tuesdays, they're rounding up everything worth doing before summer slips away.

This month's lineup includes:

• Rocky Mountain Flower Fest at Venetucci Farm (Aug 8): flower crowns, line dancing & a booze bar
• Colorado's 150th (Sesquicentennial): history strolls downtown, family fun day at the Catamount Institute
• Summer concerts at Hillside Gardens (and the best margarita in town)
• Tails, Tunes & Tastes: a 21+ full-moon night at the zoo
• Full-moon sound baths & moonlit yoga soaks at Hotel Polaris and Sunwater Spa
• Thunder from Down Under at the Pikes Peak Center
• Pasta in the Park: TESSA's annual fundraiser supporting survivors of domestic violence, where Lauren is a judge

Grab a coffee, get your calendar out, and let's make the most of August, Colorado Springs.

Recorded at Provision Bakery + Cinchona, downtown Colorado Springs
Email us: [email protected]
Follow on Instagram: @springsandthingspod
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