Earlier this month I visited the Olympic Museum with my girlfriend. Upon arrival my mood was immediately soured. The parking lot was a ghost town but still demanded $15 to park there. I’m a 31-year-old Springs native who grew up in the downtown area, and I absolutely despise paying to park.

I decided to risk it and not pay the steep $15 fee. There wasn’t a soul in sight, and hey, it wasn’t my first time rolling the dice and skipping out on paying to park. We entered the museum and paid the steep $25 per ticket price. Sure, the architecture was twisted and unique. Yeah, the torch and medal collections were neat. However, for being so highly touted, the virtual games to test yourself against Olympians were clunky and mundane. The archery test glitched on me, the skiing test was confusing and didn’t appear to register my movements, and aimlessly waving my hands at noises for the Goalball test was laughable. Farther along in the exhibit there were large touch screens providing information on different events and USA’S top Olympians... in short 2-3 sentences... it’s 2021, why weren’t there actual video highlights on these touch screen info boards? I wanted to learn about past Olympic heroes, but the brief summaries made it hard to care and get invested in it. We completed the tour and left feeling underwhelmed. I did get an ironic laugh from all of the “no skateboarding” signs everywhere, even though skateboarding is an Olympic sport now.

A week goes by and of course, unexpected but deserved, I receive a parking ticket in the mail. $35 plus a $4 service fee to pay online. Get this, the parking ticket money doesn’t even go to the City of Champions.

It goes to SP+, a parking management company based in Denver. Apparently these days it’s pertinent for Colorado Springs residents to pay Denver companies just to park in our own downtown, in order to visit an underwhelming, overpriced museum that nobody asked for.

No wonder the Olympic Museum is so scrutinized. I’m glad I went once to experience it, I’ll never return and recommend everyone else avoid it too.

It certainly wasn’t worth $89 for the experience I had. Only $65 if you conform to the absurd parking rules — hoooray!

Connor Finley Colorado Springs