I left the Genoa Wonder View Tower at about 5:30pm. I am afraid that I made Jerry Chubbuck late for dinner, but he insisted that I could take my time.
Finding Interesting Attractions on a Road Trip:The Airplane Restaurant is near the Colorado Springs Municipal Airport and one of its unique features is that you can 'Eat in a Plane' (a real plane!). If you have a larger group, prefer more openness, or suffer from aerophobia, you can 'Dine in the Airport Terminal'.
I have used Roadsideamerica.com's map tool (see Colorado State example) a lot to help find interesting places near my Road Trip route. Not only did I learn about the Wonder View Tower here, but also my next stop: The Airplane Restaurant. In addition to finding the attractions on the Roadsideamerica maps, you can also organize and save them to 'My Sights', then subsequently load them as Points of Interest (POI's) to your GPS unit. I found it very easy to load these custom POI's to my Garmin Nuvi 260W using Garmin's free POI Loader software.
The restaurant is full of interesting aviation memorabilia. The restaurant staff wear flight crew uniforms, and there are aircraft related sounds in some unexpected places in the restaurant (don't miss the restrooms). You can even take turns flying the plane (Note: Don't worry, I Photoshopped in the sky and clouds in the picture below).
The aviation themed menu offers a variety of soups, sandwiches, and entrees. I opted for the French Onion Soup and Blackened Ahi Tuna over Cajun Rice with Chipotle Citrus Butter (served with sauteed vegetables). The Ahi was very good. The Airplane Restaurant serves beer, wine, and has a full bar (including some aviation theme specialty drinks, of course).
The Airplane Restaurant was previously known as Solo's Restaurant (their URL is still http://www.solosrestaurant.com/ and the name in the website has not been updated as of May 2009). I was there about 7:30pm on a Wednesday evening and the larger tables in the plane were full, but there were seats available at the small tables and in the terminal.
The Airplane Restaurant (719-570-7656) is at 1665 N. Newport Road (one block east of Powers on Fountain Blvd) and next to the Radisson Inn and Suites Colorado Springs. Open for Lunch and Dinner (Monday to Saturday 11am-9pm and Sunday Noon-8pm). Just watch for the plane, you can't miss it.
If you are in the Colorado Springs area and want an interesting experience (especially if you have any young aviators in your family), you should visit the Airplane Restaurant.
After dinner, I found an inexpensive ($43.75 using a hotel coupon) room at the Rodeway Inn in Colorado Springs. The room was in a strange location on the back of the building.
I used the decent strength Wi-Fi, did some hand wash in the sink, and went to bed by midnight.
