COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. We stuffed ourselves inside the rickety elevator like human dominoes, preparing to plunge 1,000 feet below the Earth's surface to see the inner workings of the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine.

The skinny miner to my left, a character right out of Hollywood central casting, said we were traveling 5 mph down the only vertical shaft gold mine in the United States.

Metal clanged as everything went dark. Then, from the elevator in the blackness below us, a woman screamed.

This was no Disney ride.

Our muted fear turned to delight minutes later after the human cage settled to a stop. We tumbled out in our yellow hard hats. Dim lights shone through the snaking, damp cave as miner John took center stage.

Our family of six had come to the Colorado Springs area for five days of summer fun, to experience Colorado beyond the wintertime highlights of downhill skiing and snow boarding.

The trouble was narrowing the attractions to just a handful, since there is so much to do and see. We bypassed the plentiful and popular outdoor activities such as bicycling, horseback riding and whitewater rafting in favor of gorgeous scenery, historical sites and the ever-present tourist traps.

On our first full day, our family of two adults and four children, ages 3 to 13, happily agreed on a trip to the gold mine in Cripple Creek, about 45 miles west of Colorado Springs.

Gold was discovered there in 1891 by Mollie Kathleen Gortner, who had to overcome a great deal of gender discrimination just to start the mine and keep it operating. But operate it did. From 1891 until 1961, the mine produced more than $5-million in gold.

Inside, we briefly pondered changing careers when miner John told us that 80 percent of the mine's gold reserves remain untapped.

John Fowler, 63, now a tour guide, pulled out various antique tools to explain how early miners spent 12 hours a day hammering away at the rock surface in search of precious gold veins, all by candlelight.

The back-breaking labor combined with the dangers of breathing rock dust left many miners dead by their early 30s.

We looked at each other. Thoughts of a career change vanished.

The mine was easy to walk through, if a bit muddy in spots. I got a fright when I heard a deep rumble as we lagged behind the other group. We grabbed hands and jogged to catch up, only to learn the sound was a recording of dynamite.

Miner John pulled pieces of sparkly rocks from a bin and placed one into each of our hands as we headed back to the elevator for the return trip.

''Will this make us rich?'' we asked.

He replied: ``I wish.''

A DIFFERENT GOLD

One morning with time on our side, we visited the U.S. Olympic Training Center near downtown Colorado Springs. It is home to the Olympic Committee administration and one of three such training facilities in the United States.

It's a low-effort attraction that takes less than two hours. Plus, it's free.

We held the Olympic torches used in the Atlanta and Los Angeles games. The kids posed for photos inside a bobsled in the lobby. We also took in a short introductory film filled with patriotic Olympic images and an advertising buildup to the Beijing summer games.

Much of the facility is closed to tourists, but our guide did give us a peek inside a gymnastics room, the 45,000-square-foot aquatics center and a weightlifting facility. The athletes went about their business oblivious to the strangers peeking in the windows.

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