Royal Gorge | Lake Pueblo State Park

Sunday - 2 May 2004 - Pueblo Lake State Park, Colorado: Another Big Day - and another fabulous day on the road. I don't know what you did today, but I crossed the Rocky Mountains! We left Fruita early this morning and continued east on Highway 50. Highway 50 starts in San Francisco and goes to Our Nation's Capital. Today, we followed the highway across Colorado. The route is so beautiful - traveling through interesting towns, over rolling hills, high range land, over the Rockies and across the snowy Continental Divide, before plunging down to the never-ending Plains.

We stopped at Monarch Pass where DT snapped this lovely photo. (Too bad you can't see I am wearing my Birkenstocks! It was sunny and warm when I dressed this morning.) The pass is 11,300 feet! From this point on, every time I see a river, it will seem to be flowing the wrong direction! Isn't bad enough I have to look at the Willamette River flowing north?!

Terry, straddling the Great Divide

Our Intrigue performed well at this great altitude, and though I didn't think our generator would start, it did fire-up in the parking lot and we micro-waved leftovers from dinner last night for a gourmet repast on the pass. The plunge down was scarier than the trudge up! Driving to the summit, I had to deal with sheer drop-offs on the passenger side - no shoulder, no guard rail. Oh, okay, so I suppose DT is the one who actually had to deal with the road... not to mention he had to deal with me, squealing. The drive down was 12 miles of steep curves, with those awful traffic signs depicting trucks toppling over and a "runaway truck ramp" every mile or so. My Driver takes it in stride, calmly and skillfully handling every corner.
 
Finally, we came out of the mountains and stopped at Royal Gorge, a tacky tourist trap highly recommended by our guide book. Royal Gorge is a drop-off with red cliffs falling over 1,200-plus feet to the Arkansas River below. In 1924 a suspension bridge was built over the gorge. The bridge is no longer in use, so it was turned into a tourist destination by the city of Cañon City (pronounced Canyon). They have food and gift shops, amusement rides, live entertainment, petting zoo, horse back rides, a tram down to the bottom of the gorge, a gondola across the gorge, a train along the bottom of the gorge, and a bungee jump ride over the gorge. There is plenty of RV parking at the Royal Gorge. They charge $20 to enter. We complained and told them it was late and we just wanted to look at the bridge and they charged us each $13. Isn't that a crack-up?

Conquering the Span - the bridge over Royal Gorge


Royal Gorge: Don't look down!

DT and I walked across the quarter-mile long Royal Gorge Bridge. It was quite frightening, truth be told. The screams from the bungee jumpers didn't help. It was very windy and the bridge sways in the breeze! To make matters worse, there are gaps in the wooden flooring (oh, did I mention you walk across WOOD!?) so you have to watch your step and unfortunately can see through the slats to the depths below! I made it across, but that is the bad news. To get back, you have to walk over the bridge again, or you can take the gondola. Yeah, what were the chances you were going to get me over that rocky gorge in a metal box hanging on strings?  And, I'm not even afraid of heights! Anyway, the gorge and the view back to the Rocky Mountains is worth the admission price... whatever you can negotiate.
 
We stopped in Cañon City for diesel (76 gallons, $151) and met a local guy who owned an auto body and paint shop. He was admiring the paint job on Our Intrigue and actually stroked her sides!  He told us to not miss Branson, Missouri - the same story we get from every traveler. 

Years ago, the State of Colorado offered Cañon City either a state college or a state prison. They decided on the prison, rationalizing that they would have a steadier supply of enrollees. Now the city has several prisons, including "Super Max" - the newest of the Maximum-Security Prisons.  Residents include Timothy McVeigh (actually no longer residing anywhere), Ramzi Yousef and Ted Kaczynski. Not a nice neighborhood, so we continued east towards Pueblo, where we stumbled upon Lake Pueblo State Park and booked a campsite on the lake for the night. There are 401 campsites. Three were taken. The Ranger assigned us to site 176. Wouldn't you know - one of the other three campers was in Site 176? No worries, we just took another lakeside site.

The view from our campsite at Lake Pueblo State Park

Since it was Sunday, I made a pizza, we watched The Sopranos and Deadwood. Tomorrow will be another big driving day, so check back to see what adventures we can find.

RV Park: Lake Pueblo State Park