Royal Gorge

Today we left Colorado Springs and drove south to Canon (pronounced Canyon), Colorado. Another pleasant late summer day with mostly blue sky and low, billowy white clouds. On our way to yet another train ride.

The train consisted of three types of cars and a diesel locomotive at each end. One type looked like a typical passenger car. There were completely open cars ideal for observation. These appeared to be flat cars with a three-foot high wall added and doors at both ends—completely open air. The final type was domed observation cars. The windows in these cars started at about shoulder level and curved around overhead. They could have easily improved these by continuing the windows to the top centerline of the car. Everything was modern, not attempt at old timey on this one.

We rode through a gorge (strange word, some times means a long narrow canyon (empty hole) and at other times means to stuff the void (gorge yourself)), known as the Royal Gorge. It offered striking rock formations with a few mountain goats along the way. The rock formations were again made of the granite found in this area. It was rich with changing colors due to various minerals and quite a bit of sparkle due to mica embedded the rock. Along the way we saw a few fishermen and a couple of kayaks riding the rapids that ran along side the tracks. The canyon walls were very high, thus the observation and open cars were the way to do this excursion.

One point of interest was the Royal Gorge Bridge. It’s a suspension bridge. Outside of the engineering marvel of building a bridge over a high gorge, this one has some interesting history. It seems that it was built for no other reason than a person was offered a challenge—hey, I’ll bet you can’t do that. Strange bet in that the challenger lost nothing when the bridge was built and could have issued the gratifying “I told you so” in the case of a failure. The fellow built the bridge for $350,000. The bridge was completed in 1929. It’s the highest suspension bridge in the world; it’s 18 feet wide and 1,260 feet long. That’s no small bridge. And it goes nowhere! Think of the personal drive and dedication here—or would you call it something else?

We’ve run into some interesting signs in this part of Colorado. The first was one at a Christian Church demanding that worshipers wear Church Clothes to service. The next was an admonition to climb if flooding starts. The most recent was passing the correctional facilities going into Canon. We were told that the facility was there and not to pick up hitchhikers. I’ll let you chew on those.

After the train, we headed west, again away from the Rockies and toward US25. This interstate travels between the Rockies and the prairie. As before, this was a striking contrast as we headed toward New Mexico. The sky started to darken and we got our first rain of the trip. It didn’t last long and changed the complexion of the landscape. The gun gray and blue sky with the dark and silver clouds provided a beautiful backdrop to the snow capped Rockies. To the left, a gargantuan (widest I’ve ever seen) rainbow appeared. And for the first time I saw the end of the rainbow. It actually appeared to touch the prairie. As hard as I looked I couldn’t see the pot.

The drive was mostly flat across the prairie. Occasionally, the foothills would make an excursion into the prairie and the road would gently roll. The landscape changed in an interesting way as we moved further south. The foothill valleys seemed to broaden out while the peaks became steeper and narrower with mesas appearing. All of this with the ever present Rockies as a distant backdrop. I think we are seeing the beginnings of the transition to the more desert like lands that we’re approaching. We’ll see.

We’ll spend the night in Raton, New Mexico.