We had visited the Royal Gorge Park & Bridge with the kids back in 2001 and had a really good time. But this year there had been massive fires in the area and 48 of 52 structures were destroyed. Luckily, the bridge itself only had a few boards scorched but almost everything else was lost, the park was closed for the foreseeable future. The fire however did not reach down into the gorge, it stayed up on the plateau and left river rafting operations intact as well as the railroad. We snagged a couple of train tickets online and planned on spending the day exploring the Royal Gorge and Arkansas River by rail.
The drive to Canon City (pronounced as canyon) where the train depot is was practically downhill all the way from Cheyenne Mountain. Big Gulp displayed an average mileage rate of 19.2 mpg. I have never seen a number that high after a distance that far. But there will be a payback on the return trip since it will be all uphill.
Canon City was bigger than I expected, it had car dealerships, national restaurant chains, and Home Depot and a Tractor Supply. But it also had an old, original part of town, Main Street, that had been well kept and was an eclectic collection of shops and cafés.
Most of the buildings on Main Street are original late 1800's and early 1900's. Like many of the places we have been lately, murals can be found on many.
There were several of these multi-story buildings and many of them had apartments/condos in the upper floors.
I like these old buildings built with locally quarried stone. Above the building is a fine, old structure from 1874, built out here in the middle of nowhere. Gees, the little town I grew up in in Texas did not even exist until 1926 and still did not get its first permanent structure until 1932, and that was just a little red brick house. These guys were building impressive, long lasting structures in a harsh environment isolated in all directions by mountains and gorges.
There was only one pueblo-style that we saw on Main Street. Pueblos were pretty common everywhere we were during our time in Colorado, except in Canon City.
Like yesterday, we packed a picnic lunch. We had to pick up our tickets at the will-call window at 11:45 for our 12:30 departure so we started working our way over to the train depot in time to have our lunch and pick up our tickets. There was a nice park adjacent to the depot and we found a table next to a creek under a huge cottonwood tree. This picnicking thing is a pretty good deal, it only takes a few minutes to prepare, we eat whenever and wherever we want and the cost is a fraction of finding something to buy.
The Royal Gorge people have really outdone themselves with the restoration of the train depot. We should have gotten here even earlier to explore it more.
Almost the minute the train departs the station you are entering the gorge. It is shallow at first but the Arkansas river that the tracks parallel is pleasant to watch.
But soon enough the cliffs rise up and the gorge narrows.
The Royal Gorge Train has several classes of tickets. Everything from coach class to gourmet dining car to the first class Vista cars (glass domed). But everyone has access to the open air cars. You can stand on a flatbed rail car with handrails and have an unobstructed view. We bought the economical coach class tickets because we knew we would be spending all our time outside.
Recent rains had the Arkansas moving pretty good and the float trip business was doing well. We spotted the first group easing through some relatively calm water.
As we approached another group of rafters the guides took the opportunity to goof around a bit. This guy below did a headstand in the bottom of the boat.......
These folks have pulled out of the main current to rest after completing a rapids.
A thousand feet up is the wood-planked Royal Gorge Bridge. Thankfully it survived the fire.
Cyndee has a good eye for spotting critters and she has done it again. For years I have tried to catch sight of a Big Horn sheep in the wild with no luck, but on just a little two-hour train excursion Cyndee spots an ewe and kid. I had to move fast, the ewe was up in a narrow spot and with the train moving at a right angle I only had a couple of seconds to squeeze off a few shots.
The train scared the kid and it ran behind a large rock but its mom just kept grazing. It is not my best work but I got a long awaited shot.
Cyndee was taking photos too. I decided to get in on the action. I think this is called photo-bombing.
Glad you didn't try this later under the bridge! *grin*
ReplyDeleteTheresa C