Honeymoon Day 5: Gorge Ourselves!
With just two days left of our honeymoon we decided to spend day 5 of our trip on a peaceful drive through the mountains down to the Royal Gorge to do boring things like, oh I don't know, riding in a helicopter!
Our harrowing 8-minute ride took us out over the Royal Gorge and circled around the Royal Gorge bridge and back again.
Tashia was less than thrilled about the idea of a helicopter ride when we started off... but by the end, I think she liked it even more than I did! (All the swinging motion started to get me motion sick. I'm not sure I would have made it through the fifteen minute trip).
After we set down and I got my sea legs (air legs?) back, we decided to check out the Royal Gorge Bridge at ground level. Apparently one engineer said to another engineer "I bet you can't build a bridge across there", and the other engineer said "oh yeah? Hold my beer and watch." And that's how you get a bridge to nowhere... for which you charge people 23 bucks (each!) to walk across and back. We decided to just enjoy the free view from the ground.
We had already seen the Royal Gorge from above, and from atop, so then it was time to head into Cañon City to check if out from within... on the Royal Gorge Route Railroad.
Ok so maybe I didn't realize before this, but I apparently am obsessed with trains. At least on this one we got some lunch. It was also a beautiful day, so we saw some white water rafters going down the river. You might notice some dilapidated pipe in a few of the pictures. Back in the day when it was legal to do such things, the prisoners from the nearby Colorado State Penitentiary were tasked with building pipes to provide fresh water to the prison. They even had to build sections suspended over valleys or dug straight through the rock (by hand – they weren't about to give dynamite to convicts!).
We were getting sort of worn out from all our adventure of the day so we headed back home. But first, we stopped by the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center to see some VICIOUS MAN-EATING BEASTS! We were just in time for their evening feeding tour, to boot.
It turns out some of the critters were kind of cute and some of them were pretty looking if you ignore their dog-like features. I guess.
After seeing wild animals chomp down on raw meat we decided we could use some food ourselves. Yelp found us a great little place called Mucky Duck. I, of course, ordered the duck. While we were there we noticed an upright piano that was manufactured in Cincinnati! A little taste of home all this way away.
After that it was back to the cabin to get some rest, for we had one more day of adventure ahead!
