Today's drive included a random, lovely event that made the day even better than we could have hoped! Due to the power of social media, I discovered that some friends were finishing a biking trip near Breckenridge, CO, and were headed home to St. Louis, MO, and that we would be literally passing them on our way to Royal Gorge! With several texts and calls, we managed to meet at some tiny town with a gas station! Say hi to Jeff and Cindy!!
Isn't this just the coolest thing ever? They were travelling with their friends, Dan and April, and after introductions all around, we showed off the T@b, and Jeff and Kathy showed off the Scamp. Turns out, Dan and April were in the market for a small camper, but more on that in a future post!
We were only able to spend a short time together as we all had places to get to, but I'm glad we made the effort to make it work! What a small world!
After saying goodbye, we headed to our campground in Pueblo, Lake Pueblo State Park. We quickly dropped off the campers, then drove to Royal Gorge to do some sight seeing!
Royal Gorge was unbelievable! To be honest, I didn't really know much about Royal Gorge, so I didn't have any expectations of what we would see. I'll say this: It was spectacular!
Turns out, Royal Gorge is a big gorge! 😆 Who knew? Anyway, not only is there this giant hole in the earth, somebody came along and put a gigantic suspension bridge over the whole thing! This was truly an engineering marvel, and required a LOT of cables as support. Take a look:
This is a pic of the whole bridge extending across the gorge. The pic doesn't do it justice, really. It doesn't let you see how looooooooong it really is, but you can see the many cables stretched back to keep it in place.
Look at the size of this thing! This is just one of many, many clusters of metal cable that support the bridge.
Andy, Kathy, and I walked the entire length of the bridge. It was a windy day, and man! Could we feel that bridge swaying! It took a little getting used to, kind of like finding your sea legs on a boat. Along both sides of the bridge, State flags were hung, so we went to find Iowa's.
Found it! Look at how the flag (and our hair) was blowing in the wind! Yikes. There were other interesting things along the bridge too, like this sign:
This is my "WTH" face. We're only about 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River. Who in the world could get a fishing line that far down? Made me LOL anyway.
On one side of the bridge was the visitors' center.
And the other side of the bridge had a lot of activities, including the one Kathy came for: zip lining!
That's right! That girl was going to zip across the gorge! As it was a windy day, she had to wait for the wind to die down enough that they would open the zip line. It finally happened, and she was ready to go.
Kathy is on the right, getting hooked into the harness. I took video of her trip across the gorge:
It took a while for all of us to find each other again after that, so Andy and I passed the time in the beer garden. We figured they'd know where to find us...
After finishing our beer and not seeing our friends, we headed back to the visitors' center where we found Kathy who was looking EVERYWHERE for us! (She was so mad at herself for not thinking of looking at the beer garden! LOL!)
We shopped the gift shop, then went back to the really beautiful campground.
Our campsite was definitely NOT level. By the time we got the camper level side-to-side, I went back to the kitchen and discovered it was a little higher than normal...
Ha! I'm 5'8", and normal counter height is NOT at my armpit! It was a little awkward to cook, but since it was just an overnight, we didn't worry about it too much. It was rather funny.
Kathy and I went for our usual walk, but brought beverages along as well.
There was a tiny path that ran across the back of our campsites, so we followed it.
The terrain was interesting, not like Colorado terrain I knew. Andy referred to it as "high desert," so I guess that's what you call it. It was definitely more arid, and had different vegetation that what I was used to seeing. It was absolutely gorgeous.
If you look carefully, you can see the Scamp on the left, and T@b on the right!
Kathy looking all sporty, like she's hydrating with water from a water bottle, but it turns out, that's a Bottle Keeper, and a gluten free beer was in there!
Me, taking a picture of Kathy, taking a picture of me taking a picture. My head hurts...
Back at camp, Andy adds the 11th sticker, Colorado!
A little night time fireside chatting with cool glow in the dark Silipint cups!
These cups do glow, but I think this picture might have a flashlight under one of the cups. 😆
A fun night, indeed, but time for bed! One more day of travel until we arrive in Estes Park!
Happy camping!
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