July 25-26,2007

Manitou Springs to Canon City, Colorado.

Royal View RV Park

Our final day in Manitou Springs was a peak experience. Pikes Peak, that is. We hopped the cog railroad and 9 miles and an hour and a half later, we were on top---14,110 feet. No problem breathing for us, likely because we have been at 5000-7500 feet for the past several weeks. Amazingly, the cog was completed in 1889, with the only significant change being a switch to diesel from steam. The views weren’t really spectacular due to hazy/cloudy skies. Later in the day we moseyed to the city park for a farmer’s market and local music. This was thin gruel as such events go, but did enjoy a cold brew there to chase away the 90 degree heat.

On the road today, gassed up at 3.06 per gallon and felt smug as prices increased down the road. Passed through Canon City on our way to destination Royal View RV Park near Royal Gorge, arriving about noon. After lunch, we (including Carly) headed north through the boondocks on Phantom Canyon Road, which is an unpaved former (1892) RR track bed that was used by ore trains. (Little known fact was that the gold rush in this area in the 1880s was bigger than California and Alaska---biggest in the world.) To the side of the road were vacant meadows that once supported populations in the 1000s. If only the hills could talk! We drove through a couple of tunnels—room enough for one train or one car. Many narrow cuts in solid rock were also passable by one vehicle at a time. Fortunately, we avoided the rush hour, encountering perhaps a dozen vehicles in about 40 miles.

A couple of extant burgs, Victor and Cripple Creek marked the turnaround point as skies darkened and began to drip. Very historic turn of the century brick buildings in each town, but Cripple Creek has become a gambling mecca for southern Colorado, with virtually every usable building for several blocks on the main drag housing casinos---of the non-Indian variety. Saw a few folks sitting on benches in front of the casinos with that ‘tapped out’ look. The return trip (once we found the correct road) was an over hill and dale, curving, cows-on-the-road ride through beautiful country. Carly was rolling about in her ‘cage’ for the entire trip, but sleeping through most of it. Old dogs can do that.

After a buffalo burger dinner BBQ’d in cooling winds, we headed to the Royal Gorge bridge, a 1929 construction feat spanning the Arkansas River (1000+ feet below). As a ‘height-wuss’, it wasn’t pleasant walking across the wooden planked roadway/walkway. We had the bridge almost to ourselves, encountering one other couple. Glad we weren’t there earlier in the day with the masses.