Almost to the end

I'm not sure if there will be any more posts after this. We've got nothing but driving ahead of us now, so I'm not sure if there will be anything worth posting.

We've had a great trip! We took our Michigan weather with us wherever we went. We had a total of two days that we considered hot and very little precipitation that affected our plans. We've been in 15 states so far and two more new ones to go before we reach home. We've experienced everything from snow to 95+ degree heat, altitudes from sea level to 10,000+ feet, visited more than 10 national parks and even got to see a big city or two. We got to meet people from all over the world and even met a few people from within 20 miles of where we live. In all that time we never even got on each others' nerves! (If you believe that, I've got a nice bridge I'll sell you...)

I've got close to 9000 pictures saved to the computer, so hopefully I'll have something to remember this trip by in years to come. My wife thinks I'm crazy, but it will give me something to do in my old age. "Where were we when we took this one???" heheheheh

Time to hit the sack - big travel day tomorrow!

Royal Gouge, er, Gorge...

The Durango & Silverton RR was the last planned activity for the trip, but while mapping the route home I realized that we would be passing fairly close to the Royal Gorge bridge. I'm not one to go rushing to every tourist trap around, but this sounded kind of cool, so I talked the family into seeing it. It turns out that they expect every family that visits the place to BUY the bridge, not just to take home a few pictures. I convinced my better half that it would be a bigger hassle to turn around than it would to pay the man, so I got to see it after all...

It is a pretty cool bridge in that you are encouraged to walk the span and take pictures. Regular cars can cross the bridge, but basically nothing bigger than a car is allowed. Most people just drive to the visitors' center and walk the bridge, but because our route allowed us to approach the bridge from one end and leave the bridge going in the other direction, Bev had the fine privilege of driving over the bridge. She was just soooooo excited! NOT!

For those that have never heard of the Royal Gorge bridge, it was built specifically for tourism. It is not terribly long, but the drop to the river below is over 1000 feet, making it the highest bridge in the world.



Along with the bridge itself, they have a bunch of other activities available. We didn't get to completely take advantage of the entry fee because we arrived fairly late in the day and we didn't have a lot of time to spend there. We did get to take the trolley to the bottom of the gorge. It takes about five minutes to go up or down and it gives you a neat perspective on just how deep the gorge is.


A view straight down from the bridge:


I noticed that they bragged about this guy doing a free rappel and I wondered if he climbed back to the bridge or if he cheated and just took the trolley back to the top...
I also noticed that they didn't brag about anyone setting a record free fall...


A view from the top - It's hard to capture just how high this bridge is.

ChooChoo!!

What a great day for a scenic train ride! The Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad has been operating continuously for over 125 years, and for good reason. The trip from Durango to Silverton follows a river as it wanders its' way along. Sometimes through a very narrow gorge and sometimes along broad expanses. It's a very nice ride all the way and getting pulled along by an antique steam engine just really tops off the whole experience. Some parts of the track feel like they haven't had much maintenance over the last 100 years or so, but I think that it helped make the trip just that much more authentic.

Once again I had fun taking bunches of pictures, although maybe not quite as much fun as in other places. The car we rode in had seats that faced the sides of the train, but the seats were so low that you had to stand up to see many of the good scenes. When I stood up, the roof of the car was low enough that I had to duck to see out. The end result was that I spent much of the trip in an awkward crouching position. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the trip. Mom and the girls also enjoyed it. WhooWhoooooo!!!!