Time for RnR!
Trip Start
Jun 30, 2008
1
18
22
Trip End
Jul 22, 2008
Salida,
Colorado,
United States
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
We made our way back down to Colorado Springs where we pulled in at the Air Force Academy. What a campus! This place is like a small city. It is absolutely enormous and so spread out. What we really came to see was the Cadet Chapel which is apparently the third most visited tourist attraction in Colorado! The chapel itself has a number of spires and the glass is stained glass. I don't think I can adequately describe this so best I provide a pikkie which you will note at the top of this blog. What an amazing piece of architecture.
Mad rush now to get to Canon City, a drive beyond Colorado Springs, to do the Royal Gorge train route, a train ride into the Royal Gorge. Whilst we enjoyed the trip, we were a little disappointed though because it wasn't as narrow and as impressive as we had expected. It is a famous train ride into the Royal Gorge and the entire trip runs alongside the Arkansas river where you can see whitewater rafters making their way down. At one point the train passes underneath a bridge which is extremely high above the gorge. After the trip, we took ourselves to the bridge which I walked over. Jude, with her fear of heights was unable to bring herself to do it. She tried a couple of times to put her feet on the bridge but nah, just couldn't make it! But you know what? On the way to the bridge, we were driving along the road and we came upon this black bear. No kidding, at first it would have been about 50-80 feet away so I quickly put the zoom on my camera lens. By the time I had myself together to photograph, there were about 6/8 people around. The bear then starts to make its way TOWARDS us. I started to sh..t myself. Here we are, standing on the side of the road, watching a black bear walking towards us. And he came closer and closer - so much so, I had to take off the zoom lens and put my normal lens back on! Evenutally, he would have been no more than 10 feet away and I am thinking, "something wrong here - shouldn't we be backing away?" It was amazing! To be so close to this beautiful animal out in the wild!
We stayed at Salida this evening and heading for Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Ouray tomorrow.
