Monday, May 31, 2010

Memorial Day Weekend Camping

We took our first camping trip of the season this weekend outside of Canon City. On Saturday, we had a fun-filled day at the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park.


The first thing we did was ride the Incline Railway to the bottom of the gorge. The line was very short for this in the morning. When we walked by it later in the day, there was at least an hour wait. We were very glad we did this when we did.

The ride to the bottom is very step.


When we got back up, we walked across the bridge to the other side of the park. The bridge is the world's highest suspension bridge. The walkway is made of 1,270 planks of deck; about 250 are replaced annually. The planks have large gaps in them and you can feel the bridge sway as you walk across. Cars are allowed to drive across, adding to the movement of the bridge.

The bridge was a perfect place to try out the panorama feature of my new camera. I had lots of fun experimenting with this setting.

On the other side of the bridge, has the Mountainman Encampment featuring many old west attractions, including a horsedrawn wagon ride, burro rides, panning for gold, ax throwing and re-inactments of gun fights.





To get back to the other side of the park, we took the Aerial Tram. Gliding more than 1,100 feet above the canyon floor it is the world's longest single-span Aerial Tram.


Within the park we also rode a trolley, a carousel and the Silver Rock Railway. It was one full day.

When we got back to the campsite, the kids wanted to keep going so we played some miniature golf. Then we had dinner, smores and they kiddos fell asleep.

The next day was a quieter day around the campsite. The kids are now at the age where they can basically entertain themselves. They played games in the camper, explored the woods behind our campsite, climbed on the playground, swam in the swimming pool and played with some of the outdoor toys. Mark and I were really wishing we had brought our books cause for the first time ever, we had a lot of down time on our hands.

By the end of the trip the four kiddos were wiped out. It didn't take much for the four of them to crash.

1 comment:

jamielblev said...

Wow! What a cool looking place!