Aug 10th to 12th - Canon City

Aug 10th – Wed - Canon City
When we set up yesterday we discovered another casualty of the tire blowout – our microwave turntable fell on the floor and broke. Since we don’t have phone service, we took the MW model number and insurance contact information to the service guy at Royal Gorge Truck & RV and then went to WalMart where luckily the insurance rep called while we were in cell phone range.
It took a while to wander through WalMart as they had some clearance sales and then we got some groceries.
I made lunch after putting everything away and then we were back out again to check out things to do in the area. We are staying about 1 mile from Royal Gorge which has rafting, zip lines, train rides and museums. Pike’s Peak is also not too far away. We can’t really make any reservations until we have more definite dates on our repairs but we got lots of information.
Back at the park, we went to check out the laundry room and get some quarters. The lady working at the desk asked how long we were staying and when we said a week she told us that she would give us a key so we could use laundry facilities at the clubhouse instead. It was a nice building with TV so we could relax on comfy couches while waiting for the laundry instead of running back & forth to check on it. There was only 2 washers & dryers so by the time we finished it was time for happy hour & dinner.
We get no TV in our rig so we bought a couple of inexpensive DVD’s with multiple movies and watched 3 of them.

Aug 11th – Thurs – Canon City
An employee at the Royal Gorge visitor center told us yesterday about an early, discounted ticket for the Royal Gorge bridge that could be purchased between 7 & 8:30 but could be used all day for the rest of the facilities that opened at 10 or 10:30. Since it is nearby, we went about 8 and bought tickets and then came back to the rig and had breakfast before going back to spend a few hours in Royal Gorge park.
We watched some rafters go down the Arkansas River and saw a tourist train in the bottom of the gorge before we rode the incline railway to the bottom of the gorge. There are 2 “trains” on tracks that go down the side of the gorge. Actually, one goes down while the other comes up. There are viewing platforms at the bottom and you can take as long as you want before catching a train back up. Then we walked across the suspension bridge over the gorge and took pictures. Vehicles can also cross the bridge but it is mainly pedestrians and “golf” carts.
We found some shade to watch a short, comic performance by a young lady and then found the building for a ½ hour magic show. By now we were ready for lunch so we got a BBQ pork sandwich which left a lot to be desired.
The employee at the tourist center had suggested that we ride the tram over and take the bridge back but the tram wasn’t running yet when we walked over the bridge so we found you why she made that suggestion. The walk to the tram (past a “zoo” with buffalo & elk and a petting zoo) was very uphill and it had gotten hot. If you forget that you are hanging 1000 feet over a canyon by a cable with 15 other people in the car, the tram ride is a fun 4 minutes.
We went back to town to check for messages on the phone and to make a quick stop at WalMart. Then it was time for a visit to Dairy Queen for some cooling ice cream on the way back to the RV park.
We were watching more movies with windows open and fans on when it started to rain. We closed all the windows except 2 that slant open rather than slide but they got closed shortly when it started to pour rain and the wind pushed the rain in those windows as well. We lost power for a short time and there were streams of water running down all the hills in the park. We certainly made a good decision to view Royal Gorge in the morning.

Aug 12th – Fri – Canon City
We took advantage of slack time this morning to clean & organize the large cupboard above the TV. It is amazing how long you can search for things before you decide to do something about it!
Then we went to Cripple Creek via Guffey. Guffey is a small, old, western town where everything is an antique store or looks like one. Cripple Creek is an old mining town which has been restored with small casinos. The entire main street is lined with casinos, hotels & restaurants. Buses bring people from Colorado Springs as you can get to the town from the east (Colorado Springs) or the southwest the way we came. We made a circle so the return trip was not as long. The road climbs to over 9000 feet which makes you think you would be in the mountains but there is a lot of level ground and ranches with small hills around them.
We left at 10 and got back at 7:30 so it was a full day. We had lunch there and Terry won enough money to keep himself in the black but not me. I had put meat & gravy in the crock pot so was able to get dinner on the table pretty quickly. Terry went to the office and rented movies to fill the evening.