Thursday, August 6, 2009

Exit Canyon City

We're back from our camping trip to Canyon City and I believe I have to retract a few statements. The weather, for example, was fine. Not too hot, just rainy enough to give us an excuse to go into town for late-afternoon margaritas, and nowhere near the Federal Supermax Prison. We got a very nice campsite, despite the fact that the campground had a pool, a game room, and evening kid movies. I may have turned up my nose at such accouterments in the past. I may even have been slightly annoyed at how these highlights essentially dictated Si's conversation for the entire 2-day trip ("What time is it? Is it 6:30 yet? How about now? I want to watch Finding Nemo" and "Can we go to the game room now? I'll go by myself. Why not? Will somebody go with me to the game room? I want to spend my quaaaarters. When can we go to the game room?") But the actual campsite location--at the top of a hill with 360 views, backing into pinyon-juniper woodland with plenty of room for exploring (and, thanks to the heated & fully plumbed bathrooms, pleasantly lacking in human feces)--made up for nearly all of this.

Photos:















The Royal Gorge: Biggest Tourist Trap In the West!

It's a big canyon:



















With a bridge!





(Note Helen's clenched fist. She wasn't totally convinced by the bridge's physics)









Under the bridge: the canyon. Yours for only $24 a person (children 4 and older $19)! (HACK)

We also petted the crabby goats, observed the mangy "wildlife" in pens, rode the train, the trolley, the incline railway, and the aerial tram. We had some "homemade" ice cream (cooked up on site from great tubs of ice cream syrup), watched people ride the skycoaster, and got thoroughly tired.

The next day, we did a little wine tasting at the Abbey in town and felt much better.

1 comment:

Jess said...

I believe that the federal supermax prison in Canon City is where the canine training program is based? Though Montana herself was trained at a prison in Sterling.