We drove for just a few minutes passing many things I wanted to stop at but we were frankly running out of time. We drove up one of the mountains in the canyon to the Royal Gorge Park. It was like $70 for our whole family to get in which is a total rip off. I of course didn't want to spend that much for something I didn't even really want to do, but my dad did it anyway.
First we crossed the bridge. It's the highest or longest suspension bridge in the world or something like that. It was really windy and I took pictures and when changing the memory stick, I almost dropped the batteries and $70 memory stick down one of the crack in the wood planking on the bridge. I was very lucky I didn't.
Pictures of the bridge:
When we got to the other side of the bridge it looked very deserted. We walked up some insane hills and saw the lame sky coaster. Claimed to be the tallest in the world. Really, it was only like 20 ft hight but I guess they counted the hight from the bottom of the gorge... *sings: Liar liars liars, every single one! They say they tell the truth, but they live on the run, from all their lies. (Song Janessa and I wrote and supposedly it will be part of our musical...We don't really have a plot yet though. :D)* Lagoons is like 3 times as high for the same price so we didn't ride it.
Pictures of the Sky Coaster:
This picture makes it look giant...
There you see the real picture...sort of. It's even more dinky from the top.We walked up to Point Sublime to view the gorge and stuff. After that we walked over and waited for a bit to ride the tram over the gorge. I thought it was going to be very scary but really you couldn't look straight down so it wasn't too bad. It was really scary thinking that the tram was built in 1969 though...
Pictures of the tram:
Once to the other side we boarded the tram again because there was no wait and we wanted to see more stuff on the other side. This time the guide actually told us stuff but we were on the wrong side to see it all. Once on the other side we walked down to the petting zoo. The petting zoo and burro rides were closed but the lady cleaning the burros area let us pet them. They were very cute and there was even a funny llama. :) After awhile of petting we walked back down to the deserted looking area and found out that the movie they would be showing wouldn't start for 20 more minutes so we walked over to a gift shop and looked at everything and bought post cards. After paying for the stuff we walked back over to the theater and had a few minutes to look at the museum type stuff around the walls. After a few minutes of this we sat down and watched the movie. The movie actually made the park look REALLY fun. Gah.
After the movie we walked back across the bridge. It was very cool because the wind was blowing so hard that the bridge was swaying. You would think that would freak someone out like me, but I thought it was very fun. It made it exciting. The winds were blowing so hard that my dad said if Janessa would have grabbed all four corners of her blanket, the wind would have picked her up. Insane.
When we were near the other side of the bridge, it began raining and lightninging. Cool yet freaky. We saw that the incline train was open but wasn't leaving for 20 more minutes. So we went in the gift shop on this side of the gorge and looked at all the stuff. I made a pressed penny. After a bit we ran back over to the train station just in time and boarded. The incline train is the steapest incline in the world, a 45 degree angle. It was lame though because they made the cars stay upright on the angle so you didn't really feel the incline, you could only see it.
Pictures of the Incline Train:
From inside the trainOnce at the bottom we were allowed to look around for 10 minutes. You could see the remains of the wooden water pipe that carried water to Ca~non City for like 75 years or so I think. You could also take a closer look at the Arkansas River and see how far up the bridge really was.
Picture of the bridge and tram from the bottom of the gorge:
Bottom line is the bridge and the top one is the tram.I couldn't find any good pictures of the water pipe or the Arkansas River online but as soon as my digital camera will transfer pictures (we should be taking it in tomorrow to find the problem) then check my zorpia and you can see the pictures that I took!
After 10 minutes at the bottom we rode the vertical train back to the top. At the top we got out, used the bathrooms, and then we were back in the car and on the road again. We drove through most of the Rockies and it was really cool. My ears were popping like crazy.
At the next town with food (Salida I think) we stopped at Burger King and got food. (sick) After eating we hit the road again and didn't stopped until we were in Gunnison I think. We stopped at a grocery store to buy Windex to clean the extremely dirty van window. I found a bunch of stationary for only $1 so I bought that and Janessa and I used the bathroom. After a bit we were on our way again.
We drove into the night and at about 10 PM we checked into a Holiday Inn Express in Grand Junction. It was the biggest one we've ever stayed in (four floors) and there were tons of people there. I quickly dragged all my stuff into our room and put on my swimsuit. I convinced my siblings to go swimming and we went down to the pool. We played Marco Polo, sat around, got the rescue rafts and played on them, and did other random stuff. When we were done there was a shower in the pool room so we all just washed out hair and chlorined bodies off in there. (With our swimsuits on of course.) Soap ran almost to the pool. I know the showers meant for rinsing before getting in the pool, but if they leave it there, we'll use it. :) It's so much easier plus I'm sure we saved them a bit on their water bill. lol.
After swimming I sat on my bed and watched news about the popes funeral and I think wrote in my journal, I can't remember. I eventually did go to bed though.
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