Friday, March 29, 2013

Spring Break- Royal Gorge

After our adventure at Sand Creek, we took off for Colorado Springs.  While we were there, we decided that we wanted to visit the Royal Gorge (also known as the Grand Canyon of the Arkansas River), which isn’t too far from the Springs.  First, we took a ride on the Royal Gorge train.

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The Royal Gorge bridge is one of the highest suspension bridges in the world.  For some reason, Patrick and I were under the impression that the train actually went ON the bridge.  Nope, here we are going UNDER it.

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We got off the train and felt a little ripped off.  It was not a cheap train ride (and the train traveled only about 15 mph) and we left there wishing we were up on TOP of the bridge, not 1000 feet below it.  So we drove up to the top and then we paid even MORE money to enter the park where the bridge is.  But we got to ride on this cool incline train from the top down to the bottom and then back up:

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Then we rode on a tram from one side of the gorge to the other where we saw these amazing views:

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We saw an albino buffalo:

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And then we walked across the bridge back to the other side.  It was pretty cool walking across a bridge when the ground was a thousand feet below us!

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Along the bridge, there were signs for each state in the U.S., so we got a picture of each of us with the state we were all born in:

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The girls were sad when they realized I didn’t have a birth state sign (no signs for Canada!) so I figured Indiana was the next best option since that’s where I grew up:

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And of course, we all love COLORADO!

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If you ever visit the Royal Gorge, my advice would be to skip the train ride and go up to the bridge!  Much more exciting and amazing, in my opinion!

After some late night swimming and hot-tubbing at the hotel. . .

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. . . the girls were exhausted from a very full day!

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