Colorado Vacation - Part 1

Yep.  Still behind.  Trying to catch up.  Here goes...

We took a Colorado vacation a couple of weeks ago.  It was lots of driving and lots of time spent in the car, but we had family time together, a bunch of memories made and it was very fun!

We went to Canon City, Colorado, and spent some time at the Royal Gorge.  Besides swimming and playing games in the hotel, we did some fun sight-seeing adventures.

We went on the Royal Gorge Route train.  It was really a neat thing.  We got to ride the train through the Royal Gorge and see the famous bridge from WAY below.  Here is a picture of the boys and I in our seats on the train.

We had told the boys before our trip about this really cool and big bridge.  Even though we tried to explain it, it was hard for them to imagine.  As we were on the train, we passed this bridge and they said "Hey, is that it?"  We had to tell them "no that they would have to wait to see the one we were talking about."

The train had a car where you could go out and stand in the open air.  That was neat because you could see a lot more than you could in the closed car.  

This was our first glimpse of the "big" bridge we had been telling the boys about.  I thought this was a cool shot with the river, the train and the bridge all in it.

When we got directly under the bridge, the boys kept looking up to see it.  Doesn't look so big from the bottom of the gorge, but the boys were impressed -- at least until they got a little dizzy from looking up so much that we had to go back in the inside car, sit down and get a little snack.  :-)

On the way back to town from the gorge, we wondered around the train a little bit.  This was the dining car that you could eat in.  They thought it was cool, but Jaden said he thought it would look a little more like the train on "White Christmas."  :-)  That's my boy!

After we got back into town from the train ride, we got some lunch and then drove out to the Royal Gorge park.  We wanted to show them the bridge from the top.

There is lots to do at the park that centers around the bridge.

We rode the incline railway down the mountain to the river -- the same river we rode by on the train.

Then we walked across the bridge.  It was a little scary.  Every time someone drove by us, it would shake.  And it's high.  Really high.  But the boys thought it was cool.  And, we enjoyed seeing all the state flags as we walked across.  Since we began our trip, we had searched for all the license plates, so it was fun to see the flags as well.

TEXAS!

We walked to the other side of the bridge where there was lots more to do.

They had a wildlife park with elk and buffalo and other animals.

Jaden got put in jail.

Jaxon didn't want to go.  He resisted arrest and instead went panning for gold.

The last thing we did was ride a tram back across the gorge.  This was our view from the tram.  It was high and a little scary.  Jaxon and I weren't too sure about it.  I think he thought it was going to dip down into the gorge and be like a roller coaster or something because he was hiding in the floor at the beginning.  But when he realized we were just going straight across, he said, "Oh, this is not so bad.  Kinda cool."  

We still have a "part 2" to post, so check back.