Day 15 was deemed our canyon day as we continued the drive north from Pueblo to Denver. There was one coaster park en route, Santa's Workshop. It was another day that we had to fill up and we'd found a couple of sites that made use of the terrain around this part of the country. We'd also found another fair to finish the day.
The first park of the day was The Royal Gorge Bridge and Park located a little bit west of Canon City.
The bridge spans 880 metres and was the larges suspension bridge in the world before being beaten by a Chinese one.
Making use of the canyon they'd opened up a number of zip lines over it. They looked great however we weren't able to ride on account of us being too heavy for the brake system. Ah well :(
We were allowed to go via cable car however. Not quite the same...
The bridge is pretty impressive but this park wasn't Christof's thing at all and he was reluctant to cross.
A cool looking car.
Looking down over the side of the bridge. This place is
These are the cables that hold the bridge up. You don't want these to snap so fortunately it looks like there's lots of contingency built into the structure
Down there, about 200 metres below us is the Arkansas River. This starts in Colorado and runs down to the Mississippi making it the 6th longest river in the state. The call of the void wasn't too bad here and I felt more than safe on the bridge.
A small amusement park is located across the bridge but the main attraction is probably the bridge itself, which is still the highest bridge in the US.
Given the height the bridge is a popular location for stunts, unfortunately not always successful. Base Jumper Dwain Weston famously struck the bridge at 120mph during a base jump. Even a month after our visit another person chose to jump from it and their body was found a few days later.
For those of us who don't want to risk death we can take comfort in knowing with cables like this the bridge is going to be ok.
Crossing the bridge was fine even when it wobbled whenever the shuttle vehicles came over carrying those who didn't feel it necessary to walk themselves over.
Three of us made it across. Christof did make it into the centre of the bridge so well done him!
The site did suffer a fire that did a lot of damage to the area in 2013 including the funicular railway under the bridge, which would have been cool to ride down to the river. They reopened in 2015 so a lot of what we were looking at was brand new.
The skycoaster would offer a great view over the canyon but we couldn't be bothered doing it.
This is the little amusement park, with rides more for the little kids than us.
Having taken the cable car across the canyon here's a shot looking back across.
and that was The Royal Gorge Bridge. The views are spectacular and whilst a little out of the way we found it a worthwhile stop to start our day.
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