Category: Places to go

We left the convergence and drove about 30 miles east to a nice small campground just up the road from the Royal Gorge.  I didn’t know much about it but decided we would visit and know a lot more.

After setting up in our campsite, we drove over to the gorge that afternoon.  It was very hot that day, so we just drove around to see what was there.  It struck me as odd, the bridge over the gorge was this huge suspension bridge and it seemed to go nowhere.   We decided to come back the next morning when it would be a lot cooler.

The next morning we drove back over there and paid to go into the “park”.  Turns out this whole thing is really an amusement park.  The bridge was built over the gorge strictly as a tourist attraction.  On the other side of the bridge, which you can only walk across now, is the amusement park.

We decided to take the gondolas across then walk back over the bridge; but after being in line for it for about 15 minutes, they shut it down due to high winds.  And it was very windy!

There were also two ziplines that originated on the other (uphill) side of the gorge and people were zipping over.  They came in very fast, and there were rubber blocks on the line that slowed them down very quickly.  I was thinking whiplash might be a real possibility.  Those ziplines are over a thousand feet in the air.   Hard to imagine that.

After the gondolas were shut down, we walked down to the beginning of the bridge, then out on it about halfway across.   We were glad we didn’t bring Dusty as it was so windy out there we probably would have needed to carry him or he could blow away!  I could feel the bridge moving and that’s not a comforting feeling.  We snapped a few pics and proceeded back across while watching my footsteps as there were a lot of older boards that didn’t look so sturdy to me anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve crossed a lot of bridges in my life, but I do not remember one that was anywhere near as high off the ground as this one.  It was about 1,000 feet above the Arkansas River below.  Interestingly, I saw a RxR track running alongside the river way down there.

When we left there, we headed toward Canon City, just a few miles east of the gorge.  I had read something about Skyline Drive, so I decided to use that route to get into town.  That was quite a drive, not for the faint of heart.  Narrow one lane (lucky for us, one way also)  that traverses the top of a mountain ridge all the way to town.   There were a few parts that my acrophobia kicked in and it was all I could do to stay in the middle of that road and look at nothing else.  The dash-cam video shows just how small and high it is.   It comes out at the bottom of the hill after a few switchbacks right into a residential neighborhood.

First Half of Skyline Drive

 

Not  far from the base of the end of Skyline Drive was the Colorado Prison Museum.  We drove by and they didn’t allow dogs inside and it was way too hot to leave him in the car.

I did get to see the gas chamber they used there.  Interesting gadget.  The walls were very thick steel, something I would have expected on a diving bell to see the bottom of the Marianas Trench, not something for using at sea level.

The following day we headed up to Cripple Creek, an old mining town in the mountains.  What a beautiful drive with everything green as far as you could see, miles and miles of trees and meadows with some cattle grazing along the way.

We got into town and we decided to drive thru it to see Victor first and then come back to CC.  On the way to Victor, we saw a very tall pile of dirt, I mean really, really tall and wide. It turns out it’s an active gold mine, a big open pit, but there appeared to be no way to see into it.  We drove for a few more miles, the whole time the wall of dirt was just to the left of us.

We arrived in Victor and it’s a really nice little mountain town, lots of old buildings.  We stopped at a small parking area across from the fire station and city hall.  Nice mural right there.   I saw a fireman outside washing his rig, so I went over to talk to him, figuring he knew a lot about this town.  I knew nothing.

He turned out to be a wealth of information, and the best part was he knew a way to see into the big strip mine just up the road.   We wandered around the town for a little bit, then headed out, remembering the directions to the overlook.  They were a bit vague, but we found it anyway.

And it was spectacular!  Even the platform was over the top, made out of the bed of one of the old ore hauling truck beds with a platform and stairs welded into it.  Quite an impressive structure.  And the view from it into the mine was great.   It’s an active mine and we saw trucks moving ore to and fro.

Turns out they produce more than half a billion dollars of gold per year.  Not chump change!   I didn’t know we had much gold mining in the US.

The pit is Huge, yes, with a capital H, huge.

After spending time to take it all in, we headed back to Cripple Creek and along the way stopped at an old shaft gold mine that is now a tourist attraction.  There is a mine elevator that takes you down 1,000 feet and then you can explore the tunnels.  No dogs allowed and it was still very hot, so I just took a picture of the double-decker elevator that had just a single cable hauling it up and down.  Looked like a single point of failure to my eyes.

We drove the few miles into Cripple Creek, and the first thing you notice in the small town are the 500-foot-high cranes you see when they build skyscrapers, and they appear to be building some right in downtown.  I wasn’t really impressed by the town.  It appeared to only be a casino town.  Lots and lots of casinos.  Nothing much else there.

We wanted to get lunch, and there was nowhere that allowed pets and almost all were actually part of a casino.   We couldn’t even find a takeout place.  Sad.  We did find a nice pavilion on a slight hill with picnic tables in the shade to eat some snacks we brought for the drive.   It was odd, there wasn’t even a Subway to get  a sandwich in the town.  And they seem to be everywhere you look.

We noticed big, dark clouds in the west (the direction we had to go back) and I called the local police station asking about this other road I could see on the map that went almost directly south toward our campground, 50 miles away or so.    The dispatcher said it’s not a road for the faint hearted nor is it ever maintained as it goes along the river on a ledge for miles.  So no go.

We drove toward the storm.   But missed it, only skirting the edges and got a few sprinkles.   But when we got back to the coach, the wind was blowing hard and it started raining buckets of water.  I was glad I wasn’t driving a mountain road in that.

The next morning I drove down to the prison museum by myself and took the tour.  Pretty underwhelming.  Old and musty place.  It was worth the $3 to get in, but just barely.

The next morning we were off to Colorado Springs.

 

July 10th thru the 13th.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day after we went to Ouray, we drove over to Telluride for a day trip.  We got there fairly early and were able to find a parking space quickly.   We walked over to the gondola and looked for a gondola with paw prints on the side, which indicated we could bring Dusty on it.   Then we were off, climbing to 10k feet, where the car stopped and then proceeded to head downward to Mountain Village.   While it was stopped for a few seconds, we saw a great poster on the wall of 5 Labrador Retrievers in a gondola with goggles and headgear on.  Very cute!  Kathy didn’t buy the coffee mug of this picture while on top, so she had to find the studio in town to get it when she changed her mind!!

We arrived at the village a few minutes later.   By this time we were looking for breakfast or lunch and settled for brunch in a very nice outdoor restaurant.  Afterward we wandered around the village for a little while and then boarded another pawed gondola for the ride back down to Telluride.   Once there we walked over to a farmers market that was taking up a side street going up the hill.  The farmers markets in Colorado do have some veggies along with the other stuff.

Overall Telluride was a nice small town, Mountain Village was more of an upscale destination with the requisite prices to go along with that.  I personally liked Ouray more, and would skip Telluride, unless you want to take the lifts up for mountain biking.  (or skiing in the winter) .

June 24th

Thursday morning I was able to make a couple reservations for this coming weekend and next week, which includes July 4th on Wednesday.   First for Saturday and Sunday nights we scored a spot at Fort Stevens State Park west of Astoria right on the Pacific Ocean and the Columbia River.   With that reservation in hand, I was able to get the place I originally wanted to stay, just south of Astoria for Monday thru Friday, the week of July 4th.

With that housekeeping done, we headed out to explore the gorge.   First we headed down the hill and then east on the Washington side of the river, soon we spotted the Bonneville Dam.   We drove to the entrance for the visitor center and were stopped at the gate so the guard could check out what was inside the car and trunk, presumably looking for a bomb or some other terrorist things most retired folks from California drive around with.

He let us pass as we had nothing of interest.    Unfortunately when we arrived we were not close time wise to their twice a day dam tours, so we decided to go look at the fish ladders.   I had never seen one of those before so I figured it would be interesting.   We walked thru a lot of chain link gates to get into that space, and it was fascinating to see the insides of the large concrete spillways.   I assumed it would just be steps from the top to the bottom, but it was much more than that, all sorts of chicanes and other concrete shapes to make the water turn back on itself like a small whirlpool.   Those must have caused a harrowing ride for the fish going both ways.

We also went downstairs in the fish viewing building to look thru the big glass windows into the ladders to watch the fish swim against the very strong current in the ladder.   They must be some very determined fish to get thru that contraption to get to the other side.

 

Afterward we drove back over the BOTG and into the small town of Cascade Locks.   We found a park along the river, and as it was probably close to 2pm, we located a picnic table and ate our packed lunch under a large Douglas Fir overlooking the river.   There was a small gem and minerals show going on in the park and all the vendors were showing lots of pretty cool looking sliced up and polished rocks.

Once we looked over all their wares, we got back in the car and headed east on the freeway toward The Dalles (Dalles rhymes with gals or pals)   We started noticing as we moved further east from Cascade Locks it grew noticeably more arid very quickly.   We got off the freeway in Hood River and found the Hood River Yacht Club and a cute little beach where lots of wind surfers were flying back and forth across the river at a very good clip.  Did I mention it is extremely windy along this river?   At least it was the three days we stayed around here, luckily not up at our campground which was about 500′ above the river.  Those very tall trees would make it truly uncomfortable to camp under them if the wind was blowing there like it was down in the bottom of the gorge.

We left the river to get on Old Highway 30 toward The Dalles.  It snakes its way up the foothills along the river,  lots of 20 MPH blind curves.   It would be a great ride on the motorcycle, but a veritable nightmare in our bus.   We arrived in The Dalles and it was just another town along the river to me.  I didn’t see anything of note while driving thru it.   There is another bridge across the river here, and for some reason this one is free.   On the way toward the bridge, Kathy wanted to snap a picture, so I pulled over and she got out.   She practically blew over the guardrail as some wind gusts I guessed of about 80 MPH tried to take her to Oz.    Did I mention it’s windy near the river?

 

Just up river from the bridge was another that was built in the 60’s called the John Day Dam.  You can see it in the pics.

We arrived on the other side of the river a few minutes later — this was a much wider bridge than the BOTG –and headed west toward our base camp.   Along the way we stopped at a rest area and overlook where again it was extremely windy on a small promontory on the river.    We could see more wind surfers further west on the river and got back on the highway to go find them.

We found a lot of them quite a few miles south of the Hood River Bridge at a national fish hatchery.   Those folks really move across the water being pulled along by kites or small parachutes.   I bet that is an incredible workout.   No need to hit the gym after doing that for an hour.

As we drove down that small side road along the river, we made our way into the fish hatchery just as it closed.    We headed back toward our camp to cook some dinner and kick back for the evening.

 

The next morning we got a late start and headed back toward the hatchery during its open hours.    When we got there, we saw at least triple the amount of wind surfers on the water than the prior late afternoon.    The fish hatchery was open so we went in and parked.   To my chagrin, there were no fish in the tanks.   They explained they were all let out in May.

 

 

 

While we were leaving the hatchery, we noticed that today you could see Mt. Hood very clearly in the distance.  As I got ready to snap a shot of the mountain, it got even better as a cloud on the east side of it moved a bit further away to allow its volcanic shape to really shine.

 

So we headed over the Hood River Bridge and worked our way back west toward Cascade Locks for lunch at a small restaurant on the water we had noticed the day before which was also the landing for a paddle wheeler that plied the river.

We had some really good fish and chips.  They even had a gluten free choice.   Kathy said it was the first time she had had fish and chips in at least 5 years!    They had a Dechutes Porter on the menu.   It was like being in heaven.  We thought about taking a one-hour tour on the paddle wheeler, but they don’t permit pets so we didn’t give them our money.    I’m not sure how they stay in business as the boat was not very full when it arrived back, nor were there many people waiting for the tour getting ready to leave.   But it was a true paddle wheeler.   You could tell when they tried to dock the thing,  a prop right in front of the rudder would have made that much easier.

We left Cascade Locks to drive down to the Oregon side of the Bonneville Dam.    Again we had to let the guard check for bombs and such.  Again we didn’t have any for them.    But this time as we drove in, we passed a lock and I noticed there was a barge in there that I had seen heading downriver while we were having lunch; so I made a U-turn and drove back over to the lock parking lot.

 

 

To my surprise, you can walk right up to the ships at this lock and touch them.    Last year, at the Eisenhower lock, you were behind a tall chain-link fence.   So this was pretty cool.    We got there just a few minutes before they were to lower the water to bring the barges and tugboat down about 60′ to the level of the river below the dam.    As the tug left the lock, it was amazing to see it steer those very large barges sticking so far out in front of it.   After another smaller craft,  maybe a 40-foot boat, motored into the lock to head upstream, we left and drove over toward the dam.

 

 

 

 

 

 

We were amazed as on this side of the Bonneville you drove your car right on the dam to get to the visitor center.    You were also allowed to go inside the power house without a tour, and there was a great picture vantage point of the Washington side’s dam spillway.   They were letting out a lot of water.   It made quite a sound.   Turn up the volume to watch and listen to the short video.

And the windows in the fish viewing area were quite a bit less murky so the fish were easier to see.  Check out the video below.

We headed back toward the campground and spotted another hatchery and drove over to see if they had any fish.   They did,  looked like millions of minnows in the tanks spread out over many acres.   Turns out this hatchery was the original one set up back around the turn of last century.

After walking around it for maybe a half an hour, we headed back to get the coach ready to move out to the mouth of the river west of Astoria, Oregon tomorrow.