Colorado Trip-Royal Gorge

On Wednesday of our trip my parents and all of Sean's family were gone so it was just the three of us. We decided to go to the Royal Gorge in Canon City which was supposedly 45 minutes away. I think it took about an hour to get to Canon City and the Royal Gorge was outside the city, farther away. When we got to Canon City Kaelyn was majorly ready to get out of the car so we thought we'd see if there were any shops there and grab some lunch somewhere. We first stopped in the train station shop. There is a train that goes from Canon City through the Royal Gorge, something we'd like to do someday. And at the train station Kaelyn found lots of trains! Most of them made noise. We ended up getting her a little train set for her souvenir. It has an engine train with a driver in it. On that there's a button that makes the whistle blow and then it plays music. It has two cars that attach to the back. And a little track! I think I was more excited about the
track part than she was. It's pretty cool! :)

There wasn't much to see downtown. Sean stopped in one art store and Kaelyn and I walked through the Hallmark store. So we stopped in a small cafe and got some lunch. Kaelyn enjoyed playing in the window display. There were sand toys and flip flops up there, after all! Since we were still on OUR time, it was only 10:30 and there weren't many people there. That was nice. Kaelyn had the run of the place and I didn't feel too bad about letting her run! There was a small ramp leading from one part of the cafe into the part where we sat. And once she discovered that she must have run that ramp 10 times! After we were done eating and she went back to running the ramp, she handed her water glass to a random lady who was coming up the ramp. The lady was like, thanks... Then she started looking around like, what do I do with this now?! Kaelyn is becoming quite brave! She went from cowering from any stranger to handing random ladies her drink glass! :) So I took it from the lady and chased Kaelyn down. Again.

By the time we got to the gorge and got parked it was almost nap time. We couldn't BELIEVE when we got to the entrance that it was $25 PER person (Kaelyn was free at least!) to get in! But we drove all that way, we pretty much HAD to go in! There's a big bridge all the way across so after Kaelyn had her yogurt snack we walked that. It's a bummer that they let cars drive on it too. It's not all that big of a bridge, really. And when you have people walking all over it and a car tries to get through, it ruins the atmosphere. Not to mention if TWO cars go on it and meet up. That can be a little tight of a squeeze. When we got to the other side Kaelyn was getting sleepy so Sean walked up some stairs to a viewing area to take pictures and I kept walking Kaelyn in her stroller so she could nap. I walked over the bridge several more times. I figured I may as well have a good view while I walk! And we got some fresh squeezed lemonade that was SO good.

We were almost done for the day when we ran across the yellow train. Sean and I took a picture in that train together when we were there ten years ago. There wasn't really anyone around it so we couldn't take a picture with all three of us, but we took one with each of us and Kaelyn. Pretty neat to take the same picture ten years apart! We looked and looked for that train and it turned out to be close to the entrance! Figures! When we were all done there we drove by a wild west town attraction that looked really neat. It was $15 each to get in and it was already getting late so we headed back and hope we can do that next time we visit instead of paying to get into the gorge park. We stopped by a neat wood carving shop on the way back and that was cool. The carvings were VERY expensive. And Kaelyn was quite upset with me because she wanted to run up and down a ramp outside and I wouldn't let her. Why? Well, there was this big mean looking pit bull outside on NO leash! As much as we hear about pit bulls around here there was no way I wanted her anywhere near one, even if it seemed friendly. Which it didn't. But she was pretty upset with me anyways. What do you do!

We went back to the campgrounds and were able to catch the ice cream social again. Another HUGE bowl of ice cream for me. And no, I didn't share! We were starting to see our trip near its end and none of us were happy about it! But we still had all day Thursday before we needed to start heading back.