On day two of our trip we arose early and headed in the general direction of Durango, CO, our destination for the evening. There was much to see in the Colorado Springs area that we just didn’t have time for like the Air Force Academy, the US Olympic Training Center and the headquarters for several Christian ministries such as Focus on the Family, The Navigators, The World Prayer Center and New Life Church among others. They’ll have to wait for another day and another trip. About an hour’s drive from Colorado Springs is Canyon City and the Royal Gorge. We stopped long enough to take a walk on the bridge and look down at the train tracks and the Arkansas River more than 1000 feet below. It was gorgeous (sorry about that)! We also took a short (3 mile drive) along “skyline drive”. It was the highlight of Carol’s trip (not), a narrow paved road along the top of a ridge line with steep drop offs on both sides of the road. Along the one way drive we came upon a bike rider who had to get over to the side to let us pass. As he allowed us to pass he pedaled off the pavement onto the shoulder and couldn’t have been more than 1 or 2 feet from the very edge of a sheer drop that went for at least 1000 feet. Carol was terrified and I must admit I was a little nervous myself. I had to repent of having taken us on such a precarious drive. Looking back though I’d have to say it was fun though it did scare the living daylights out of us!
Most of the rest of the day we spent driving south of the largest Colorado mountains with beautiful mesas and mountain tops all around us. We had hoped to get to Durango in time to take a side trip to Mesa Verde National Park before evening but we arrived just at closing time and so we decided to get up early the next day and go see it before we left the Durango area. More on that in my next post.
