After breakfast, we check out and load up X Rex. We set off to the Royal Gorge Bridge. It is about an hour south out of town and a huge tourist attraction. I come to find out that the bridge was actually built strictly as a tourist attraction. That is a lot of money to spend on a project with no practical purpose. Oh well. It was built long before my time anyway.
The bridge is pretty impressive. It is built over 900 feet above the floor of a gorge. Being a tourist attraction, there is other cool stuff around too. There is a tram and a rail that goes 90 degrees straight down to the bottom of the gorge. It is rather windy and can't decide if it wants to snow or not. We spend a lot of time warming up inside. We ride the tram across and walk back across the bridge. We then take the rail down to the bottom and check out the bridge from way below. Finally, we head back to the truck and drive across the bridge. The deck is wooden and makes a lot of noise as we drive. Thunk thunk thunk thunk.
By the time we are done, it is past two. Nooo! I am hungry. :( And I am starting to get low on gas. We saw some places to eat and some gas stations on the way in. Let's stop there. I want to stop at the Florent Fossil Beds National Monument. It is kind of on a way back to Colorado Springs. Unfortunately, the way does not take us back the way we came at all.
I speed down back county roads. I do not see a single gas station or food place on the entire 50 mile drive to the Fossil Beds. Bummer. We head to the visitor center. I ask the park ranger what there is to do that is not freezing. The wind has picked up and it is unpleasantly cold with the wind chill. We look at some fossils inside. We go back outside. The ranger had mentioned a close, short hike. We head off. It is cold. However, a short time later, we find some sweet petrified Redwood trees on the trail. The biggest one has saw blades stuck in it from people trying to saw it down. Weird. Ok, totally worth freezing to see! Especially after my fail at seeing the Petrified Forest.
We walk briskly back to the truck after viewing the petrified redwoods. Ok! Time to go back to Garden of the Gods and hope for some more cooperative weather. As we leave the park, my gas light comes on. I know that it comes on with 3 or 4 gallons left and I can make it to civilization but it makes me nervous anyway. On the way, I find a gas station and a Sonic. I get gas and then get some food. Ok, I feel better now.
We head off to Garden of the Gods. We stop at the visitor's center to get some fudge. I don't like fudge so I just wander about the gift shop. We walk out. It is snowing again. This is not the weather we were looking for! We drive around the loop anyway. As we drive, it finally clears up. There is actually some semblance of a sunset! We wander along a trail through the rock and take some sweet pictures before heading off to Denver.
We drive down the road. It is a little slushy. I try to use my wiper fluid to clean the grime off the wind shield. Nothing. Dammit! It is frozen. The temperatures have dropped a fair bit below freezing. Stupid Arizonans not putting cold weather appropriate wiper fluid in the truck!!! I stop at a gas station to get some cold weather washer fluid. I fill up the reservoir and try to break the frozen washer fluid off the nozzles. I try again. Nothing. I scrape the ice again. Still nothing. Grrrrrr. Dammit warm Arizonans again! I grab the wiper thing from the gas station and clean off the wind shield.
I get back on the highway. More slush all over. The wind shield is quickly gross again. It is making seeing very difficult. On top of it being dark. I am none to pleased with the driving conditions. As I get into Denver, the merging gets a little intense. By the time we make it to the hotel, I am not happy. We go to check in. We leave our stuff in the truck since we are not sure if this is the right place. There are like two hotels in one or something and we aren't sure if this is the right one.
It is and we check in. We go back to the truck to get our stuff and decide to get dinner. I would like a nice beer somewhere so we end up in downtown Denver at the Breckenridge Brewery. I get a Vanilla Porter. It is awesome. Might rival the Reubenator for awesomeness! I also get chicken parmigiana. Ok, truck and driving stress is all better now! We have a good time at dinner before heading back.
I get back to my truck. I notice that my weatherstripping that we spent forever trying to get to stick last night is gone. There is no way I am going to find it on the Denver highway either. Fuckkk. Now all my stuff is going to get wet. :(. I had been checking it for adhesion all day and it was doing great! What the hell happened? :(. The good news is that my windshield nozzles have thawed. I clean off my windshield. Ok, well at least that is better!
As I leave downtown, I am passed by two fire trucks. Yikes! I hope everyone is ok! The path that my GPS has laid out for me is completely blocked by emergency vehicles... Wow. That can not be good. I start making random turns and the GPS finally reroutes me to the highway.
We make it back and unload. We head up to our room. Well this is not the nicest place I have ever stayed butttt they do have free breakfast and there is a full kitchen area in the room. On the down side, there is practically zero water pressure in the shower. All of the water comes out of maybe three holes on the whole shower head. This is going to make washing my hair interesting..... Also, the covers on the bed are super staticy. I think they might have made sparks fly when we started messing with them. Yikes!!! Last, the entire water supply to the hotel is getting shut off at 10 tomorrow for an undetermined amount of time for maintenance... maybe that will fix the water pressure problem at least! It isn't the worst place I have been to and at least I am not alone too!
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