Colorado Trip – Day 2

Canon City – Skyline Scenic Drive and The Royal Gorge

From the Seven Falls we drove to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun but unfortunately, we couldn’t see it because one has to book ticket for the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and that includes the drive to the shrine, the tickets were sold out due to the long weekend and I was heartbroken. Nevertheless, we have saved it for the next time, apparently the murals on the interior wall are breathtaking, the shrine is 100 feet, five story observation tower that overlooks The Broadmoor, Colorado Springs, and Garden of the Gods. The zoo also happens to be at an elevation of 6,714 feet above sea level, making it the highest zoo in America.

Now that we couldn’t go to the shrine my dear company said let’s go to the Skyline Scenic Drive, Canon city. I was excited and looked forward to see some breathtaking views like so far. We drove kind of an hour into the city, we crossed a correction facility and behind in the mountains was the scenic drive, it was ready to take my breath literally. It’s single-lane, one-way road rises about 800 feet above the surrounding terrain. There are no guardrails despite sharp drop-offs, and the drive is about 3 miles long. It was built by inmate labor in 1905 from the same correction facility that we crossed and feels as if they were really in bad mood while constructing it. That drive is simply dangerous, I couldn’t concentrate on seeing anything, I was so damn scared, my eyes blurred and watery I just wanted it to end as soon as possible. Finally, it ended. I could breathe, my eyesight was back and heart beats were normal. So much so for a scenic drive, phewww.

As we drove down, we were in the old town area of the canon city which has some real retro vibes. We grabbed some iced mochas and fries and took a quick detour to The Royal Gorge in the Canon City, it’s the canyon of the Arkansas River. The bridge over it is called The Royal Gorge Bridge, built in 1929, 956 feet over the river using 4100 steel cables and 1257 wooden planks precisely. Offers a beautiful bird’s eye view. One can walk on the bridge, zipline or take gondolas across the canyon. Well, we chose to walk the wonder which roughly took us an hour or so. Looking down was kind of scary but by then I had become braver .

Did a whole day of outdoors and drove back to the Colorado Springs. We changed and found and Indian eatery place called Urban Tandoor, it was amazing place with live kitchen, Bollywood music on loop, good gentry, polite staff and some nice Indian taste. We grabbed the safe options of non-vegetarian assorted tandoori platter and butter chicken with garlic naan. It was a sumptuous meal and we came back to hotel to wind up the day.