COLORADO

The Royal Gorge of the Arkansas River

The Bridge over the Royal Gorge

Ann had often reminisced about the little one-room school house where she had attended first grade in Colorado in 1947 and we had often discussed making a summer visit to Colorado. We decided to make our anniversary trip to find the school and visit some of the sights in Colorado. Her family had only lived in Colorado two years. They lived out in the hills west of Canyon City the first year and then moved into Cañon City. It had been 34 years since they had lived there and we found out that the little one-room school had been closed for 18 years. However, school officials were able to send us to the general location of the school and we located a rancher in the area who still remembered Ann's dad and the location of their old ranch and the school house.

We were able to find the log school house and we also visited the Royal Gorge and other locations along the Arkansas River and in Canon City

These small images link to larger images of the log school house, the Arkansas River west of Canyon City, the Royal Gorge Bridge and other scenes there.

Ann finally returned to the little school house where she attended first grade. Three other views of the area.	Four views of the Arkansas River a few miles upstream from the Royal Gorge (several miles west of Cañon City).	Views from the Skyline Drive Cañon City, Colorado
The Royal Gorge The Bridge The Cable Car	Views of and at the bottom of Royal Gorge.	On the road to Colorado Panhandle High Plains Mountains in New Mexico Deer Graze in Volcanic Cone

PIKE'S PEAK Photo Pages - The collection of photos on these pages includes views of the Pike's Peak from Manitou Springs and the road approaching the Peak, views of and from the top of Pike's Peak, and a view down hill along the hairpin turns in the road above the tree line.

ROYAL GORGE Photo Pages - The collection of photos on these pages includes the log school house, Cañon City's Skyline Drive, the beautiful Arkansas River west of Cañon City, and the Royal Gorge, Bridge, bottom of gorge, cable car, and inclined elevator to the bottom.

GRAND CANYON - Photos of the upper end of the Grand Canyon taken from the south rim.

Barringer Meteor Crater - Photos taken during a hike around the rim of the crater.

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK - Photos of the canyons of the Rio Grande River in the Big Bend and of the rugged Chisos Mountain area including a spectacular view of the sunset through the 'window.'

Ouachita River Crossings - A photo essay about this beautiful mountain stream that begins on Arkansas' western border, flows east to Hot Springs, then turns south to Louisiana, and enters the Mississippi in southern Louisiana.

ENGINEER GIRL - This is a great page from the Engineer Girl site by the National Academy of Sciences. It provides historic and technical details of the gorge and bridge. It has a good (though small) panoramic photo of the entire bridge. Fun facts: "The floor of the bridge contains 1,000 tons of steel and almost 1,300 wooden planks. It took only $350,000 to build the Royal Gorge Bridge. To replace it today, it would cost over $10 million."

ROYAL GORGE BRIDGE CO. - This is the web site for the company that runs the attractions. There are descriptions of the other attractions, details of ticket purchases, hours of operation, information about wedding and group tours and employment etc. The world's highest suspension bridge spans the Arkansas River at a height of 1053 feet. It was built in 1929.

TRAIN RIDE THROUGH THE GORGE - Take the train through the gorge in roofless observation cars. (Or ride in the enclosed cars) This sounds like something I want to do! This site gives all the details. The train pauses on each run on the famous 'Hanging Bridge'-a point so narrow in the 1,000-foot-deep canyon, that engineers had to hang a bridge from the walls from which to suspend the rails over the rushing waters of the Arkansas River.

Bridge Photos - Some nice photos of the bridge. This site also has photos of other areas of interest in Colorado.

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Posted: 8/6/03