The Road Trip, part 6

Day 5 -- Monument to Montrose

We finally packed up to head further west. Carson had taken a shine to a small scooter that his cousins outgrew years ago, and had so much fun toodling about on it (and growing skillful rapidly), that Aunt Rose gave it to him. He said Thank You without being prompted (which I love him doing). I folded it up and stowed it in the trunk.

About halfway up the canyon on the way to Monarch Pass, there is a turnoff amidst a village of touristy-type attractions -- river raft rides, helicopter rides -- that leads up to the main attraction, Royal Gorge, and the suspension bridge built across it, 1053 feet above the Arkansas River. (I have a vague recollection of having visited here once in my youth, but am not certain, and perhaps it was another high suspension bridge elsewhere in the Rockies. I did visit a high bridge somewhere in the west.) Admission allows visitors to cross the bridge, ride on shuttles across, wander about, enjoy a few rides -- and if you leave in under an hour, they rebate some of the price. I checked our receipt against my cell phone, and timed ourselves. Carson and I walked across faster than the ladies did, but eventually we all congregated on the far side. The bridge is bedecked with the flags of all fifty states, so we made sure to take some footage at the Texas flag, and I also posed by the Connecticut banner.

That's over 1000 feet down to the river.

The bridge is the most popular way to see the gorge, but other methods exist. Far below we saw river rafts drift along on the partly white water. There's a cable car that is a bit higher than the bridge. Another option is a belay swing which tosses riders off one of the highest points above the gorge, flying briefly into free space. And there are the aforementioned helicopter rides, which do a flyby past the bridge and sundry. The first helicopter tour we saw did a simple pass parallel to the bridge, but the next one banked sharply above the far end and then did a power dive into the gorge. Oh mercy, that was a sight to see; I cannot imagine riding it.

We finished our time at Royal Gorge with the kids and Val taking a couple of quick spins on the carousel, and then we left (just cutting under the one hour mark, so we got some of our admission price rebated). And Carson found a penny.

Been there, done it.

Salida is the last stop of note before climbing up Monarch Pass, so I pulled over and topped off the tank, as gas would only be getting more expensive westward. To give us the most oomph for the climb, I pumped super 91 octane, at a cost of $4.159 per gallon. This marks the first time I have paid more than $4/gal.

Staying in third gear most of the way and tooling along at 45 mph, we crested Monarch Pass with little difficulty -- the Civic did great! The pass is 11,312 feet according to the signpost, the highest elevation we were going to see. There's a store at the top, souvenirs and all sorts of things, and we'd stopped there before (however, this was our first summitting in the Civic) and knew the kids would want some bits. Plus it makes for a good stretch and rest stop.

We made it!

I've lived in Texas for almost 18 years, and though I have, very sporadically, tried to find a thematically correct cowboy hat, I have never come close to finding one that looked good atop my head. It has never been an important matter to me, I've never tried hard to locate a good one. Imagine my surprise when, high atop a Coloradan mountain, there was a small selection of hats and the first one I picked up and donned sang out that this was The One. I checked in mirrors. I canvassed Val and the kids. Simply amazing; I found a hat. MY hat. Black felt with a colored bead band, and can take a beating.

I got me a hat!

Onward, over the pass and down into the high mountain valleys of western Colorado. The scenery is stunning, the drive is fairly routine though far from tedious, and the weather was ideal -- heavy clouds but little rain, so it was comfortable all-around, not too hot nor cool, not too dry nor humid. Proof? We saw dozens of motorcycles going both directions, well over 100 though we didn't keep count. The motorcycles were out in force, solos and squadrons. Motorcycling isn't my thing, but I can fully understand why so many were out this day.

A brief stretch stop beside a very full reservoir.

As we traversed the final hills before Montrose, suddenly the sun, high clouds, and landscape lined up and treated us to a spectacular double rainbow. We pulled over and took many pictures. The ends (which of course are not really ends) were visible in front of trees and hillside, so I suppose we could have tried for the legendary pot of gold, but decided otherwise. A few miles on the rainbow reappeared against an even better backdrop, a mountain meadow, so we stopped again and got more pictures (and I got my boots very muddied). Thanks for the light show, powers that be.

The first rainbow (a double, though as usual the secondary is hard to see).

Couldn't quite fit the whole arc in the shot.

The second rainbow, clearly a double (full size).

And, the other end.

Finally arriving in Montrose, we decided this would be our night's stop. Val's sister Laura lives here, but she was -- oh, irony -- already at Jenny's ranch following her backpacking trip. Her son Jake was home, though, and welcomed us warmly. The kids immediately found the trampoline in the backyard, and went to it. After a while Jake climbed aboard and showed them some of the flips and stunts he's mastered after years of practice; they were impressed. We had a late dinner at a local brewpub, Smuggler's, which was a good ending to the day. Good food, great service, excellent in-house beers.

Back to the house, the kids finally dropped off, Val too, and I was about to turn off the TV when the channel I was watching -- some premium channel, I don't remember which -- aired 84 Charing Cross Road. I had had this movie raved to me (particularly back in the mid-1980s, when it came out), but never had seen it, so I decided to give it a try -- and stayed up watching the entire thing. It is a delightful character piece, negligible action, dialogue-driven and much of it very witty, the story of a New York City writer who loves British works but, since she can never find them in NYC, begins a mail correspondence with a second-hand seller in London (the title is the address of the fictional bookstore). The writer and the bookstore staff never meet, yet have a fulfilling friendship through the post. A little treat of a movie, which are so hard to find today.

And then, finally, it was lights out.