We awoke, packed up for the zillionth time! We headed for the Royal Gorge. The day was perfect and clouds seemed to suspend from the heavens.
We parked in the RV lot for the zillionth time and walked to the entry gate where we paid the park fees for the zillionth time. Every national site seems to have a fee associated with it. Above and beyond our taxes which pay for the DOI (Dept of the Interior) to maintain these parks and national points of interest. As we entered, we saw a water powered clock. It is one of the few in the world. It was nice to see the year, month, day, hour and seconds since we loose track of time frequently on the road.
We then saw the Royal Gorge suspension bridge; it is the highest in the world. It is really neat to see this bridge from the river (at its lowest point) then from here (at its highest point). You can see in the following photo the view of the bridge then far below the river we all rafted! It is an awesome site and I remembered the scriptures I read the day before and how beautiful God’s creation is and how much more heaven will reflect or Lord’s glory! We rode the sky tram over the gorge from one side to the other over 1000 feet in the air. We were like the 5 millionth people to do it. It took about 5 minutes. 
On the other side there several things to do, one of them was a big swing that allowed you to fly over the edge of the gorge. I am not a risk taker and like being on the ground, but Ethan and Isaiah wanted to go and they would not Ethan on without an adult. My wife said no…quickly so that left me. I of course asked the guy about their safety record. 100% over 25 years sounded solid enough for me. We all strapped in, locked arms, were raised 100 feet backwards in the air. Isaiah had the rip cord. The countdown…3….2….1…Fly! RIP! We fell downwards towards the gorge! Free falling …I felt like we were really falling until the wire gripping us caught and pulled us upwards into the air. We almost broke vertical which is an erie feeling since you feel like you are falling backwards. Then backwards we swang; like a pendulum. Four times then we were brought down. It was something I’d only do again if put in a similar circumstance. The kids bought shirts saying they survived the sky-coaster.
We then saw a movie on how the Royal Gorge bridge and the inclined railway which we rode later to the bottom of the gorge. After seeing the film, we walked across the bridge itself. Every flag from the USA is on it and it actually swung back and forth as we walked across it.
It was a thrill to be 1053 feet in the air after looking up at this bridge from the water. It actually looked no thicker than a wire from down there. We then went on the inclined railway, the first and only one of its kind. I determined that it uses very little energy to run. There are 2 cable cars that are connected like 2 weights around a gigantic pulley. As gravity pulls the one car down, the other car goes up. They are loaded in parallel. The people wanting to go down are loaded at the top and the people wanting to return from the bottom to the top are loaded at the bottom. The only energy needed is to overcome the friction. Ingenious I thought. Once at the bottom, we saw rafters coming down the river. Of course we cheered them on. We then loaded up, and returned to the top of the gorge.
By now we were into the afternoon so we ate lunch there then left for Rocky Mountain National Park. We knew we’d arrive at dusk so we wanted to get moving. We drove through Canon City and was impressed with its size given it was in the middle of no where. We then traveled and arrived at RMNP at dark. We drove through Estes Park which is quite the town. The city is on couple lakes and very busy since most folks stay here to visit Rocky Mountain National Park. The park is at 8000 feet above sea level. For the next 3 days we would not be below this mark. We all felt the altitude change on our bodies. Upon arriving at our site, we were not level at all so I was determined to get a different site in the morning. We set up camp and went to bed. Big day coming up tomorrow.
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