Royal Gorge Bridge and Park

We recently completed a five-day road trip around southwest Colorado. We originally planned on riding the Durango-Silverton train, and the trip grew from that. After considering our kid's age and the price of tickets, we omitted that destination and went to the other places that we had planned. It was a nice road trip because we would drive about 3 hours to an activity or destination, then either stay in the town or drive another 2-3 hours to the next one. First stop - Royal Gorge Bridge and Park.

Royal Gorge is a deep canyon that is only the width of the river at the bottom and about 2,000 feet deep. They built a bridge across it (really to nowhere) and a park with some rides and attractions.

Besides the bridge, there was a mock western mining town, including a place to pan for gold (fools gold and mica) and watch a gun fight between two transient gamblers.

There was a little train that took us around in a loop. The conductor pointed out a bunch of desert and rock formations. His script was full of bad puns, but Riley got most of them, so it was fun to hear her giggle.

A 45º incline railway took us on a 5 minute ride to the bottom of the canyon.

There also was a tram that took us across the canyon, a carousel, and elk, bison (including a white bison), and bighorn sheep to view.