to Royal Gorge

Today we decided to drive for a bit so we could walk across the bridge over Royal Gorge. The Arkansas River flows at the bottom of the gorge, and it looks like it is very far away.

From the park's web site: One of the deepest gorges in Colorado, the Royal Gorge is approximately 10 miles long with the Arkansas River running through it with granite walls towering over 1,000 feet. The gorge was created some three million years ago when a trickle of water first began to slowly carve a canyon out of the solid granite bedrock. That trickle is now the raging Arkansas, one of America’s longest rivers. The Arkansas river continues to carve its' depth at a rate of about a foot every 2,500 years.

The bridge is an amazing structure, and it moves! It's not like a normal road bridge where the surface feels solid. The bridge surface is made of wooden planks, and sometimes you can peek through narrow holes between the planks. Even though Denise isn't comfortable with heights she was fine on this bridge. She said she thinks that was because there is a wire fence on either side of the bridge.

There were some vehicles ferrying people across the bridge. When they were crossing the bridge it really bounced. The bouncing happened even when there were only people walking on the bridge. I wonder if different spots on the bridge are more susceptible to bouncing than others.

We're back at the house now. After we returned from Royal Gorge Denise went for what turned out to be a quick walk. She turned back when she started hearing thunder. There as only been light rain so far, along with some strong wind too.

--- Rover