Royal Gorge

Alex and I arrived at Denver International Airport around 10am, where Katy was waiting for us with her grandfather's Jeep. We had no specific plans for the rest of the day besides getting settled at a commercial, drive-in campsite somewhere around Buena Vista and eating food. So, I suggested we take a sightseeing detour on our way from Denver to Buena Vista and visit Royal Gorge bridge, the world's highest suspension bridge. This sounded like a cool enough idea, but I hadn't fully researched this tourist destination to find out whether or not it was worthwhile.

As we approached the turnoff for Royal Gorge, we began to see a series of giant billboards, advertising "Royal Gorge: turn left in x miles." The last billboard, advertising a left turn in 1 mile, was followed immediately by an ordinary road sign saying "Royal Gorge, 1/2 mile." This was the shortest half mile in the world, followed by the longest half mile along the Derek Zoolander highway, which seemed to have no left turns. Finally, after going along the Zoolander highway for about 10 miles, we found somewhere to turn around and eventually found our turnoff, which was not a big road with a giant billboard as we had expected, but more of a driveway with a small faded sign. It turned out this was not even the main road in but the back road, because the Royal Gorge Bridge is the archetypal "bridge to nowhere" - the road is a small, barren loop diverging from the highway in the middle of nowhere. Construction began a month before the stock market crash in 1929. Go figure.

As we drove down this back road, the road narrowed and became poorly maintained while we slowly disappeared into the Colorado desert. I was convinced that we were about to come across a group of pickup trucks containing some dead Mexicans, drugs, and 2 million dollars (see: No Country for Old Men). Eventually we saw a dilapidated sign foreshadowing the appearance of an "admission plaza," which, after driving deeper into the desert, we concluded might be the rusty gate we passed through. Lo and behold, out of nowhere, pops up a Disney World style admissions plaza, asking for $23/adult! Apparently, it would cost us $69 to cross from nowhere to nowhere! Having come this far, we weren't easily deterred, and tried to negotiate with the ranger, who let us know about a $7/person rebate if you spend less than an hour in the park. For $16, we got an hour of glorious suspension bridge crossing, carousel-riding, and all of the amenities of Disney World meets the Colorado Desert.

Bottom line: Royal Gorge is pretty, but not worth $16/person. Good way to see more of Colorado, though. [Picasa]