August 2017
Our original plan for day 9 was to go to Sand Dunes National Park, but that got scrapped at the last minute because we decided it was a little farther than we wanted to drive. So, being the intrepid trip planners that we are, we pulled out some of our backup sites. We spent the morning at the Pueblo Zoo. It was smaller than the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, but also less tiring to not be walking up and down the side of a mountain. We needed something to do to kill some time before heading to the Royal Gorge Route Railroad, for which we'd ordered tickets the night before, so we decided a prison museum would be a good idea. Actually, we'd passed the Colorado Territorial Prison a few times the day before and noticed the attached museum. It was interesting. It’s actually housed in a former part of the prison. After that, we hopped aboard a domed rail car and steamed into Royal Gorge. The Gorge is just as awesome from the bottom as it is the top. Actually, we opted to spend much of the ride aboard the open-air car so that we could get a better look at the gorge.
