Hello. I’m in Colorado, the most awesome place ever. My apologies for the tardiness of today’s post, it’s been a crazy morning. But, more on that in a minute. Let’s talk about yesterday’s adventures first.

We started out a little late because of the exhaustion from the drive, but soon we were rolling on full throttle until late into the evening. I started out by eating the dregs of the terrible “hot breakfast” at our motel. After I discouraged the girls from partaking, we saddled up and headed out to the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. At this point I should explain that the Royal Gorge Bridge is the highest suspension bridge in the world. For those of you not familiar with the suspension bridge concept, think Temple of Doom. Wooden planks suspended by metal cables across a 384 meter (1,270 feet) gorge. It is an awesome 321 meters (1,053 feet) off the ground. It is so awesome, in fact, that Pancake Land and White Chocolate kept repeating phrases like “I’m so scared that I might pee my pants.”.

After managing to cross the ginormous bridge in our golf cart, good call W.C., we headed for the zoo area where I saw the Great White Buffalo.

(whispered) Great White Buffalo. Great White Buffalo. Great White Buffalo.

Once I finished staring at the GWB, we headed over to the aerial tram, a cable car suspended by two cables over the gorge. I should take this moment to mention that this aerial tram is the world’s longest single-span aerial tram. It spans 671 meters (2,200 feet) and is 359 meters (1,178 feet) above the Arkansas River. It wasn’t nearly as terrifying as we expected it to be.

After that, we recrossed the bridge and headed over to the carousel. The sign reading “For the Young at Heart.” sold me and Pancake Land on it. Plus, there was scary ass goat that you could ride, but some kid beat us to it. I ended up riding the Wyldest Stallyn that they had and P.L. rode the White Rabbit. It made us feel like kids again. This is a very good thing for a woman who is struggling through the birthday blues.

After the youthful rejuvenation, we headed over to the incline railway to take a trip down into the gorge. Once again, this is the world’s steepest incline railway descending a ridiculous 473 meters (1,550 feet) at a 45° angle and 100% grade. It was breathtaking and terrifying in that “trapped in cage while sliding down the side of a mountain” kind of way.

After ascending from the depths of the gorge we were pretty wiped, having not eaten anything of real substance all day. So, we departed the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park and headed to the White Water Bar and Grill down the road. This is where all of our lives changed forever. They had Rocky Mountain Oysters on the menu. We had to do it. First off, those are bull testicles, if you didn’t know. Second, get the image of a “ball” out of your mind. These were sliced, breaded, and fried. They resembled fried squash in appearance. They tasted like a incredibly bland chicken liver. And they were kind of chewy. If you dipped them in ranch dressing, you could easily take down a basket of them with no problem.

Also, I am going to take this moment to point out that the food in Colorado is most excellent. Everywhere, except the motel which sucks, has had amazing food.

After eating a lot of deep fried bull genitalia, we decided that we should take a helicopter ride. At this point, we took the most relaxing helicopter ride ever. And by relaxing, I mean “thought we were going to die and/or shit our collective pants”. It was by far the best $50 you’ll ever spend and the best four minutes of your life. I started out trying to take photos and quickly gave up and just enjoyed the ride. I don’t remember the sites at all. Well, that’s not true. I remember seeing that flat bed pickup truck about 20 meters from us as we banked toward the ground on the return trip to the shop. I did manage to snap a few photos and this is one of the two that made the cut:

From za choppa.

Pretty stunning, no?

After that trip, we rested for about ten minutes to regroup and then we headed to Skyline Road. Skyline Road, aka Razor Ridge, is located right behind this tourist trap called “Scream Until Daddy Stops”. Let me just say that this name would not be nearly as creepy if the words “the car” were tacked on to the end. Anyway, I tried to get a photo of their sign, but failed. Maybe I’ll drive out there a get one today. Anyway, Skyline Road is this ridiculously high, narrow road that has no shoulders. It is pretty intense. You are just up so high and there is nothing to stop your car from plummeting off the side of the road.

That was pretty much the end of yesterday’s adventures. We went and reserved the rafting trip for this morning for the girls and grabbed some chow and crashed for the night.

This morning the breakfast was still terrible at the motel. I dropped the girls off at the rafting place at 8:15 this morning and headed off to have some of my own, much more lame, adventures. I headed to the Dinosaur Depot, but it wasn’t open, so I gassed up Ava and found this kick ass little boulangerie-pâtisserie and had strong coffee and pain au chocolat, which sounds like something more akin to “Death by Chocolate”, but is actually just bread with chocolate. Pain au chocolat is the only possible way to improve on a butter croissant. Peep my tasty breakfast:

Breakfast of Champions.

After breakfast I headed over to the Dinosaur Depot and saw the world’s most complete Stegosaurus fossil. I found it to be cool, but kind of disappointing. Fossils just don’t give me the same boner that skeletons do. They had some really impressive skulls and vertebrae, but the only complete skeleton that they had in house was a little tiny one of a dinosaur that I had never heard of and didn’t have the forethought to write it down. The lady at the desk told me that most of their big skeletons are at the Smithsonian or in one of a few other museums around the country. Space issues in the current building made relocating the bones a must. If you didn’t know, dinosaurs are fucking huge and take a lot of space to store their big-ass remains. Space that, unfortunately, the Dinosaur Depot does not have. Anyways, I resisted the urge to buy petrified dinosaur poop (I just could not bring myself to pay ten bucks for a little rock of what “might” be dinosaur poo.) and bought myself a kick ass laminated mineral chart for my new office instead. Teacher Sis is going to be so jealous. I’m sure she will get over it if I can collect some rock samples for her.

Anyways, currently I am sitting at the Village Inn next to my motel drinking not-terrible coffee and typing my post. I will probably be here for a while. I am going to upload a few new photos to the 2010 gallery and work on this week’s article. I have no idea what I am going to do after that until I have to go get the girls.

Tomorrow, Pancake Land and I will probably be jumping out of an airplane with people strapped to our backs. You’ll just have to wait and see. Well, I’m going to get to actual work now. More soon. ~SC