Today was very interesting. In an interesting way…

We drove for about an hour to the west to a small town of Canon, CO. We are to ride a vintage train into the Royal Gorge, one of the most beautiful canyons in Colorado.

Built in 1913, the Santa Fe Depot was designed in the Mediterranean Revival style.  Even while the rail line through the Royal Gorge lay fallow from the mid-60s through the late 90s, the Depot was used until the early 80s for freight, like cement, oil, coal, produce, and ore. The Santa Fe Depot finally closed in 1983. In 1997 it became part of Canon City’s River Station Project as a family-style restaurant.

In August. 1998, the new Royal Gorge Route made it’s first journey through the Royal Gorge with tourists — and the Santa Fe Depot entered into an entirely new phase of use as ticketing and gift shop and offices for the Royal Gorge Railway.

The train is vintage Santa Fe; we are scheduled to travel in the Vista Dome car, having breakfast served along the way.  This will be fun!

The scheduled boarding time is 9:30. At 9:15 the manager of the depot came out to tell us that the 9:30 train was being cancelled due to engine problems.  They have another engine on its way, and they hope that the 12:30 train will run on schedule.  We lit out to the ticket office to change our tickets.  Sorry!  There are no Vista Dome seats available on the 12:30 train.

We returned to the Airstream caravan leaders.  They had negotiated with the train people so that we can board the Vista Dome car and they will serve us breakfast on the train as planned – we will just be sitting in the station.

Breakfast was pretty good.  As we were finishing, the new engine passed by.  We got up to leave, but we found that we could not leave the train until the engine had passed by once more.  So we waited again.  We spent some time in the open car, where the best views of the canyon were to be had… if we had gone into the canyon…

Finally, the replacement engine came by and we finally left the train

We walked a bit to an adjacent city park, with a nice bridge, a river, and a water playground…

We drove back to the town of Canon.  We refueled the truck and headed back to Villa…

We had wanted to see the Cadets’ Chapel at the Air Force Academy here in Colorado Springs.  No luck!  The base is closed to anyone without a military ID.  And, besides, the chapel is closed for renovations and restorations…

So, instead, we walked Historic Old Colorado City, just outside the RV park.  Old Colorado City was founded in 1859, when this area was still part of Kansas Territory. It became the first capital of the Territory of Colorado and the center of early settlement in the Pikes Peak region. Today it is a part of Colorado Springs, and is a fun place to walk. It is a little touristy, but it was interesting…

We returned to the Villa… And an enjoyable time was had bay all…