I left Lamar around 8:00 this morning to chilly temperatures and overcast skies. My first stop for the day was the Pueblo Weisbrod Air Museum at the Pueblo, CO airport. The airport had been a training site during WWII for B-24 and B-29 crews and had a pretty nice collection of aircraft on display, including a B-29:
There were a number of other interesting vintage aircraft, including a B-47, several cargo aircraft, and a number of Cold-War-era fighters. One of the most interesting was a Korean-War vintage Bell med-evac helicopter (ala MASH), the model 47:
Certainly not the very best air museum I've seen (that has to be the USAF museum in Dayton, Ohio) but, for a locally-run organization, they've done a pretty good job.
From Pueblo, I headed east toward Canon City. You can see from the picture below that the terrain is getting drier again, and you're starting to see mountains. The range in the background below is the Sangre de Cristo Range:
I went through Canon City and stopped at the Royal Gorge, which our family had last visited twenty-some-odd years ago. If you're not familiar with the Royal Gorge, it was a route for the railroads back in the 19th century along the Arkansas River. The plaque below explains the history of the site in some detail:
The main attraction at the Gorge is the suspension bridge, which you can walk, bicycle, crawl, or drive across:
Apparently, you can do other stuff off the bridge, also, like rappelling over 1,000 feet down to the river below:
Or, Bungee-Jumping off the bridge:
Or, you can use a trapeze to get you out over the Gorge, like these fine folks:
I'll sit that one out, thank you.
At any rate, the site is pretty impressive as you can see from this view down into the Gorge:
After leaving the Royal Gorge area, I continued west on US50 and crossed the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass (11,312 feet). The scenery up on top of the mountain was breathtaking:
From Monarch Pass, I headed on over to Gunnison where it was raining cats and dogs and from there along some pretty scenery on into Montrose:
I'm spending the night in Montrose, then tomorrow it's down through the Four-Corners region to Flagstaff, AZ for the night.
Miles today: 351. Total: 2181.
