Day two of our trip started with a leaking tire we had to stop and have fixed - but thanks to WalMart's road hazard warranty the fix was free and that particular WalMart had a great view back by the tire center, so it wasn't all bad.
After the whole tire fiasco, we drove about an hour to Cañon City. Our first stop there was Skyline Drive. Skyline Drive is only about 3 miles long, so we didn't intend to spend much time there, but once we got there we made a lot more stops than we expected and then took a short hike and had a picnic lunch. So I think we ended up spending a couple of hours there.
The view was beautiful and we felt like we were up so high, but when we looked at these photos later (after driving up the Pikes Peak Highway) we kind of laughed because this was nothing compared to that. But it was beautiful and definitely worth doing and a good introduction to Colorado.
We were surprised to see cacti there, I actually had no idea they had cacti in Colorado! This part of the state is a lot different from the Estes Park area where we spend the last half of our trip. It made for a hectic week but I'm so glad we saw both areas!
So now what you're really here for: the photos!
So. Many. Photos. on this trip! Between the big camera, 4 phones and 2 point-and-shoot cameras, I don't think I've even looked at them all yet!
We probably let the kids climb on things they shouldn't have...but there were no signs and they were safe enough I think so...
The dinosaur tracks were so cool! If I remember right, I think we had to pull up a little to park and walk back to these. What you see if actually the bottom side of tracks. Super cool. I'm glad we saw these. We wanted to go to Dinosaur Ridge on our way up to Estes Park but as usual we ran out of time, so this was our only dinosaur thing.
There were a couple of kind of scary parts of this drive with huge dropoffs and no guard rails, but it wasn't nearly as bad as the TripAdvisor reviews made it seem!
We took a quick hike after lunch. The trail was quite a bit longer than we thought and we still had more places we wanted to go, so we only did part of the trail.
We saw honest-to-God TARANTULAS right before we left. Daniel is terrified of spiders so I was shocked to turn around and see him taking a video of these.
Coming up in part three: Royal Gorge Bridge in Cañon City, Colorado!
A selection of landscape prints from this trip are available here!
