Up early here in Canon City, a small breakfast at the Village Inn, and I'm off to the train. It's a beautiful clear day with sunny skies and temps in the upper 50's. Perfect!
As I arrive at the station, the train stands in the bright morning sun with its two beautiful F-units painted in traditional Rio Grande orange. Behind it a cornucopia of various pieces of rolling stock including two Alaska Railroad full-length dome cars, numerous Via Rail (Canada) coaches, and two open-air cars, which is where I will be hanging out the whole trip. They have a concession car and a bar car if needed, and yes, plenty of restrooms. Being a Monday morning there isn't a big crowd, which is a lot better than the first time I rode this thing about five years ago. It was packed then, which made it difficult to get good pictures. We have mostly older folks and families with young children onboard, and I don't see a lot of cameras. Excellent.
The ride was smooth and about 20 mph is all we did, but that was a great speed for picture taking. The river running alongside us narrows to only 40 feet across at one point, and it's a tight squeeze. The tracks through the canyon were built in 1887 by the Santa Fe Railroad, but UP ended up with them eventually. A private company bought the line from UP in 1996 and have run excursion trains since, and they handle about 350,000 people a year. UP, as part of their contract of sale, retains the right to run trains through the canyon if needed. The only one they have run was with 844 in the late 90's. The line is still connected to the UP at both ends just in case. If your travels ever bring you close to this area, come ride the train. You'll never forget it. It's really spectacular, and it takes about two hours for the roundtrip.
I departed Canon City and headed for Alamosa, Colorado. I had to go due west for a bit, then turn south. At least I didn't have to go north first. I stopped in Salida, CO and found my way into the beautiful historic downtown area. I first looked around for an old depot to photograph, but none were found. I stopped a gentleman and asked where a good place for lunch was, and he said the Boathouse Cantina around the corner. I sat on an elevated outside porch overlooking the small river babbling by, and it was one of the best lunches I've had in years. I ordered the Chicken Club sandwich and it was a marinated chicken breast on a delicious bun with lettuce, tomato, onion, avocado, and dressed with a green chili mayo. OMG! Amazing. And the fries were crispy and hot. I soon departed and it was another twisty-turny road for awhile until I crossed over the mountains at a pass and then it smoothed out. I drove through a vast, flat prairie along the side of the Rockies. As I approached Alamosa, about 20 miles out, I passed a UFO viewing platform. Apparently they are frequent around here, and who knows, I may go out there later tonight and see what I can see. I also passed a huge solar power collection array that had giant solar panels as far as the eye can see. It was really impressive. It's fairly close to the UFO platform, but I don't think it would be very exciting at night. Yuk-Yuk.
I got checked into the Best Western in Alamosa, and although it's clean, it's very expensive for a Best Western. $80+ a night, and my room smells like cinnamon. I guess there's not a lot of competition here. I drove around town for awhile looking at the train yards to see if anything was moving. As usual with my luck, nothing. There's not a lot else to see in this dumpy place, so I headed back to the hotel until dinner time. I spotted a nice Italian restaurant, and a steakhouse. Things are looking up! Anything's better than Village Inn, and that was a lot better than that buffet lunch yesterday. I still have indigestion from that lunch.
Although there's not a lot to do or see here, there's nothing else around any better. I head to Durango tomorrow and will ride their famous train on Wednesday. This is kind of a wasted stop, but they have good cable in the room. After a steak dinner I'll see what's on HBO and wait for a train to go by my window. I'm right on the tracks, of course.
Maybe E.T. will fly over and say Hi.
Information: http://www.royalgorgeroute.com
"This is kind of a wasted stop . . ."
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