Road Trip To California - Day 3 (Canon City, CO to Green River, UT)

So...another day has gone by... one filled with high elevations and low temperatures... The lowest it got today was 26 degrees!! That was on top the continental divide at about 12,000 ft elevation... There was atleast 1 foot of snow up there with more coming down all day. It's pretty crazy.

Before that, this morning we went to the Royal Gorge, which is apparently the highest suspension bridge in the world, over like 1,200 feet high.... They had this thing called the Sky Coaster, which is just like one of those giant human swings, except on this one you swung out over the canyon... It was pretty insane. I saw this girl down the way who was over the fence and climbing around on the rocks with a mother who wanted her to come back. I kinda laughed, she was gutsy, being roughly 1200 feet above a huge gorge at which the bottom is the shallow Arkansas River. Dad and I got to talking to her and her family a little bit and discovered that she too wanted to the SkyCoaster. (Dad and I talked about it earlier, but I was a little jittery.) So anyway, we decided to save some money and go together. Her name was Lacy; we made small talk while rising high above the canyon about how apparently there is nothing to do in Iowa and other random stuff. She got the responsibility of pulling the cord. "3,2,1.. GO!" My stomach lept in my throat and the both of us screamed bloody murder! It was really cool... I no it's cliche but I kinda felt like a bird...

Well, the rest of the afternoon was spent wandering 1 1/2 hours up a two-lane highway in a mild snowstorm that apparently was closed until June. Our goal was to swing through Aspen and eat dinner there on the way to Utah. However, about 15 miles before we were to hit Aspen, a sign read, "ROAD CLOSED" with huge blockades in the road... Maggie told us we should take this dirt road next to the highway. So we did for about two-tenths of a mile until it ended completely up an bank and into a river. Haha, it was crazy. So we turned around and headed back... All in all, we lost like 3 hours, but no biggie... We were able to shoot some fun pictures, get a little bit lost (no thanks to Maggie, our navigator), and experience the absolute serenity of the cool Colorado air with the silence of snow falling and a slight wisp of streams in the background... This day was sweet.. Also, what was cool... Dad and I listened to a Donald Miller sermon while driving through the mountains. It was a dual sermon with John MacMurray (whose nature photography has been featured in National Geographic) and it talked about where photography and theology coincide. It was pretty sweet.

Other adventures of the day included finding an abandoned mine town, which was cool. Lastly and most amazing was this... I was on the phone with Will, chatting about meeting up tomorrow and I looked to my right... I was this giant mountain next to with half of it being bright orange. I was like, "Dad, did you see that? I wonder what's up with those trees." Within three seconds I figured it out. It was the most welcomed sunset ever... In a day when every waking second was cloud-covered, the sun managed to squeeze in a few minutes for us to enjoy... It literally lit up the entire valley. It was amazing. Reds and oranges everywhere... By chance?

Road Trip To California - Day 2 (Oklahoma City, OK to Canon City, CO)

Pictured above is 38 years of work by one man... with a whole lot more to come... I will get to that later on in the blog... But, I saw three tumbleweeds today!! Alright, so that's not all that exciting. So we drove through the Texas panhandle (which was okay, difference of scenery, eh?) early this morning and made it to New Mexico about 1 PM or so. We just took a ton of pictures while driving and I slept quite a bit.

We crossed the border to Colorado driving up Interstate 50 (I think) to a beautiful display of mountains to our west, with vast plains to our east. Misty water and almost-snow (maybe that's sleet?) lingered in the air most of the afternoon, darting the windshield almost like the bugs we hit on a regular basis... We decided to take the scenic route to Royal Gorge, just outside of Canon City, Colorado... From the Colorado-New Mexico border, instead of a 2-hour drive to Royal Gorge, we decided to take the scenic route: a nice little two lane highway that wove through the mountains and the valleys between them. We stopped A LOT and took pictures and video... We saw plenty of wild deer and gazelles to go around... (and did I mention the tumbleweed? haha)...

So, we were randomly coming around this corner and saw this giant mailbox that said "See the Hand-Made Bishop Castle". Dad and I were thinking.. "eh?" until we peered up about 160 degrees to see a ridiculously huge stone castle. The largest tower of it reaches about 170 (ish) feet high. (That's me in each of the tower pictures... I was shaking really bad.) I quickly threw it in reverse and parked on the side of the highway.

After passing a bunch of signs bashing the government, welcoming anyone to come in as long as they would not sue if they got hurt, we wandered up a small hill to the sound of machinery (one small dozer the owner was working with) and the presence of this gorgeous stone monstrosity lingering above our heads. So I started climbing the steps like crazy! I have my entire journey to the top completely on video. We probably spent like an hour climbing up and down the castle.

When we came down for the last time, we got to chat with the owner a little bit (that's him in the picture in front of the steps)... His name was Jim Bishop and we was a total conspiracy theorist... He went on for twenty minutes or so about how the government was awful - like 9/11 being an inside job and how Jimmy Carter was the only good president we've had in 100 years (haha, it's crazy). He proved to be a very interesting guy. He also said as we were leaving (concerning the government), "I'm a Christian. I'm just not one of those 'turn the other cheek' Christians. I don't have a skeleton in my closet." It made me think of a video from my New Testament interpretation class, that claimed that passage in Jewish culture being more of a plea/demand of respect and that Christians should not be doormats. I thought it was absolute crap at first; but after a while, I kind of feel like that's right. (The idea has to do with giving the other person the opposite cheek; the right cheek would imply a backhand slap to the face from the left hand, the hand that Jews during this time used for contact. It apparently was a sign of huge disrepect in Jewish culture, whereas when Jesus said to offer him your other cheek, implying an open-hand slap, on that is much more respectful and constructive. I am not sure really but I think it's a balance, just like everything else... (Thank you Mark Nicks of Cool Hand Luke.)

On that note, it's time to get some sleep... Peace be with you...