Salida, CO

Friday I visited the Royal Gorge, then took an absolutely delightful drive out to Salida, CO and up highway 285 to highway 24 and then into Colorado Springs from the West. It took me about three hours to do this detour, but was such a great drive! I ended up not having enough time to do the Sand Dunes (it was farther away than I thought), but still want to do that on a future trip.

The Royal Gorge was fun, but I forgot how high that bridge is. I kept thinking of what a painful death it would be if the bridge collapsed and I fell, so I didn't end up staying long. Here's a photo of the bridge:

After I made it to the springs and checked into my hotel, my friend Tracey arrived and we went out to dinner, then to see Mamma Mia!, which she had not seen yet. We actually ended up seeing the sing-a-long version, which included the words to the songs on the screen. It was fun except that the woman behind us sang at the top her lungs to every single song. I wanted to jump out of my chair and put a muzzle on her!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from my Friday drive:

Today (Saturday) was fun too, but I'll have to write about it later. It's almost midnight and I'm hoping to get up at 5:30 am to go watch the hot air balloon launch in downtown Colorado Springs in the morning before church. I want to get some pictures of the balloons against the mountain backdrop!