SteveSS
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This was part of another thread but I decided it deserved its own heading.
When you come to Colorado take the drive from Canon City to Salida. It follows the river through the Rockies. Besides being beautiful it's a good way to test your car's abilities. I couldn't talk about it when I was doing it but I was testing Wide Body Challenger Red Eyes and Ram TRXs on this road every evening. And some cars that weren't so cool like Hyundais. I found it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car medium fast. We just had to dodge a lot of wildlife. Pun intended. Bears, mountain goats, deer, antelope, and mountain lions. But especially out-of-state slow drivers.
I always wanted to pan for gold in that river. We'd take it right up to the continental divide.
We'd go past the Royal Gorge a popular tourist stop. Don't go there if you get vertigo. This is gross but some famous skydivers with those flying squirrel suits dove into the gorge after jumping from an airplane. One hit the bridge. Gross details below.
It was a famous jump where two fliers were going to fly close to the bridge and then pop their chutes below. A lot of fans came out to watch so there are plenty of videos of it. The first flyer hit the handrail of the bridge and it ripped his leg off. They say that killed him. His chute opened automatically and his friend following him didn't understand why he was flying through a red spray. It's also a suicide bridge for jumpers.
Geology part: I'm a geologist so here are some facts. The Larimde Orogeny caused the Rocky Mountains. Think of them as real slow volcanoes. The Arkansas River cut a path through the mountains over time. Then, late in the game along came another volcano close to Canon City. (pronounced Canyon City.) All of a sudden the river had no place to go. It took a sharp right turn and cut this relatively recent gorge. The difference between a gorge and a canyon is just the steepness of the walls. The earth is just a system of tectonic sliding, subduction, uplifting, erosion, and deposition over a huge amount of time.
When you come to Colorado take the drive from Canon City to Salida. It follows the river through the Rockies. Besides being beautiful it's a good way to test your car's abilities. I couldn't talk about it when I was doing it but I was testing Wide Body Challenger Red Eyes and Ram TRXs on this road every evening. And some cars that weren't so cool like Hyundais. I found it's more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car medium fast. We just had to dodge a lot of wildlife. Pun intended. Bears, mountain goats, deer, antelope, and mountain lions. But especially out-of-state slow drivers.
I always wanted to pan for gold in that river. We'd take it right up to the continental divide.
We'd go past the Royal Gorge a popular tourist stop. Don't go there if you get vertigo. This is gross but some famous skydivers with those flying squirrel suits dove into the gorge after jumping from an airplane. One hit the bridge. Gross details below.
It was a famous jump where two fliers were going to fly close to the bridge and then pop their chutes below. A lot of fans came out to watch so there are plenty of videos of it. The first flyer hit the handrail of the bridge and it ripped his leg off. They say that killed him. His chute opened automatically and his friend following him didn't understand why he was flying through a red spray. It's also a suicide bridge for jumpers.
Geology part: I'm a geologist so here are some facts. The Larimde Orogeny caused the Rocky Mountains. Think of them as real slow volcanoes. The Arkansas River cut a path through the mountains over time. Then, late in the game along came another volcano close to Canon City. (pronounced Canyon City.) All of a sudden the river had no place to go. It took a sharp right turn and cut this relatively recent gorge. The difference between a gorge and a canyon is just the steepness of the walls. The earth is just a system of tectonic sliding, subduction, uplifting, erosion, and deposition over a huge amount of time.
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