I mentioned Donna’s Bright Line Eating Plan in an earlier post. It involves weighing food portions and also getting the required proportions of protein, grain, veggies and fat. That doesn’t mean we don’t eat well though – sometimes Donna tweaks things for my serving and it’s all good. Monday night Donna made a meal called pizza chicken. For this recipe, she fileted a chicken breast then pounded it flat – this takes the place of a pizza crust. She topped it with marinara sauce, pepperoni and shredded mozzarella cheese. She served my plate over spaghetti noodles while she used spaghetti squash for her serving.

Tuesday morning we said our goodbyes to Dave and Stilla and hit the dump station before leaving the Colorado Springs Elks Lodge. We were out of there before 11am and made a stop at the Walmart on the south side of town. Later, Dave sent me a photo Stilla took of us in the lodge Saturday night.

Our route took us down CO115 to US50. We lost elevation as we made our way to Cañon (say “canyon”) City. Cañon City sits at 5,343 feet above sea level. Our destination was about 7 miles northwest of town where we’re at an elevation of 6,300 feet above sea level. It’s a steady grade after you head out of town.

We stopped at Royal View Campground – they have the highest Good Sam rating you can get – 10/10/10. We weren’t impressed. The entry was narrow and the sites weren’t level. We left and backtracked a few miles to Mountain View RV Resort and we’re glad we did. This is a very nice park with level sites – we’re in a long pull through. The campground is covered with pea gravel and the sites have concrete pads with picnic tables and fire rings. It’s super clean and quiet and the views are great.

Donna manned the Weber Q  and grilled pork tenderloin she seasoned with cumin, allspice, and cinnamon and she served it with roasted Brussel sprouts and acorn squash. We didn’t go anywhere as the clouds were threatening and it was windy – thundershowers came through into the night.

This morning we headed out on the Spyder and rode to the Royal Gorge Park just a few miles away. The Royal Gorge is a narrow canyon – about 300 feet across at the top – with a maximum depth of 1,250 feet. At the park, there’s a suspension bridge crossing the gorge and also a gondola and zip lines. We passed on the $27/person fee to get to the bridge and gondola and hiked the rim area instead.

The Royal Gorge was cut by the Arkansas River which  originates here in Colorado and flows southeast through Kansas, Oklahoma and – you guessed it – Arkansas where it drains into the Mississippi River. The end of the gorge is outside of Cañon City – about two miles west from the center of town. It’s about six miles long in a northwesterly direction and ends near US50.

An old locomotive – engine 499 built in 1902 – is displayed outside the Royal Gorge visitor center. The train never ran up at the top of the gorge – the narrow gauge track runs along the bottom alongside the Arkansas River. They have a two-hour tourist train ride through the gorge from Cañon CIty.

We left the Royal Gorge and rode the Spyder back down US50 toward Cañon City and cut off at Skyline Drive. This is a one-way route built in the 1930s with the use of prison labor from the Colorado Penitentiary. It heads southeast up a hogback ridge of sandstone and ends in Cañon City. It’s a little under three miles long and has several pullouts on the narrow one-way road. The road doesn’t have guardrails and the ridge drops steeply from either side.

We stopped on Main Street in old downtown Cañon City and walked around.

Before we came back home, we stopped at Walmart for a couple of things we forgot to buy in Colorado Springs.

The high temperature today was about 72 degrees with a few afternoon showers and brief periods of sunshine. Tomorrow we plan to head west. The forecast looks favorable although sudden thunderstorms can happen at any time in the high mountains. We will certainly be in the high mountains as our route west will take us over Monarch Summit with an elevation over 11,000 feet above sea level.