Monday, July 13, 2015

The Shelf Road

For the past several days, we have been taking it easy.  We wanted to get out of that "vacation mode"..of traveling and sightseeing almost everyday.  It rained for 3 straight days which helped to slow us down too.  Ronnie and I are still enjoying our full-time RV lifestyle, we're just easing off a bit and relaxing so we can take in the full experience of it all.
The pasture beside Mountain View RV Campground.

  Our view of the Rocky Mountains from our campsite (zoomed in view).


One of the many historic and scenic roads in the area is The Shelf Scenic Byway.  It's part of the Gold Belt Byway, a scenic drive that travels through the old gold mining tracts in southern Colorado. This particular dirt path was built in 1892 for stage coaches and supply wagons traveling between Cripple Creek and Canon City.  This route was filled with thrills and stunning mountain scenery.  We took the south to north route from Canon City up to Cripple Creek.
We saw this placard once we got to the end of the drive.  We wished we had viewed this info first.

The road begins as a paved highway then travels through the mountainous terrain as a narrow dirt path.
This is the section that gives the road it's name, it's built into the mountain like a shelf.
A look back over the shelf-like road we just traveled.
The road continues through rugged country, following the Cripple Creek stream.
A view of "Window Rock".
Vegetation changed as we gained altitude.
Once we got to the end of the road, we saw the modern, open pit gold mine Cripple Creek and Victor Gold Mine.
One of the many abandoned gold mines we saw near the Cripple Creek section of the Shelf  Road.
Cripple Creek has a very informative Heritage and Information Center
You can see the town of Cripple Creek through it's second story windows.
Downtown Cripple Creek...shops, restaurants and casinos.


We made a quick trip to Colorado Springs on this Sunday afternoon.  The city is about 35 miles north of Canon City.  We plan to go back and spend the day exploring and taking that drive up to the top of Pikes Peak.
Pikes Peak in the distance.
Modern art?


I hung the hummingbird feeder out again and they came. 
This is possibly a Broadtailed hummingbird.

More later.



1 comment:

  1. Hi you guys, I see your new camera is taking great pics, especially of the humming birds. We are still at the dealer getting our work done. It seems the refrigerator , the thermistor clip was off the fin and that is why it was getting warm. Our service advisor saw it, and now it seems to be working ok so we don't need to have that fixed. They are putting all new seals around our slides and our warranty company is paying for it as well as a new motor for our fantastic fan. Believe it or not our windshield is being replaced yet another time by our insurance co. no charge, the third one in a year and a half. The lot we are in is very unlevel and when we tried to level the coach the cracking began. They are trying to find out why, maybe the dashboard is too close to the windshield and they are going to shave it down from the inside. We will probably be here till next week. Hope you are all well. Temps here are dropping, this morning it was 58 degrees. We have been eating out a lot since I threw everything out of the fridge.

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