Castles, wine tasting, giant canyons, and dark small town histories.  We spent the past few days exploring some interesting aspects of Colorado.  On Saturday, we visited Bishop Castle.  I remember going here when I was younger and thinking it was pretty amazing so we decided to take the cousins and Andy to explore the castle and see what has changed.  It has been added to over the years and is an impressive sight.

After climbing the second set of stairs to the main room, I realized that I am not as courageous as I once was.  The iron staircases and balconies terrified me.  I was worried I was going to fall through to my death.  I clutched Theo for dear life and the most daring thing I did was walk 1/3 of the way around the upper balcony.  Andy and my younger cousins, on the other hand, climbed every staircase and explored both towers—terrifying my other cousin (their mom) and me.  We could see the wrought iron shaking beneath their feet and it made our knees weak just thinking about it.

The next day we went wine tasting at the Holy Cross Abbey and it was FREE!  I have never found a place to do wine tasting that didn’t charge at least a small fee.  And their wines were pretty good (a little sweet for my palate but the syrah was great).

After the Abbey, we headed into the town of Cañon City.  It was an adorable little town but pretty much all of the shops were closed down because it was Sunday.  We did find a little restaurant and had lunch—we tried Laughing Lab beer and enjoyed it.  The people were very nice.  One of my cousins wanted to go to an archery store, which was closed.  The owner saw us outside and opened up the shop just for us!

I did find out some dark details about the town, however.  Allegedly, it was a big hub for the KKK and there are tunnels under the town that were once used by them (as well as possibly for the prohibition, etc.).  That made the whole quaint town seem a lot less innocent and adorable…

After Cañon City, we drove to see the Royal Gorge at sunset.  It was amazing!  We did not pay to drive across the bridge that crossed the gorge but we did hike around one side and checked out the awesome views.

We are leaving Colorado next Monday and I really hope we make it back here in the Spring.  There is just so much to see!