The Royal Gorge

Well, I've been talking about bruises and urgent care for the last few days, so it's probably time to start recapping the whitewater rafting adventure that caused the whole thing. And it's a novel. This will be part one, and it's not even going to involve any rafting. My parents booked us on a day-long "Raft-n-Rail" trip with Echo Canyon River Expeditions. We arrived in the morning for a 9:30 am train ride through the Royal Gorge, which was followed by lunch, which was followed by whitewater rafting on the Arkansas River. So for now we're going to start with the train ride, mostly so I can dump a whole bunch of pretty pictures here. Sound good? ;)

Everything is centralized at the main office/check-in area; that's where you go before the company transports you to the train station, rafting locations, etc. So when we arrived at check-in, we were soon put on a van with another couple on the same trip package. This would've been a completely innocuous detail if it weren't for how out of place these two people were; he was wearing a button-down shirt and khakis, and she was wearing a short shift dress and stilettos. This place is in the middle of nowhere and hands out wetsuits, and her outfit... I just... don't understand. But anyway.

Our seats on the train were in coach, but there were several open-air cars that all passengers were allowed to use should they want to. My mom initially decided to stay inside, but my dad and I headed out there to check out the views with the intent of coming back inside at some point.

Spoiler alert: we did not go back inside.

It was (obviously) SO. BEAUTIFUL. The weather was gorgeous (and not too hot thanks to the breeze), and the movement of the train was so peaceful and soothing. It was quite heavenly and did a great job of luring me into a false sense of security about this rafting thing. BUT more on that later this week!