Impulse Trip Turns Fantastic

Candy: Today we spent a little time at B&N before deciding to go exploring. We hopped in the El and headed south on I-25.

The terrain become much more hilly but without much of real interest to see, except for Greenhorn Mountain (13,347 feet). We thought, "We'll turn around at Colorado City (20 miles south of Pueblo) and see if we can find the Riverwalk area in downtown Pueblo."

However, as we turned off I-25 at Colorado City, we saw an intriguing road that headed toward the mountains, so we decided to drive for a little bit and see whether we could find a great overlook.

Soon we entered the San Isabel National Forest, and almost immediately upon entering we came upon two deer grazing by the roadside. We stopped and took a few photos, and by then were jazzed up and decided to keep going. A quick survey of the map showed that we could take the road we were on back north and connect with CO 96 back to Pueblo, so we kept going.

At nearly every turn there was something spectacular to see, including the Bishop Castle, which I had discovered when Googling "things to do around Pueblo." I didn't know exactly where it was, but when we saw the sign we had to stop.

It's the craziest hodge-podge of a building, but it has some really cool elements. I've included a few photos of the place. It had a central loft-type space on the second floor, and the towers had circular stone steps all the way to the top. It was really cool, even if a bit quirky. Yep, that's a dragon head on the peak of the roof.

It seems that the guy is a little bit of a crackpot who has had some problems with the U.S. government while trying to build his castle. There are tons of hand-painted signs with misspelled words and statements such as "you don't need a driver's license," according to a certain Amendment to the Constitution. It was humorous and we spent nearly an hour wandering the place.

There was a ton of stained glass and lots of really cool industrial windows, doors, and wrought iron elements. The image at the left is one end of the loft-type space on the second floor. Pretty cool.

The steps below are some of the many intriguing staircases in this castle. Here are some of the stained glass windows I mentioned. Aren't they pretty?
Here's a picture Tim took of me sitting in a little niche in one of the tower staircases.

There were lots of interesting sculptures and oddball items in the castle. This was the top of what appeared to be a weathervane that had not yet been installed, and I really liked the way it stood out against the stone and windows in the background.

As we were leaving, I realized I hadn't taken a picture of this huge wooden chair in the front of the castle, so Tim hopped out of the El and climbed up in it to provide this fun shot. I love his expression.
We kept driving through the mountains and saw this great little barn and shed around another turn in the road.

Here's another view of it that I liked, too.

We saw some cattle and I stopped to take this cute calf's portrait. I couldn't resist his little white face. We also saw a herd of elk grazing by the road and I took some pictures of them, too, but didn't really like any of the shots.

As we kept driving back toward Pueblo, dusk brought with it some spectacular sights, including the magnificent rays of sunshine above the mountains (panorama at the top of the post) and these views below.

We found the Riverwalk area and walked around for a while before heading back to the apartment. It's a neat little area around 5 or 6 blocks along the Arkansas River. It looks like the city of Pueblo is trying to revitalize its downtown area and the Riverwalk is a good start. It's cute, with benches and waterfalls, and a little lake, too.

We worked out yesterday and are both a little sore. We'll be lifting tonight, so I'm betting that tomorrow we'll be even more sore. However, the results will be worth it.

I'll leave you with a funny photo of Chase taken last night. Have a great Thursday!