Day 26 – Cañon City CO to Pueblo CO – 48 miles

We’re a bit pooped. It was about time for us to do an easier day. We’d planned on over-sailing Pueblo by 30 miles, making tomorrow only 80 miles, but the heat and weariness got the better of us.

Cañon City is pretty unremarkable except for the high security state prison, which seemed somewhat formidable but not overwhelming. But wait – things get better here in Incarceration Row – not more than 10 miles from where we started out today was Florence, CO, home of the nation’s supposedly toughest Federal prison. It was HUGE, imposing and pretty badass. I can think of worse settings for hardened criminals to spend their days being “corrected “ – the scenery of the mountains beyond isn’t bad, but they’re locked in tight there. We could even tell just from the road!

It was a short day today. The weather was hot and we’re a bit worn out, to be honest, so we decided to stick with the plan and stop in Pueblo rather than over-sail by 20-30 miles. Only problem with that is that tomorrow remains 110 miles. Early bedtime for us!

We tried entertaining ourselves by going to the Rosemount Museum and Collection of Curiosities. DON’T BOTHER!! While we’ll never get that hour back, we did enjoy their air conditioning and the “Victorian” home, which wasn’t really that Victorian, was pretty. Across the street was an unfortunate Hummer vs large tree branch scene. The branch won…

We had a massive thunderstorm during our delicious Italian dinner as we sat outside – with a rainbow to follow. I’ll take that as good luck for tomorrow!