Where in the world is Canon City, CO?

Last Updated on September 11, 2023 by

Canon City lies within the banana belt of Colorado, making the climate more temperate in all seasons as compared to Denver which is only a little over two hours away to the north. Consequently, despite a little rain, the weather has been absolutely ideal. We do still hold the US title for ‘the Bringers of the Rain’. It encouraged us (me) to drive into town to see what was what and maybe window shop for a bit. I do love the window shopping. IE…actual shopping. I found a pair of vintage jeans for $15.00. Now I can throw my cowboy clogs and Aunt Jane’s poncho on and look like a true westerner.
Canon City is also the Gateway to the Royal Gorge. Although more famous now for the bridge spanning the gorge, the Royal Gorge was the site of the railroad wars of the mid-1800’s and involved such famous westerners as Bat Masterson and Doc Holiday.

Canon City KOA Holiday

A little piece of happy out here in the Colorado desert, while we waited to find out the fate of the RV. We finally found a KOA living up my ideal campsite. Although we are still very much in scrub pine and dirt, the site was large enough to get the slides out, put up the dog fence, and park the car. Seems like so little to ask for. We also had a tree to provide some shade and the next site wasn’t right on top of us, keeping little dog from looking like the ball of fury she is while attacking the fence. There’s a limit to setting low expectations so you aren’t disappointed, but this place is genuinely exactly what we have been looking for. The site provided a great view to the Rockies, within spitting distance of Royal Gorge, and a quick drive into town. Possibly our newest, most important criteria, it was OFF OF ANY MAIN ROAD and gloriously devoid of road noise.

Not to mention, there wasn’t anyone in the site next to us the entire time we were there. This gave us an unimpeded, panoramic view of the wide open spaces. We set up the outdoor sitting area with the furniture I keep making Shawn truck around and just enjoyed the outdoors. It really was a breath of fresh air after the craziness with the RV. Though we can’t actually open the kitchen slide all the way, we are back to living our tiny life in grand style.

Downtown

There’s lots of history here. (Go figure. We are in the west.) The city sits on the camping grounds of the Ute, but actually goes back further than that. There is dinosaur excavation in this area. Alas, we did not get to go dino hunting as there wasn’t enough time. The town was founded because of… you guessed it… the mineral rush/coal industry. Then there’s the the oldest territorial (federal) prison in Colorado in this town. It’s still in use and the biggest employer for the town.

The town was not at all what I was expecting. After eighteen months of discovering quaint but downtrodden towns, barely hanging on to tourism to stay alive, Canon City has a pretty vibrant downtown to go along with a population over twenty thousand. Main Street still has its fair share of the typically contrived downtown art galleries and curio shops (perfect for me), but it is also a fully functioning town center not reliant upon tourism.

We stumbled into an art show in the remodeled Post Office and had a little wine and culture for our troubles. Although the art didn’t necessarily grab me (not due to quality, but more for content), one of the locals had donated his bicycle collection to add some oomph to the gallery’s theme of ‘spoke’ art. He had bikes from the 30’s forward and their addition really made the event worthwhile for me. Great repurposing of a classic federal building and the town seemed to really get behind it, as the place was pretty well chock full while we were there. And hey, free wine…

There was art everywhere, inside, outside, and of every variety imaginable. I was like a pig in a poke. Happy as a clam. And the outdoor art everywhere spoke to my soul constantly giving me ideas for what my landscaped yard in my forever house will look like. If you look closely at the first picture, it’s the cattle brand board going back to 1897. Posted on the side of one of the buildings in downtown. How cool is that?!

We initially went into town for the winery that was on the property of a historic Abbey (just for you Donna). When we got there, we found that it was so busy we should have made reservations for a tasting. Which we did. For the next day. Thus, we found ourselves instead in the downtown area. And we were pleasantly surprised to find that it was First Friday. Everything was open up for extended hours with lots of people just milling about, up and down the street. Yup, just the one street. We did have to cut it a little short because the rumbling stomach took over and we needed to find a place to eat before Betty White made an appearance. Not to worry. It just meant that we had to go back another day for a full stroll around the town.

While we were wandering around all of the other galleries and contemplating which of the dozens of options for dinner to choose from, we came upon an Indian restaurant called Nirvana that was particularly busy so we decided to give it a go. Ang has never had Indian and my experience is very limited so there was some trepidation, but it was absolutely delicious. Chicken, saffron, and rice with just enough heat, fried cauliflower rolled in chick pea flower, and some knockout Naan bread. While I may not be an Indian food connoisseur, I can tell the difference between freshly prepared and pre-packaged and these guys killed it. Again, pleasantly surprised. Low expectations work out quite well most of the time.

Skyline Drive

The following day we came back to town for a wine tasting in the converted Abbey on the edge of town. Rather than come directly in on Rte. 50, we decided to detour onto Skyline Drive. It is an incredibly narrow, one lane, one way, road along this spine of rock separating the highway from the town that runs for about three miles. Spine of rock he says. And it is, but it is a spine of rock up ON top of the mountain.

It was built in 1905 by prison inmates and originally only available to horse and buggy, but just two years later the first automobile made the traverse. Mid-1907 saw a tenfold increase in requests for OS handles, and by 1908, the proud tradition of backseat driving was born.

Dinosaur Prints!

Once you reach the peak of the road, the Old Skyline Drive Trail will take you to the peak of the ridge. It is a one mile out and back along the very edge of the cliff, but it is a fairly wide track.

In 1999, a paleontology student is credited with discovering dinosaur tracks along the ridge dating to the Cretaceous Period. It took us about ten minutes of looking to figure out we were looking at the bottom of the footprint (because the rock/mountain had spilt and lifted). Hard to explain if you weren’t there with us, but trust me when I say the bulb was very dim until we realized what we were looking for, and then we felt a little silly. We were looking at the reverse impression/underside of the track instead of the typical view of an animal track that you look down upon. Needless to say, when the light bulb finally went off, it was yet another pretty amazing part of nature. Go ahead – try to find the tracks. But, remember, we were trying to find them while looking at the huge expanse of mountain side.

Here’s a hint if you still can’t find them. Imagine you were under water and someone’s foot came down just over you. Now look at the middle of the picture and you will see all of those rounded, bulbous shapes. Look a little closer and you will realize those round shapes actually have toes.

The Winery at Holy Cross Abbey

We gave ourselves just enough time to enjoy the outdoors before continuing on to the winery. At this point in time, I’d like to think I can intelligently comment on the quality of wine… Twelve tastings of whites and reds is pretty unusual for a winery, but here we are, still in the west. Woohoo! While I didn’t love all 12 wines, they were each pretty decent representations of their varietal. I was expecting Pennsylvania quality (which is to say, not Napa)(uh oh, showing our bias), but in fact, they were more like close cousins of their not-too-distant Sonoma wines. (It is also highly likely they import much of their grape from there. The vineyard here isn’t nearly large enough to support the production of even a third of the wines they bottle.) Cue the live music while we were enjoying our tasting along with the charcuterie that we had brought with us and we had quite a nice afternoon outing. Perfect weather, amazing scenery, fine wine, and lovely company. Life is good.

New Mahoney Quote – Make today so awesome, yesterday gets jealous.

We followed the tasting off with a self guided tour of the Holy Cross Abbey Monastery which was built in 1924 and placed on the National Historic register of places in 1983.

We just perused the outside as the inside didn’t look open. They were, however, setting up for a haunted abbey tour at the end of the month for Halloween. Too bad we won’t be here when it opens. Sad face.

We finished the day off with a happy accident as Angela sighted an Ice Cream Shoppe that also sold fudge and chocolates. The ice cream was absolutely incredible and that is not an overstatement. We had the BEST Mexican chocolate ice cream ever! Of course, I’ve never had Mexican chocolate ice cream before, but there you have it. It was creamy, rich, chocolate with cinnamon and a hint of chile in it. What more could you ask for?!

Canon City – never even made the list of potential stops and quite possibly my favorite non-national Park stop so far. Broken RV + wait time to get it fixed = finding the perfect interim spot to set up on our way to Santa Fe.