We missed the start of the murder mystery dining car experience by a week. Kerry and I googled short murder mystery parties and *almost* bought the $20 downloadable 30 minute murder at a wizarding school. But we weren’t sure how it might work on the dining car as our party of ten was to be split amongst three tables.
It took a bit longer than we anticipated to get out to Canon City and the Royal Gorg Railroad Depot. In fact, we boarded with moments to spare… but the engineer Jordan assured us they wouldn’t have left without us… despite holding up an entire train of dining patrons for the four of us (Kerry, Todd, Deena, and me). To be fair, there WAS a nasty accident that delayed us quite a bit.
It turned out we were in FIRST CLASS, thank you very much, dining in a vista bubble car with full three course menu.
This is Elizabeth and Andrea at table 202. I insisted on ONLY goofy poses…
So Todd and Deena were put on the spot. (Note it might be spelled Dina, just as Elizabeth above might be Elisabeth and Andrea might be Andria … I got names but not spellings…).
And then this is Emma, her sister Nora (Norah?) and Heather and her husband… Jacob, Jared? Shoot. I was doing so well with names.
Here though are some other names for ya—Tami was our head server and tour guide… Linda was our outdoor guide… Rebekah and … oh, phooey… another charming woman also helped out serving and providing commentarty when Tami accidentally spilled an entire tray of entrees in her head. She was embarrassed but her tameam reassured her not to worry, that actually it was the highlight of the trip for them and they tried to get her to laugh it off. We didn’t find out about it until the trip was almost over though she kept apologizing for the delays. Kerry and our trio kept saying it was us who caused the delays and not to worry.
Quick side note, Tami must have taken a liking to us because when we asked about the various murder mysteries they do onboard she said they were a lot of fun… but the disco one was super weird. That was code we deduced that one should NOT book the murderer at the disco mystery. I admit though— I’m intrigued at how they stake a discotheque on a train.
Anyhoo, I digress. Shots of the train to follow:
I had real problems framing the below and capturing the view.
It’s a bridge to nowhere, built as a bet between two locals that up until 2001 was apparently the tallest bridge above sea level in the world That feels a little suspect trivia wise, prompting me once again to wonder how much a tour guide is being truthful in any tour, even in first class. Why let facts or truth get in the way of a good story… and a bet to build a bridge across Royal Gorge by two drunken railroaders is a pretty good story.
So too was Todd’s trivia that two skydivers were trying to pull off a stunt over and under the bridge but one miscalculated and, well, the guy became a Jackson Pollack on the rocks. And Todd would know… in a previous life, he and his wife were parachute instructors. She had 500+ jumps; he was over a thousand because, in his words, you aren’t really taken seriously until you break 1000. These folks were amazing. As were all of Kerry’s friends which isn’t surprising. I mean, she’s Kerry! She’s awesome!
Thanks to my ongoing and seemingly never ending sinus infection my cocktails of late are antibiotic drugs and Diet soda. This train only had Diet Pepsi but with my clogged head I barely had to pinch my nose to swallow the swill.
The three courses. Salad, entree (I had salmon, by far the best of the options I saw plated around me) and a shot of salted caramel dessert.
Between the entree and dessert, we wandered out to the open air observation deck which perhaps visually prevised highlights of the two hour, twenty-five minute round trip ride.
At joirney’s end, I ran into Linda, a 3.5 year guide veteran who we chatted with on the open air car. I asked if she wouldn’t mind taking a group photo of us… and having seen my insistence on goofy photos firsthand, embraced the canted angle for her composition.
As I said above, Kerry’s friends were great to meet and ride the rails with.
Also as I said above that’s not surprising given who she is.
And now, this…