It's off to Cañon City and the Royal Gorge. The Royal Gorge has the world's highest suspension bridge at 1,053 feet above the floor of the gorge/canyon. I went there in 2007 and it is truly an awesome sight.

Below is more about the city and the gorge. The photos are: 1) downtown Cañon City, 2) the 4th Street Bridge, 3) the Royal Gorge, 4) the Royal Gorge Suspension Bridge, 5) the Royal Gorge/Arkansas River dinner/tour train, and 6) rafting on the Arkansas River that runs through the Royal Gorge.

The City of Cañon City is a Home Rule Municipality that is the county seat and the most populous city of Fremont County, Colorado, United States. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population was 16,000 in 2005. Cañon City is famous for being the site of 9 state and 4 federal prisons. It straddles the Arkansas River, and is a popular tourist destination for Whitewater rafting and rock climbing.
In 1994, the Board on Geographic Names approved adding the tilde in the official name of Cañon City, a change from Canon City as the official name in decisions of 1906 and 1975.
Emory S. Land, U.S. Navy vice admiral and decorated hero, was born in Cañon City.
It is one of the very few U.S. cities to have an eñe in its name.

Cañon City was founded in 1859 during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush as a commercial center for miners.
In 1861 the town raised two companies of volunteers for service with the Second Colorado Infantry in the American Civil War. The regiment fought battles in nearby New Mexico and as far east as Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma) and Missouri before mustering out of service in 1865.
In 1862, A. M. Cassaday drilled for petroleum six miles north of town, near an oil seep. He struck oil at a depth of 50 feet, and completed the first commercial oil well west of the Mississippi. He drilled five or six more wells nearby, and refined kerosene and fuel oil from the petroleum, and sold the products in Denver.
A number of ore smelters were built in Cañon City following the discovery of gold at Cripple Creek in 1891.

The Royal Gorge (also Grand Canyon of the Arkansas) is a canyon on the Arkansas River near Cañon City, Colorado. With a width of 50 feet at its base and a few hundred feet at its top, and a depth of 1250 feet in places, the 10-mile-long canyon is a narrow, steep gorge through the granite of Fremont Peak. It is one of the deepest canyons in Colorado.

Before European settlement, Native Americans of the Ute people wintered in Royal Gorge for its protection from wind and relatively mild climate. The Comanche, Kiowa, Sioux, and Cheyenne used Royal Gorge on buffalo hunting expeditions as an access point to mountain meadow regions such as South Park Basin. Colorado's Rocky Mountain region fell under Spanish claims, and conquistador expeditions of the 17th century or fur traders may have seen Royal Gorge in their traversal of the area. The first recorded instance of a European arrival, however, is the Pike expedition of 1806. Zebulon Pike's group built a crude shelter in the gorge and explored the area, descending on horseback over the frozen Arkansas River.
Nearby Cañon City was founded in 1860 to exploit possible mineral deposits in the area. Discovery of silver and lead near Leadville in 1877 prompted a race to build rail access to the area. Royal Gorge was a bottleneck along the Arkansas too narrow for both the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway and the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad to pass through, and there was no other reasonable access to the South Park area. Both railroad crews thus took to fighting the Royal Gorge Railroad War, two years of essentially low-level guerrilla warfare between the two companies. Federal intervention prompted the so-called "Treaty of Boston" to end the fighting. The D&RGW completed its line and leased it for use by the Santa Fe.
In the 1890s Royal Gorge was used as a passenger route for transcontinental rail travel. As many as four trains per day went through the gorge, though in time the establishment of alternate routes through the mountains made the Royal Gorge fall from favor for transcontinental use, and passenger train service on the main line was discontinued in 1967. A sightseeing train now follows the route through the gorge.

In 1929 Cañon City authorized the building of the Royal Gorge Bridge, which at 1,053 feet above the river is the highest suspension bridge over water in the world. The bridge forms the kernel of Royal Gorge Park, a theme park owned and run by the city.
In the summer months, whitewater rafting is a very popular activity in the Royal Gorge. Tourists travel from around the world to tackle the Class IV rapids of the Arkansas River and enjoy the scenery of the gorge. Named rapids in the Royal Gorge include Sunshine Falls, Sledgehammer, Wallslammer and Boateater. River recreation in the royal gorge is regulated by Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA) and daily user fees are required to launch at all of the recreation sites upstream of the Royal Gorge. There are many commercial rafting companies which are licensed by AHRA to run the Royal Gorge and summer weekends can see hundreds of rafts packing the river.
Base jumping, bungee jumping, and rock climbing are generally not permitted at the Royal Gorge; however, during special events such as the "Go Fast Games" these sports have been temporarily allowed. However, it is only allowed with the consent of the land owners.

Today's Jumble (9/22/08):

PLITO = PILOT; ROGGE = GORGE; PRUMBE = BUMPER; SUDSIC = DISCUS

CIRCLED LETTERS = PIREMEDSS

When the tattoo artist put a butterfly on her leg, she was

"IMPRESSED"

Today is Elephant Appreciation Day and Dear Diary Day. The Band-Aid was invented on this day in 1920. The U.S. Post Office opened on this day in 1789.

Other things on this day in history:

66 - Emperor Nero creates the Legion I Italica.
1236 - The Lithuanians and Semigallians defeat the Livonian Brothers of the Sword in Battle of Šiauliai.
1499 - Switzerland became an independent state.
1586 - The battle of Zutphen occurs.
1598 - Ben Jonson is indicted for manslaughter.
1692 - Last people hanged for witchcraft in the United States.
1761 - Coronation of George III of the United Kingdom and Queen Charlotte.
1776 - Nathan Hale is hanged for spying during American Revolution.
1784 - Russia establishes a colony at Kodiak, Alaska.
1789 - The position of United States Postmaster General established.
1792 - primidi Vendémiaire of year 1 of the French Republican Calendar
1823 - Joseph Smith, Jr. stated that he was directed by God through the Angel Moroni to the place where the Golden plates were stored.
1851 - The city of Des Moines, Iowa was incorporated as Fort Des Moines.
1862 - Slavery in the United States: A preliminary version of the Emancipation Proclamation is released.
1866 - Decisive battle of Curupaity in the War of the Triple Alliance.
1869 - Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold premieres in Munich.
1885 - Lord Randolph Churchill makes a speech in Ulster in opposition to Home Rule e.g. "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right".
1888 - The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published
1893 - The first American-built automobile, built by the Duryea Brothers, is displayed.
1896 - Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
1908 - The independence of Bulgaria is proclaimed.
1910 - The Duke of York's Cinema opened in Brighton. It is still operating today, making it the oldest continually operating cinema in Britain.
1919 - The steel strike of 1919, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across the United States.
1927 - Jack Dempsey loses the Long Count boxing match to Gene Tunney.
1934 - An explosion takes place at Gresford Colliery in Wales, leading to the deaths of 266 miners and rescuers.
1937 - Spanish Civil War: Peña Blanca is taken; the end of the Battle of El Mazuco.
1941 - On Jewish New Year Day, German SS murder 6,000 Jews in Vinnytsya, Ukraine. Those were the survivors of the previous killings that took place a few days earlier in which about 24,000 Jews were executed.
1944 - World War II, Red Army enters Tallinn.
1951 - The first live sporting event seen coast-to-coast in the United States, a college football game between Duke and the University of Pittsburgh, is televised on NBC.
1955 - In Britain, the television channel ITV goes live for the first time.
1960 - The Sudanese Republic is renamed Mali after the withdrawal of Senegal from the Mali Federation.
1965 - The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965/Second Kashmir War between India and Pakistan over Kashmir ends after the UN calls for a cease-fire.
1970 - Tunku Abdul Rahman resigns as Prime Minister of Malaysia.
1975 - Sara Jane Moore tries to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford, but is foiled by Oliver Sipple.
1979 - The South Atlantic Flash or Vela Incident is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
1980 - Iraq invades Iran.
1985 - The Plaza Accord was signed in New York City.
1991 - The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time, by the Huntington Library.
1993 - A Transair Georgian Airlines Tu-154 is shot down by a missile in Sukhumi, Georgia.
1995 - E-3B AWACS crashed outside of Elmendorf AFB, Alaska after multiple bird strikes to two of the four engines soon after takeoff; all 24 on board killed
1997 - Bentalha massacre in Algeria; over 200 villagers killed.
2003 - David Hempleman-Adams becomes the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an open-air, wicker-basket hot air balloon.
2006 - The F-14 Tomcat retires from the United States Navy.
2006 - A German maglev train crashes, killing 23.