Breakfast just seemed better if we bought it and let someone else do the work so we drove into Canon City and pulled up in front of the Waffle Wagon. I can state, for a fact, that they have pretty good chicken fried steak, hash browns, eggs, biscuits and gravy. Peggy’s omelet was just what she asked for. All of this was also very reasonably priced and we left with a bill around $20.
We wandered about town for a bit and made a stop at the Chamber of Commerce visitor info center. They had good local maps but we found there were no roads or no paved, viable roads going where we wanted to drive so we settled for a spin south on 1st Street. There is a beautiful roadside public walkway here that runs between the highway and the edge of the creek where Peg and I sat around for a while. We met a tiny dog named Fritz who was very nice and let us know we could pet and scratch him. He had his owner in tow who told us some neat stuff about the local area before continuing her trip with Fritz alongside. After passing some spiffy wood houses and some country road, we turned southwest on County Road 3 / Temple Canyon until we were finally flummoxed by the road turning to a surface more appropriate for 4-wheel drives with big knobby expensive tires than for an enormous Ford F-250 two-wheel drive king cab with highway tires. We turned around and headed back to Canon City and US-50.
We voted unanimously (2-0) that we wanted to try another road for exploration so we drove through the back streets of Canon City, getting another glimpse of the gorgeous architecture of the small commercial and residential buildings. We emerged onto Field Avenue on the east side of town and turned north. This city street turns into County Road 9 which allegedly ends up in the Victor / Cripple Creek area. We ascended through a valley with bunches of birds and stunning geology on both sides of the road until we came to a fork near Sand Gulch campground where the paving and our courage petered out. We returned again to Canon City, filled up with diesel and headed back for happy hour at Starlite Classic.
This section of Colorado is absolutely gorgeous and I would love to return here. The Starlite Classic Campground owners and park were terrific, the scenery is delightful, local small building architecture is varied and classic, the food where we ate was tasty and inexpensive and the weather here, including the night skies, has been superb. It is tough to find a lot to complain about here.