Cañon City Final Thoughts

 

I am glad I spent the night here. 

I do not plan to ever return. 

You know how much I love the mountains. Salida is my favorite town in Colorado at the moment - even more than Durango; it might not be as much fun, but it is prettier. 

I figured a town 59 miles away would be similar. 

It is not. 

Cañon City feels like West Texas. 

Now, I have been to West Texas three times in the last three years, and I have enjoyed myself each time. And I am planning a trip for July that will end in West Texas. 

I like it just fine. 

But I do not love it like I do the mountains. 

Cañon City is in Fremont County. Fremont County is home to 15 prisons, including three federal prisons, one of which is the most secure prison in the world. Places in America with a concentration of prisons are depressing and depressed. Their entire economies revolve around the system.

I love Colorado specifically for the same reason I love the West in general: the wide-open spaces, the epic beauty, the feeling of freedom. 

Prisons are mostly the opposite of space and beauty and, obviously, literally the opposite of freedom. 

You can feel it all over town. 

You know what you can't feel?

The mountains. 

Even though the town sits at 5,300 feet, you can't really see any mountains. It's a wide, flat valley. What you see are hills and a sandstone ridge. Hence the West-Texas feeling. 

The Owl Cigar Store was wonderful, and a couple of the bars were great, but the town left me wanting.