We started yesterday off with a seven mile bike ride along
the Yampa River where we’d been tubing the day before, with a pit stop at
Starbucks for a cold drink. The trail was paved and flat, with several small
bridges crossing back and forth over the water, making for a nice, easy ride
that was a perfect way to see a bit more of the city and enjoy the river some
more.
After we piled back into the RV, we continued on down the
highway to Rawlins, Colorado to the site of the former Wyoming State Penitentiary.
The prison opened in 1901 and remained in use until 1981, holding several
well-known criminals, including Butch Cassidy.
We took an in-depth tour of the facilities and saw the tiny
grungy cells, the inadequate shower room that was a place for settling scores,
the cafeteria where prisoners could only talk to the person to the immediate
right or left or face being shot, the darker side of cell block A where
prisoners could hide in the shadows of their cells and reach out and grab
someone walking by, and the gas chamber where two men were executed.
The guide had lots of grisly stories for us of escapes,
riots, scams, and deaths. One of my favourites was the story of a few prisoners
who were in the death row section. They managed to sneak out of the cells at
night and start tunnelling their way out, hiding the dirt in the ceiling tiles.
They were making pretty good progress until they hit something hard, kept
digging, and managed to rupture a gas line, putting an end to their efforts
pretty quickly.
Not quite Shawshank.
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