Pike's Peak Or Bust

 Anytime you take off in the camper and the camper has been stored away for a winter, there will always be issues. You come to expect it but you cross your fingers and hope that it is nothing major. Well my first issue, I came to discover, was bordering on the major. 

Black Is Black

 

Black Canyon of the Gunnison – another canyon, another heart stopping trip to the edge. Black Canyon is, well,  black. Part of it is the rock, but the other part is that it is a very narrow canyon with very tall vertical walls. The Gunnison River flows through the canyon and is responsible for the landscape. If I thought the Colorado Monument had steep drop offs, I had another think coming. According to the brochure, at one point it is 2,250 feet deep. The canyon ranges from a wide spot at Chasm View of 1,100 feet wide to the Narrows which is only 40 feet wide.

I had heard that the way to really see the canyon was to book a boat ride down the Gunnison, but because of Covid, all boat tours have been canceled for 2020. That left me with driving along the rim and getting my nerve up to get near those steep drop offs. I think it was only a six mile drive along the rim. The hard part was that it was really difficult to find any sort of parking space at the overlooks. There are so many people out enjoying their parks. I miss traveling with my little sedan where I could just whip into tiny spots. Now that I'm driving my diesel monster truck (and feeling very macho at that), it is more difficult to squeeze into even regular sites.  Traditionally, the best time to travel in an RV is from Labor Day to Memorial Day. Summer is when all the families take to the road with the little ones They tend to disappear when school starts. That is not happening this year.

I feel like I should apologize for the quality of my pictures. Taking pictures at high noon tends to give them a washed out appearance and they are not as striking as they could be.

Gunnison River

Seems like every park has one lone spire jutting into the air

Way down there is the Gunnison leaving the Black Canyon

It seems the kids have worked out their bed issues

Colorado National Monument

 

Greetings from Grand Junction, Colorado. It is a pretty big town, so I'm planning on doing some shopping and getting some chores done.

I'm also going to the Colorado National Monument. If you don't have the lifetime senior pass, it cost every carload $25 to enter the Monument. Not for me though – Free, Free, Free. The ranger actually thanked me for getting the lifetime pass. Never had that happen before. 

I entered the Monument on the western side, from the town of Fruita. It is a steady uphill climb on a very narrow road with big drop offs on the side of the road. This was not a small little uphill climb, we are talking 2300 feet of elevation gain. You have to share these narrow little roads with bikers. I was so impressed with them – can you imagine? When I got to the top, I talked to one biker. He was over seventy years old. He told me that two years and four months ago, to the day, he was in a wheelchair with meningitis and they told him that he would never be able to walk again. Holy cow, he had just gotten to the top of this huge climb. Inconceivable!!

Once you are on the top, the road goes for 23 miles along the rim of the Monument. There were quite a few turnouts to check out the view. I decided that I was going to hike every one of the short trails which ranged from a quarter of a mile to three-quarters of a mile one way. Double that for your mileage count. When I came through the ranger station, he told me it would take about an hour to drive the whole thing, including stopping at a few places. Six hours later, I finally left the Monument. With one exception, the trails were fairly easy as in they were pretty level. My main issue was that I am challenged with following trails – I tend to go right when I should go left and vice versa. It also seems my vertigo/fear of heights has gotten a lot worse since the last time I was high up.

The Road before it got all twisty turny

Independence Monument
John Otto, the father of this park. climbed this every Fourth of July and planted a US flag at the top

Coke Ovens

Independence Monument with the town of Fruita in the background

The hike to Devil's Kitchen was a pretty easy flat trail until the very end. You look up and you have to climb up some slick-rock. That part was OK, it was sort of fun. The problem though is that there was no trail on the rock. You had to figure out how to get up to the Kitchen on your own. I probably took three times as long as anybody else as I veered all over the rocks. But I made it.

Looking out from Devil's Kitchen

And yes, I did get another Junior Ranger badge.  Ranger Justine was a little tough.  Ranger Justine does not accept any half-ass job.  Do it right or go home.  

Wind, Snow and Waterfalls

 

I continued across Nebraska and spent the weekend at a lovely little place called Oliver Reservoir Recreation Area. It was off-grid so I had a chance to further explore my new solar system. I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with it. The best thing is that I have confidence in it now. One less worry to deal with.

My View

After an idyllic weekend, I finally left Nebraska and headed into Wyoming. I was a little bit worried about the wind.. It was out of the west, so it was a direct head wind. I could tell as my gas mileage really started to tank. Then I saw on the electronic signs that they had “Warning – Extreme Winds 40+ mph – Gusts 60+ mph. I would normally never ever drive with winds like this, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't really tell they were so bad. My rig pulled unbelievably easy. To add insult to injury though, as I drove up the Lincoln Highway and got some altitude, Ms. Weather had the audacity to start snowing.

I got to Rawlins, Wyoming. I had planned to get full hookups and do laundry plus some other chores. Plans change. I could barely get my truck doors closed, the wind was so strong. I hooked up my electric, moved the animals into the camper and settled in while the camper rocked and rolled all night long.

Speaking of plans changed, I had planned to head to Salt Lake City. I was looking at a map and saw that I could just as easily head down into Colorado and see my son, Nate. He lives in Breckinridge and he drove a couple of hours to come and spend the day with me. I was thrilled. I was at Rifle Gap State Park.  The park was aptly named as it was hunting season and you could hear shots off in the distance.  After eating some lunch, we went four miles up the road to Rifle Falls State Park to see waterfalls!!!! My first waterfalls on this trip.  We saw the falls, both from the bottom and then we hiked up to the top.  Seeing my son and waterfalls - life just doesn't get any better than this.  

Rifle Gap

The Campground
I'm at the far left
 

My Boy Nate

We drove up to Chatfield State Park which is in Littleton, Colorado – just a little bit southwest of Denver. Lovely day for a drive. We got to our assigned campsite – just electric and pretty good wifi, but tons of goose droppings.

Way back in the day, people decided to settle in the Denver area. The local First Nation people told them it was very bad medicine to live in this area, but of course, nobody listened. There were many floods of the South Platte River but finally in 1965 came the flood that really devastated the area. After this flood, the decision was made to build a dam and try to control the flooding. More Info on the Flood This created a reservoir and then the park was created around the reservoir. This park has boating, fishing, camping, biking, hiking, remote control airplane flying area, riding stables and the biggest dog park I've ever seen.




View out the door - See?  No Snow!!!!

We decided to stay for a few more days but asked to change sites. Got a lovely, goose dropping free site with a good view. Miko and I took off for the dog park. This place was so big that we were there for a couple of hours checking it all out. There are two ponds in the park and tons and tons of Labs and Retrievers all out there swimming. It was just last year that Miko realized that she wasn't going to die if she got her feet wet, in fact she was able to go up to her elbows in the water, but never any deeper. There was a guy throwing a tennis ball in the water for Gus, his border collie/lab mix and even though Miko really wanted to chase the ball, she would not go beyond her elbows. It finally occurred to me that Miko probably doesn't know she can swim. A new trick to work on this next summer. As it was, I would throw the ball a little bit deeper in the water each time and she would get braver and braver. Then I throw it just a few inches farther, to the point where she would have to let her feet leave the ground and actually swim and she just couldn't get that ball. She was funny, her front end sort of jumping trying to get that ball, but no dice. Good thing that Gus was such a ball fiend that he would collect all balls in the water and bring them to shore.

Wednesday was the day that I had been waiting for. I would get to see my boy Nate who lives in Breckinridge. Of course, this meant that I would have to leave the foothills where I had been staying and drive into the mountains. I had been impressed with the mountains in Arizona and New Mexico. I now realize those were just little baby mountains. These mountains in the Breck region were huge – intimidatingly huge.

When I started out the drive, it was raining and there were a few flakes of snow. As I climbed the first mountain, we got up into the clouds and visibility was really bad. You could not see beyond the side of the road. When we got through that first pass, it cleared up some. But then I started seeing signs that the freeway was closed because there had been an accident. My phone asked me if I wanted to save 45 minutes on my drive, I said of course. So we got off the freeway and for a while went along a frontage road. It was sort of fun – the freeway was at a dead stop and I was tooling along at 35 miles an hour.

Finally got past the accident site, got back on the freeway and through the Eisenhower Tunnel. Coming out of the tunnel, it was like a whole different world. Snowing, blowing, cold. Lots of different weather patterns in Colorado.

Got to Nate's house where he met me. It was so wonderful to see him and be able to touch him. He showed me his house – he has three roommates, one of whom lives in the sauna under the stairs in the house. A small dark little room. The rest of the house is a little trashy except for Nate's room and the bathroom. I was impressed with how neat and tidy everything was. It was a large room and I had to ask about the set of four tires and the car hood that he had there. He has a 1988 BMW that he is restoring and he really has no place but his room to store it. But it just added to the décor.

We went out to Fatty's Burgers for lunch where Maleena, Nate's girlfriend met us. I really like her a lot. She is inquisitive, not shy and the two of them are really good together. They both seem very happy with each other.

After lunch, we wandered around downtown Breckinridge for a little bit but it was really cold. The sun came out for a little bit and they took me on a gondola ride. Breckinridge is a very dog friendly town and so Miko got to go on the gondola also. She was not a happy camper. When we got to the top of the gondola, there is a chalet called Tbar. From here you can take chairlifts even further up the mountain. It was fun to see this because Nate seems to post a lot of pictures of this place on FB. We got back on the gondola and headed back down the mountain. Even though she had a bad case of the shakes, Miko jumped right into the gondola – she must have known we were going back home.

Spent the rest of the afternoon at Nate's house, just chatting and catching up. I had such a good time – I am so happy that I detoured up to Colorado and got to see Nate.


Miko is not too happy



Nate and Maleena - Aren't they cute?

 


I spent a lot of time trying to figure out which way I'm going back to Minnesota. I finally decided that I was going to head back south, back into New Mexico, through Texas and Oklahoma. It is a good thing that I went to Colorado first though since there was that tragic tornado that ripped through Oklahoma yesterday. Even though I have my tornado proof arrowhead for Oklahoma, I probably would have been in the area of that tornado if I hadn't gone to Colorado.


Snow on my view - time to bug out

 

Tonight I am spending another night at Capulin RV Park – the hard core Christian place in New Mexico. Tomorrow I hope to be in Texas.

Fort Union, Capulin, Lathrop State Park

Got a knock on the door and there were a couple of people standing there. They had just gotten into the park, were walking around and saw my Jayco Precept. Turns out they have the same model and year as me. Also turns out that they bought it from the same place I did – Hilltop Trailers. They were from Rochester though. Bob wanted to talk about all the issues that he was having with his unit and I was more than happy to chitchat about that and my problems also. Turns out that my problems are no where near as bad as his. He has problems with slides and jacks plus a few other things. Mostly totally different problems though. He did give me a few hints and reminded me of a few things that I need to put on my list when I get back to Minnesota and take the rig into Hilltop for service. It was fun talking to them. They were only on the road for three weeks or so and then heading back.

Got up early, big day today – I am actually going to start traveling again. I'm heading north to Denver, but it will take me a few days to get there because there are a few stops along the way that I want to make.

Drove about an hour and a half and stopped at Fort Union National Monument. This was rather an interesting fort in that it was actually a small city back in it's heyday. Fort Union had the good fortune to be right on the Santa Fe Trail. So, it became a city of 5 – 7,000 people because of all of the traffic coming through as people were moving west. It was also a military fort, it was responsible for supplying supplies to all the other forts within a 500 mile radius. It had a world renown hospital that not only treated the military forces but also civilians. If you were a civilian and required a hospital stay, it would cost you fifty cents a day. My, how times have changed.

Of course after 150 years, there is nothing but ruins, but you can see the outlines of the various buildings. Miko and I wandered around, reading all the info boards, making sure we watched out for rattlesnakes. The rangers made a big deal about warning us about the snakes – it is getting warm and they are starting to come out. We did not see any snakes, just lots of grasshoppers. My dog is a premier grasshopper hound and loves to catch them.



Officer's Quarters

 

Back in the RV, heading north. Next stop is Capulin Volcano. We are spending the night at Capulin RV Park in Capulin New Mexico before I go see the volcano. The people that run this place are hard core Christians. We are the only people in the park. It is a little disconcerting – bible verses everyplace. There are also signs that on almost every wall that say that we are under Video Surveillance and Keep Out. Not a real comfortable place. But out my front window I see the volcano which is three miles away. So that is a positive.

The volcano is only three miles away but they don't allow dogs. I go watch the movie at the ranger station (cause I love watching the movies). I asked the ranger why Capulin was a National Monument because New Mexico is full of volcanoes. In fact, New Mexico has the most volcanoes of any state in the lower 48. She said it was because this particular volcano is almost perfectly preserved. It hasn't eroded and is still in it's original cone shape. Capulin rises 1300 feet above the floor of the valley and is at 8,182 feet above sea level. The road up to the top of the volcano is very narrow and hugs the side of the volcano. One side of the road (coming down) is up against the rock wall and the other side (going up) is right next to nothing. I was glad I did not meet anybody coming down because I was pretty much going up on the wrong side of the road.

Once you get to the top of the volcano, there is a parking lot and you have a decision to make. You can walk 250 feet down into the center of the volcano or you can walk 350 feet up and walk around the rim of the volcano. I decided to go up because I had heard the views were really wonderful. When they said 350 feet up, they meant it was a straight 350 up. No switchbacks or anything to ease the pain. But I did it and I even passed some young whippersnappers who were struggling. There was nothing to stop the wind up there, at times you really had to plant yourself otherwise it would blow you off the path. The scenery of the valley was very other-worldly – it sort of looked like a moonscape.



The Road Up



Moonscape

 

After my little volcano adventure, we packed up and headed out of the Christian RV Park. We drove north and crossed the border into Colorado. I specifically took the freeway because I was worried about mountain driving and Colorado did not disappoint. Well, at least in the very beginning when I crossed the border. Up, up, up – the RV got down to about 45 miles an hour so I put on my flashers like all the big time truckers do to warn others that I was a hazard. Then it was a long 6% grade down into a valley. After that, there were really no more mountains, just mostly smaller hills.

I reached Lathrop State Park. After weeks and weeks of being cooped up in claustrophobic RV parks, I was finally back in a state park. Joy. Granted I did not have any of the perks of RV parks such as WIFI and water hookups but I had scenery. And trails. I pull into a perfect site with a beautiful view out my front window.




Hiking up Hogback ridge behind the campground

Did you know it is spring break in Colorado. Five different pop up campers each complete with four or five kids show up and surround my site – they are all spending spring break in “my” campground. My,my, children are loud, bless their hearts.