Colorado – TooBusyForWork

From Utah to Wyoming

We left Bear Lake on 6 July. We spent the night at Red Desert Rose Campground in Rawlins, WY. Nice enough place, a bit careworn, but they were trying to have grass between most of the sites, and the pull throughs were HUGE so no unhitching. We left fairly early on 7 July to head to a Boondockers Welcome site just into Colorado between Laramie and Wyoming. It didn’t work out. First, the road in was 8 miles of awful washboard (12 miles total from the highway), and secondly, we could not get level no matter what! We tried 3 different locations in his field with every block we owned, and nothing worked. We finally gave up, took the awful road back to the highway, and headed to the Vedauwoo area of the Medicine Bow National Forest only a few miles back west.

I was a bit skeptical we could find a spot on a Friday afternoon, but we scored a truly primo spot! We stayed here before on our way to Arizona in June, but this time we aren’t rushed for time. They have a system I think is the future of dispersed NF and BLM land – identified sites, very well separated and private, and free. We were lucky and got site 4. This is the view out our door.

The scale is hard to imagine. Look carefully at the bottom of the “nose” for a human for scale.

Another photo for scale. Those tiny white dots were climbers.

This cubist delight is just to the right of our site. It is huge too.

On Saturday we decided to take out the UTV. It rained on Friday night, and the area has had a lot of rain on other days. The meadows are amazingly green, and the roads were amazingly muddy.

We had planned a circular trip leaving and arriving from our campsite, based on the official Motor Vehicle Use Guide. However a couple of hours in, our published “open” road was marked by a “No motor vehicles” sign. It was obvious a lot of people had ignored the sign and continued, but we didn’t feel comfortable with that. We then just turned back and rode some other dead end trails, just to see the sights. Of course we saw more rocks! I do love rocks.

This was one sight that puzzled me. It was an open pasture, fairly but not completely flat with a number of low embedded rocks in the surface. There were a number of these pipes, some capped and some not, seemingly randomly arranged over maybe 1/2 an acre. Mining? Old foundation? I couldn’t see any other artifacts, just the pipes.

And of course we have seen flowers. The white ones were smaller than a dime and close to the ground. Indian Paintbrush is the state flower of Wyoming, and it bloomed in profusion along with the other standard flowers we have seen. The yellows were not as common. They are Alpi e Sunflowers, and like other sunflowers, rotate during the day to follow the sun.

Today we decided to take the truck along the Snowy Ridge Scenic Byway. It was a good decision. Beautiful country south east of Laramie. We hit snow line at about 9000’. We topped out just under 10,400’. Hard to breathe when there isn’t any air!

There were lots of interesting sights along the road, but this observation point was particularly interesting.

The views were incredible. This was generally southwest and the next picture was more south. I am pretty sure those snow covered peaks in the second photo are in Rocky Mountain National Park, one of my favorite places.

Note the “watermelon snow.” The pink color is from a bacteria that thrives on the snow and glaciers. And yes, the skies really were that blue!

Looking from the observation point to our parking spot

There were dozens of alpine lakes along the way. Some were ephemeral and dry up in dry years, but some are large. This is one of the large ones right next to the road. It was busy with anglers and hikers.

We ate a late lunch in Walden, CO at River Rock Cafe. Very good food, and great home made peach cobbler. We came back to the motorhome a bit tired, rested, and then enjoyed the late afternoon sitting outside and watching the climbers on the rocks behind our campsite.

Tomorrow, more UTV trails.

I love the Bighorn Mountains

We left Salida early on Sunday on our way to Cheyenne. It was one of the most tiring drives I have ever made. We took HW 50 to I-25, and that part was lovely. Yes, the road was twisty since it followed the Arkansas River, but it was beautiful and not too busy. We took a cutoff on CO 115 that was fine too, dropping us off south of Colorado Springs. All that enjoyment changed when we hit I-25! I think the entire front range is under construction! Lanes were narrow, busy (even on a Sunday morning), and nerve racking. I drove from south of Colorado Springs all the way to Cheyenne without a break, but that was stupid. I was really, really mentally exhausted by the time we stopped. Note to self: don’t do that again!

We stayed in another Boondockers Welcome site Sunday night. It was set high on a hill in the northern suburbs, and it was really easy to get in and out. We had some lovely weather and didn’t need the AC at all. I didn’t do anything except crash though the views were lovely. We left the next morning in no rush to make it to Buffalo, WY and the KOA. We had wanted to stay 5 nights, but when we called 2 weeks earlier they only had 4 nights available. We did exciting things like laundry and watched some streaming shows (we hadn’t had good enough data service to do that until now). We did do a lovely drive along Hwy 16 from Buffalo to Tensleep.

I like the combination of rocky peaks, forests, and parks.

We investigated boondock spots along Hwy 16, and we ended up staying at Grouse Mountain Trailhead about 10 miles west of Buffalo. Amazingly it had a small amount of cell data, but I couldn’t post pictures.

Onour last full day, two cattle trucks deposited a bunch of calves to fatten up on the meadow grass. It was impressive watching the cowboys work the cattle. I couldn’t get a picture of the border collie they had working with them, but the dog was definitely helping. Also note the clouds. It rained a lot! It would rain hard for 30 minutes, the skies would clear, they would cloud up an hour or so later, and a big drizzle would come. Then the clouds came back and more rain would follow. It did it pretty much the entire weekend.

Oh, and I think the cats are doing just fine in the motorhome! They sleep snuggled up in the driver’s seat a lot.

The bad news was that on Saturday morning the Forest Service came by to tell us they were closing the area to all activities on Monday morning due to an invasive grass that was discovered. We drove Hwy 16 again, and we found a few decent places, but most were muddy from the rains. We also took some scenic drives. One of the prettiest was Crazy Woman Canyon.

Crazy Woman Creek was a noisy mountain stream

We decided we would stay a Lake de Smet north of Buffalo because it was gravel and not muddy. The weather was still lovely on Monday, and the solar was cranking! We didn’t need the generator at all.

We had planned on driving Hwy 16 to Cody, but we were told there was a lot of construction. I really didn’t want to get a bunch of tar on the motorhome, so we drove Hwy 14 to see how it was, and it is completely doable. We decided to head that way. We had thought about spending Tuesday night somewhere along the road, but we decided to just stay put at Lake de Smet. It is a decent spot with good sized sites, gravel pads, and no hookups. It also has no reservations, so it is quickly filling up for the upcoming holidays.

We will take off tomorrow to Cody for a rally with the FMCA Diesel Club. Full hookups will seem pretty luxurious!

More sightseeing in Salida

We arrived last night at another Boondockers Welcome site in Salida, CO. They are having a big kayak festival this weekend, and the town is really busy. We decided to do some sightseeing today, so we drove across Monarch Pass to Crested Butte. The Madonna Mine is one of the biggest sights on the eastern side of the pass.

The pass is high enough that Kevin and I were both yawning a lot to get more oxygen in our lungs. We live at 800’!

The views in Crested Butte were the standard lovely vistas.

Looking from Mt Crested Butte to Crested Butte

We had Father’s Day dinner tonight because tomorrow will be a hard day. We are driving all the way to Cheyenne, WY, and we have to get going early to miss the hoards coming from the front range into Colorado Springs and Denver. The roads can come to a complete halt by late afternoon so we want to get through early. Our host has been lovely here, and we are going to another Boondockers Welcome site before heading to Buffalo, WY and a real campground! We disconnected from our host 20 amp electricity as soon as it cooled down enough to turn off the AC, and we will be running on battery and solar until we get to Buffalo. Checking out the new lithium batteries!

Back with internet so more about NM and into CO

We are at a nice little RV park in Del Norte, CO called Woods and River. We got a lovely shaded RV site right on the Rio Grande. The only problem is there is a major mayfly hatch going on! I am talking enough mayflies to make every trout in the river gain a half pound without really trying. Mayflies by the hundreds! Add to it the cottonwood fluff that is coming down, and we look like we are in a blizzard. We haven’t been able to stay outside, but at least I can get a good river view out of the motorhome front window. However their in-park WiFi is bad, and my Verizon Mifi is experiencing network management, so I have to tether to the phone. It is a pain. We drove out a few miles to a BLM site, and the Mifi is screaming fast! I will try to mostly catch up on my pictures.

The nearby town of Del Monte, CO has an old fashioned drive -in movie! We had a great time watching “In the Neighborhood,” a musical with modern, rap style lyrics and lots of dancing. It was a great show, but we got back way past my bedtime! Worth it though.

I left off with the Dawson cemetery on Saturday, 12 June. We continued along the road to Cimmaron. The town has really invested in tourist infrastructure with lots of signs and historic markers. I particularly liked this old mill.

There was lots of beautiful country, as one might expect. I took pictures of the views, not the towns. Every town was crowded. Taos was dreadfully crowded, and we didn’t get out of the car at all. I was bummed because it was one of my favorite places. Interestingly the Taos Pueblo has been cut off for COVID precautions. The road is closed except to key card access.

Bighorn sheep were grazing along the road

On Sunday we headed to Capulin Volcano National Monument. Nice place. The views are amazing.

The view from the top of Capulin National Monument are spectacular

A nearby much smaller cone to show the shape

The next day we packed up leisurely and went to Del Norte, CO as I noted in the first paragraph. Tuesday we took off on more sightseeing, this time along the Silver Thread National Scenic Byway which is basically highway 149. Much of the road parallels the Rio Grande, and I particularly wanted to see the headwaters. Couldn’t quite get there because a creek had the road flooded, but we did get a decent long distance view.

Click on this link to hear the falls in a video.

IMG_5128

Slimgullion was a massive landslide 850 and 450 years ago

The Rio Grande headwaters are at the end of the farthest lake

Mining history everywhere! This was a bentonite clay mill.

I will continue with our last two days in Del Norte later. This has been hard enough. Hopefully the Mifi will have good service.

Wildfires and more elk

We decided to go sightseeing today, but at a lower elevation since I had a bad headache the last two days. We took a lovely trip from Estes Park to Glen Haven then on into Ft. Collins via backroads. We wandered through a valley and crossed over a creek a number of times. It was classic Colorado backroads – mountains, ranches, hills, creeks, pines, willows, cottonwoods. Just as we got to the Cache le Poudre river (highway 14) we saw lots of smoke and then an active wildfire. Fire trucks from volunteer departments and the Forest Service passed us on the road, including a big van with Pike Hot Shots. When they bring out the Hot Shots, you know a fire is getting serious work. We pulled over and watched for quite a while. Here are some pictures and video. As usual, I apologize for not having the video in a easy format, but it is worth it.

Those itty bitty dots on the cliff top are firefighters.

The fire was only a few hundred feet from the road

099C09C4-BB4A-4BFD-9346-A77AFAE8B83F

294EC07D-48AE-455D-A6BF-BFF7BCE830C8

The Fire is known as the Seaman Lake Fire, and it is already partially contained according to this source: https://www.coloradoan.com/story/news/2018/09/12/seaman-fire-prompts-voluntary-evacuations-threatens-poudre-river/1280800002/

While in Loveland for lunch, we found we had a fire going flat! Walmart changed the tire, but I wasn’t willing to buy any of theirs. We ended up going to Big O Tires in Estes Park, and we get four new tires put on tomorrow. Painful price though.

After the pain there, we decided to head one more night out to RMNP for the elk. This time we decided to go to Horseshoe Park, and what a good choice it was! We first saw the young buck with his small harem of 3 we had seen in Morraine Park. Then came a much bigger buck with a large harem of 13 cows, yearlings, and calves. We watched while the big buck ran off the younger and stole his little harem. Of course there was much bugling involved. It was wonderful.

Tomorrow will be new tires, a leisurely breakfast in town, just goofing off, and a Chuckwagon dinner. Then home on Friday.

Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park

We finally got out of town! We are taking a trip to Estes Park and RMNP as an anniversary present to ourselves (40 years). We are not camping this time but instead staying at the Inn On Fall River, a first for us. It was a very, very long drive! We did eat dinner at an incredible Thai restaurant called Bai Tong in Loveland. We will definitely have to do that again. We got a two room suite that has a huge patio next to Fall River. The place is standard tourist rustic but clean and tidy. Chairs and lounges are on our private patio, plus a number of other “common” spots around the property. When we are here we have mostly just stayed on the patio. I love the sound of moving water. The pictures are from when we arrived and the next morning.

On Monday we took the standard RMNP drive: up the Fall River Road to the top of Trail Ridge Road, continued down the west side of the mountain, then back to town on Trail Ridge Road. It was an incredible first three miles. We saw 2 moose (an unusual sight), a herd of elk, and a herd of mule deer. I didn’t get pictures of any of those, but we made up for it later. We took a break for a bit, then we went to find the bugling elk, the primary purpose of this trip. I have seen thousands and thousands of elk, but we have never been here for the rut when they bugle. We ended up at Moraine Park, and we found this guy and his harem.

It wasn’t a big harem, but he took it very seriously, bugling like crazy when another buck came into range.

We also saw a number of mule deer including this guy.

I didn’t get a good picture of the harem, but he had six does with him.

Besides animals we obviously saw some gorgeous scenery. The aspen are changing colors on the hillsides, and it is glorious. I took this from the west side of Trail Ridge Road, and even with the haze it is lovely.

Since Monday was so successful we went to Denver today to visit their REI. It is huge, but a royal pain to get to and park since it is right downtown. We did get some new Helinox folding chairs. I found them obscenely expensive, but comfortable and very compact. They will fit in a backpack or on the bike carrier with ease. We also bought a Big Agnes air pump for our tent camping air mats. They are downfilled so you can’t just blow them up with your mouth, and we haven’t found our old pump since we moved! We still have some hope of going tent camping in Ely, MN next week though the weather is not looking good.

We came back from Denver though Boulder to Nederland to Estes Park. Much nicer scenery than I-25!

We haven’t decided what to do tomorrow, but we will probably go to Horseshoe Park to look for elk there. We have a Chuckwagon Dinner scheduled for Thursday evening, then we head home on Friday. My poor kitty is staying with my son, and he says she isn’t terribly happy. She did come up to get petted for a few minutes, so it should improve. She just isn’t an animal that likes change or new people.

Iowa to Colorado to Utah

After Mark Twain Lake we headed back to Iowa to visit family. We got to have dinner with all the Iowa kids and grandkids and spent some time just wandering around the area. We even went to see a couple of condo/town houses to see what the market point looks like. Eventually we intend on moving back there so the kids can watch our house/condo while we are gone for months at a time LOL!

Leaving Iowa we spent the first night at a Walmart parking lot in Grand Island, NE. I really don’t like staying in parking lots, but I also don’t like spending $30 or more for a few hours sleep. We then headed to Boyd Lake State Park in Loveland, CO. We had hoped for stay 3 nights, visiting Rocky Mountain National Park too. It is a nice campground, but the gate attendant put us in a site only available for two nights. Rather than moving to another spot in the campground, we decided to go on our way. We had a great trip to Rocky, though for only one day. The weather was unseasonably warm and sunny. Trail Ridge road opened up to Rainbow Curve, and we drove up it as far as we could.

2855A5D9-D8B3-4B43-B646-21006FD08B1B The scenery is always gorgeous.

429D7253-5CA7-4045-A84A-773DE39B8349 I particularly liked this rock at the Bear Lake Trailhead.

07B1900F-37DF-4900-AE80-67CFEC285C65 A Gray Jay came by to see if I was sloppy with snacks (I wasn’t). I walked a little of the Bear Lake trail then went to enjoy the sunshine while Kevin walked around the lake.

D5D96B7C-CB19-4A39-8B83-B24F0F51F193 Looking across Horseshoe Park is always lovely.

14ACA446-0C08-447E-B933-A714B43715B4 There was certainly snow in the high country.

After leaving Loveland we headed south on the Peak to Peak Highway. It was slow and lovely, well worth the extra time. We eventually got to I-70 and headed west. We spent Tuesday night at Colorado River State Park in western Colorado. It was lovely and mostly empty this time of year, though I think it would be almost unbearably hot in the summer. The park ranger seemed lonely and was happy to see us! He said the park has sites open all year and even has water in the winter available at the entry office. We will definitely remember this place for spring and fall trips.

23B1E647-5881-4A9E-876B-2E32E432F31E I love the cliffs.

24DD15C9-9520-4384-B3B8-DBD47A3A36EE The cottonwoods were a brilliant gold.

6E9F2108-9669-4ACF-B3E6-B72535A8ACB0 There was a nice path along the the river. We road our bikes around and around the campground and along the river.

We finally got home on Wednesday (yesterday). I love travel, but it sure is nice to be home. Kevin got a bad surprise this morning though. As he was getting the propane tank off the trailer he noticed two shackles were broken on an axle! The RV place couldn’t get us in time, so he found an axle specialist who says it can be done in time for our next trip in a week. I hope!

On the road again (again)

It has been a while since I posted. After the last post I finished my grandson’s baptism gown, but I am not posting pictures until the baptism takes place. I will say there are lots and lots of pintucks!

On a food-related note, I made a small lasagna with the pre-cooked noodles in a 6″ pan. It came out quite ok, and I am going to try it again. A big pan of lasagna is just too much for two people. I also tried to make brownie so in my Instant Pot, just to see if I could. It was an epic fail – brownies too thick, too much liquid after cooking, and took too long. It was a silly thing to do, and I will go back to using an oven for baked goods.

As for travel, we left on Tuesday, 4 July, to a campsite at Steamboat Lake State Park. How lovely! No electricity, and it was hot. We took it for the first couple of days, but yesterday we gave in, turned both generators on, and had air conditioning. Ahhh, cool! Mornings were really lovely, but it was just too hot to make it comfortable between 2:00 and 7:30 – 8:00. We did use the new clam screen room, and it was great. There weren’t any mosquitos I could discover, but there were a number of bothersome little gnats. The screen room kept us comfortable. Pretty nice view, isn’t it? Lots of wild flowers.

View from our campsite at Steamboat Lake State Park

Everything was a little smoky due to wildfires nearby

We left this morning to head to Iowa. Tonight we are in the Holiday RV Park in North Platte, NE. We have stayed here a number of times before. Lots of mature shade trees, a little bit of grass between sites, plus full hookups. I will take a luxurious shower tomorrow! The park, generally just an overnight place, is almost completely full. I am guessing it has a lot of travelers going home after the holiday week.

Oh, and Lexi came with us this trip! She is my son’s dog now, but she originally was the family dog. She is doing great, tough it is amazing how much floor space she takes up.

I hate being sick

In my last post (a very long time ago!) I noted I had a bad cold. That bad cold morphed into a truly horrid sinus infection, and I have not posted our locations since then. Here is an update.

17-20 February: We ended up in Loveland, CO at Boyd Lake State Park the nights of 17-19 February. It is a very nice park in the middle of a housing addition, rather odd but ok. It was expensive since there is a park entry fee in addition to the camping fee so we paid $34 for a water and electric site. It was roomy and much nicer than the parks in town, so I don’t regret the money. Of course, I was sick the entire 3 nights we were there so I don’t remember much either. We did go to Rocky Mountain National Park, and that made enough of an impression that I have some memories of it.

Gorgeous as usual. It was the first time we have been there in the winter, but it was very warm with only a little snow in the lower elevations.

20-21 February: After Loveland we took I-25 to Sugarite State Park in New Mexico. We camped one night in the Lake Alice campground, the only campground open. The sites are small, the roads are dirty, and there was a boil order for the water, but it was set in a lovely piñon forested area. The cost was incredible at only $18 for a full hookup site (though no water). My sinus infection was getting worse, and I couldn’t do any walks let alone hike. The canyon had a number of historic sites, but all I could see were the ones viewable from the road. I basically stayed in the trailer and coughed my lungs out. I didn’t even take any pictures.

21-24 February: Off to Albuquerque and an Urgent Care center! We camped at our favorite Albuquerque campground, the KOA North in Bernalillo. It isn’t as fancy as some of the newer ones on the west side of town, but has nice people and doesn’t feel like a parking lot even though the sites aren’t large. We stayed three nights, and I got to a doctor. After Z-pack antibiotics and codeine cough syrup, I decided I would survive. I basically just hibernated the entire three days though.

24-28 February: (OK, it is just 27 February now, but we will be leaving in the morning.) The weather was warmer down south, so there we went. We ended up a few miles south of Alamogordo, NM at Oscar Lee State Park. What an absolutely gorgeous place and only $10 a night for a large, well separated dry campsite. This is the first time since Quartzsite that the weather and I both were good! Warm but windy meant I could sit outside and finally kick the infection. Alamogordo is a pretty poor town, and we didn’t enjoy it at all. We did get to the city museum (quite nice) and the International Space Museum which was very good. Kevin and I worked in Aerospace for many years, and we related to many of the displays. I didn’t get any pictures there, but I should have!

The road into Dog Canyon where the park is.

The view off our campsite. Lots of variety in the desert flora. We have also seen roadrunners and Gambrel’s Quail.

Yesterday I actually did a short nature walk here at the park. We also went on a tour of the historic home of the park’s namesake.

The house has been reconstructed, but it was hard to have anything but sympathy for the people who were making a living in this very tough and unforgiving land. They were successful, but what challenges they must have had! We also went to White Sands National Monument. I was there as a teenager with my family, but Kevin had never been.

Umm. I sure can see a difference in the quality of the pictures I took with my camera (RMNP) and the ones from the iPhone (all the rest of them). It is a pain to transfer the pictures from the camera to the iPad I post to the blog from, but I may just have to do it more often.

We leave tomorrow morning (28 February). The current plan (subject to change tomorrow morning) is to head to Las Cruces and I-10 tomorrow morning. I have no idea where we will end up, but that is part of the fun.