Colorado Trip Report

[SpeakEasy]

I'm writing from the Notchtop Coffee shop in Estes Park, CO. We took three days to drive to CO, picked up my daughter and son-in-law at the Denver airport, and drove up here on Friday. The weather at RMNP has been a bit flakey. The mornings are great, but by lunchtime the clouds and storms have been moving in. Last night the rain stuck around all evening. The scenery is spectacular!

Missing all of you.

Wish you were here!

I'll check in again when I can.

-Speak

[SpeakEasy]

While we were on the Interstate on our way our here a lady passed us making hand signals and making faces at our trailer. We guessed that something was "not right," so I pulled over. Turns out our trailer's door was open. We had been at a rest stop not too long before and everything had been fine. Turns out I had forgotten to lock the door. The jarring of the road popped it open.

Be careful out there!

-Speak

[SpeakEasy]

Now we're in Gunnison, CO - at the Chamber of Commerce using their wifi hotspot.

We're on our way up to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

We spent the last couple of days at Great Sand Dunes National Park. Wow - what a place.

We drove down to the southern part of the state to get away from the torrential rains in and around Denver.

More later.

-Speak

[Kelly]

Thanks for the updates!  Colorado is such an awesome state.  IIRC every time that I've been near RMNP there have been afternoon rains of some sort.

Glad you're  having a good trip!  You didn't lose anything out the door, did you? [/FONT]

[zamboni]

IIRC every time that I've been near RMNP there have been afternoon rains of some sort.[/FONT]

My parents have a house on Columbine Lake, just outside Grand Lake -- their private lake back up to Rocky Mountain National Park (I spent my childhood summers there).

Yesterday on the phone, they said it has rained every day since mid-June.  Usually brief, but sometimes for longer periods... and it has been unusally cold, like only up to maybe 70 during the day.

I begged her for some of the cold/rain, since we are deep in the California Dry Season.

Sadly, we only have 3 seasons here in California:
Rain
Drought
Fire

(lather, rinse & repeat).

[DoubleD]

No matter how much rain we get in Colorado, it is always said,

"We need the moisture."

Counties and National Forests are still very wary of the rains ending and dry hot weather returning, as evidenced by their reluctance to lift the campfire ban anywhere besides inside fire rings in established campgrounds.

[Brantime]

No matter how much rain we get in Colorado, it is always said,

"We need the moisture."

Counties and National Forests are still very wary of the rains ending and dry hot weather returning, as evidenced by their reluctance to lift the campfire ban anywhere besides inside fire rings in established campgrounds.

Well we just returned from our trip to the RMNP again! We stated 6 nights in the Glacier basin Campground (8700') and enjoyed every minute of the trip!

The trip up fall river road (finally opened up) was great as were the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Sheep.

The Elk had taken over the golf course, and even a few lawns in town!

What a great place for a family to be together and enjoy each other's company!

The weather was not bad 50-60 on most days, and of course the afternoon nap reminders (thunderstorms)!

The Arabian Horse show (Free) was a great way to spend a couple of hours each day; and the fireworks show over Lake Estes was truelly great!

PS...we also like the Gunnison/Almont/Leadville areas, lol! What a great vacation state!

[SpeakEasy]

Well, now I'm at a juice bar WiFi hotspot in Crested Butte. Free WiFi, but I bought a smoothie just to avoid being a leech. Yum.

We've seen the Black Canyon and are now staying at Lakeview campground near Taylor Reservoir. Tried out some 4-wheel drive roads yesterday up to Tincup and beyond. That's a new experience!

Today we came to Crested Butte because of the wildflower festival. We'll drive up as far as we can into the mountains and then hike to see the wildflowers.

No, we didn't lose anything out the open door. Thank God!

However, our Norcold fridge decided a couple of days ago to stop being cold. It had been giving off a funny smell (running on propane), sort of like poorly burned propane exhaust. Then it quit altogether. Tried running it on DC for a day while driving, but even that didn't get it cold. So, we're using our cooler and ice now. Oh well.

Maybe more later.

-Speak

[DoubleD]

SpeakEasy-
I don't know how long you plan to be at Lakeview, but if you are interested, the Cottonwood Springs Resort is about 35 miles away from you and provide spring fed pools for your leisure and enjoyment.  You simply head south from Lakeview to the sign that says "Cottonwood Pass" or "Buena Vista-36 miles" and head up over the pass and down the other side.  The west side of Cottonwood pass is smooth dirt, it turns to pavement at the top of the pass.  The springs are on your left side as you near the bottom of Cottonwood Canyon, and they have 4 or 5 nice pools of varying temperature, and if you wish, hot tubs, too.  They are relaxing and refreshing, especially after many days of camping.  I think you can swim all day for $15/person, maybe less during the week.
Then you can drive the remaining ~5 miles into Buena Vista, a quaint little town that hasn't been ravaged by tourism.  There is a spot special to me there called Dairy Delight just south of the intersection of Cottonwood Pass Road on the east side of US 24 that sits next to a shady park where your craving for ice cream and old time burgers can be satisfied.  A little further south on US 24 is a Kroeger store if you need groceries at reasonable prices.  That is one of my favorite towns in Colorado!  If you go, take a small tour of the town and you might find other businesses that you find interesting.  Nice people there.
If you go to the photobucket link at the bottom of this post and click on "Fourth of July weekend 06" you might see some sights familiar to you of the Taylor Creek Valley.

[zamboni]

our Norcold fridge decided a couple of days ago to stop being cold. It had been giving off a funny smell (running on propane), sort of like poorly burned propane exhaust. Then it quit altogether.

I presume you mean quit on propane?  Does the pilot light work?  If not, have you checked the tubing?  Spiders LOVE propane, and build web-nests inside, usually between the air-hole and the pilot.  This happened frequently on my old pup.  Compressed air should clean it out.

[SpeakEasy]

I presume you mean quit on propane?  Does the pilot light work?  If not, have you checked the tubing?  Spiders LOVE propane, and build web-nests inside, usually between the air-hole and the pilot.  This happened frequently on my old pup.  Compressed air should clean it out.

The weird thing is that the flame is fine, but it isn't producing any cold. However, I plugged it in to AC yesterday, set the fridge to AC, and it got cold. So, evidently the failure is just on the propane side of the cooling system.

We're on our way home now.

We cheated and took a hotel room just outside Omaha. With the very long day of driving, and the 100+ degree heat out here, the temptation was just too great. We're cool and getting well rested. Then tomorrrow we head east again. Our goal tomorrow will be to get to somewhere east of Chicago. We've stayed at Indiana Dunes State Park before, and we might try there.

Colorado was very, very good to us!

We enjoyed a gospel barbershop quartet at church in Tincup on Sunday! The singers kept talking about how hard it was for them to get enough air. They were from Omaha, so they were not used to the altitude.

-Speak

[SpeakEasy]

We got to the end of the road last night at about 11:30 PM.

It was a very good trip overall.

Thanks for reading the updates.

-Speak