Buena Vista (that's actually pronounced "Bew-na Vista")

So that was the first thing we learned, how to say the name of the town, who would have thunk?  We had lots of packages sent to our campground, Mt Princeton RV Park, a very nice, well done park, with a very friendly family running it.  

Sssshhh.......Jan has a birthday coming up, so one of the packages was a new lens for her camera, a 150-600mm telephoto zoom.  She was pretty excited!

Happy Birthday!

One of the first goes with the new lens
Pretty cool!

We wanted to get a few hikes in, and explore the area a bit, as the last and only time we were here was 6 years ago and we only had a short time.  We had enjoyed watching the kayaks in the water park in the Arkansas River that the town had built.  We found there was a section of trails on the other side of the river so we went to take a look and take a hike.  Although the river was really flowing there weren't any kayaks as we went over the bridge.  We had a nice hike although the river encroached on our loop trail so we had to turn around and make it an out and back.  It was a lovely day and we enjoyed ourselves.

Looking out across Buena Vista
to the Collegiate Peaks

We took a ride up to Leadville, the highest incorporated city in the US at 10,152'.  It is a cute touristy town.  We went on through and decided to see if we could drive out and around Turquoise Lake to the west of town.  It's a pretty lake that lies in the shadow of 2 of Colorado's highest mountains, the highest, Mt Elbert at 14,440', and the second highest Mt Massive at 14,428'.  This whole area around here is home to many of the 14er's.  We found the road that went around the lake, a pretty winding, narrow, scenic road.  And, of course it was coffee time, so we found a decent place for that:-)

Coffee time

We were a little more than 3/4's of the way around when we came upon a construction crew repairing the road that told us to turn around and go back the way we had come, it would be a long time before we could get through.  So our fairly short drive became a much longer ride.  Oh well it was still as beautiful going back as coming.

Jan found a hike she wanted to do up near Cottonwood Pass, 12,126'.  It sounded great, about 1.25 miles with a 400' elevation gain in to Lost Lake.  We read the description fairly quickly, checked the map, and determined where the "poorly" marked trail began and off we went.  There was one other car there when we parked, and off we went down this big trail that got a little smaller after a little over a mile, and then went down, and I mean down.  I balked a bit as I hate a trail that goes down first, it means you have to go up to get back, but Jan took off down the trail.  Keep in mind now the elevation where we started was 11,750'.  I stopped for a bit and then decided that since we were already over a mile in, it wouldn't be too far to the lake so it would be stupid to just wait there.  So down I went.  When I reached the bottom, Jan had found the occupant of the other car, a nice girl with 2 dogs that was looking for the same lake as we were, and couldn't find it?  She had gone up and down 2 different branches of the trail with no luck.  So after she bounded back up the "hill", Jan and I went up the hill.  I am alive to tell the tale, it wasn't as bad as we, read me, were anticipating.  As we were heading back to the truck we saw a bold marking we had missed coming in that was near another path that we figured might just be the correct trail, so we started up it.  Now this one was just a steady climb and after a half mile or so we ran into the same girl and her dogs who reported that she didn't find the lake up there either, but there was a view, and also that she had run into 2 other people looking for the same lake that hadn't been able to find it either.  So all in all we did a 3.5 mile hike, climbed who knows what vertical elevation gain, and never found the lake, maybe that's why they call it Lost Lake.  But we had a delightful picnic on top of Cottonwood Pass.

Starting the hike

That's pretty, but I sure don't see a lake

When we got back, we did some more checking and found out the trailhead was NOT where it was depicted on the maps.  It was another 3/4's of a mile up toward the pass from where we started.  We decided to pass on it this trip:-)

Now the Arkansas river goes right through Buena Vista and it is a very popular rafting destination.  And since the spring thaw is underway river flows are high, in fact 2570 CFS, which is cracking right along!  So what did we do, we booked a half day raft trip, now Jan and I have done this before, but after we thought about it, it had been years, and years ago, and we might have been a bit younger too.  It turned out to be a blast, we went with a great company, thank you Tripadvisor, Wilderness Aware Rafting.  They were a very friendly, professional, fun company, and we had a great time with our guide, Justin.  The water is cold this time of the year so we rented wetsuits and went on our exciting trip through Brown's Canyon, the most popular location for whitewater rafting in the country, and we could see why.  It had huge rapids that required us all to paddle as we were instructed to by Justin, and then had nice calmer areas where we could take in the scenery and get ready for the next big set of rapids.  It is a great mix.  And as compared to our previous experiences long, long ago, it was still similar, but now the rafts self bail, and there are "stirrups" in the bottom of the raft for your feet to help stay in the boat, very welcome I will say.

Ready to go

Some small rapids

Beautiful place!

A few more

Our gang

One addendum, we have been thinking about and studying the idea of getting a dash cam for primary use in the motorhome.  It would come in handy in a bad situation like an accident or traffic issue.  I have read in several of the forums of situations that turned into, he said she said, when it came to insurance settlements.  So a lot of people are getting dash cams.  They continuously record in a loop fashion, and either with a push of a button or in the unfortunate case of a crash will lock in the video.  We went with a KDLinks X1 from Amazon.  It has very good reviews, good customer service, and several people on the forums are using and are pleased with the product.  Right now I have our GPS and TPMS on a switch and I wanted to add the dash cam as well.  We started by getting the wiring done and then for now as we learn to use it, seems pretty straightforward though, turn it on and forget it, mounted it near the bottom of the windshield.  We may move it up to the top so as to hide the wire a little better. Time will tell.

Our first mounting location
That's our iPass next to it.

Starting and ending with food from South Fork, to Creede, and to Gunnison with a blip

I had mentioned the campground in South Fork left a little bit to be desired as far as the landscaping went.  It turns out they are well aware of it and are trying to solve the issue. They have planted grass several times to no avail, and are still working on fixing up the look of the place.  Other than that the people are friendly and the campground was nice, Peacock Meadows.

So we went down the main drag a bit to Del Norte mainly looking for fishing spots, but found the Three Barrel Brewing Company and decided on pizza done in their wood fired oven.  It was delicious, haven't had good pizza in awhile.

Then we headed north to see how Embargo Creek looked as the Rio Grande was still blown out with the spring melt.  We didn't think much of the creek, but we found a beautiful ride filled with great scenery as we went.

Nice view as we climb

This is Groundhog Park
Our view for coffee!

Working our way back down

The next few days were spent fishing and hiking.  We had a great time, caught lots and lots of trout, made it really fun.  We started with a hike around beautiful Big Meadow Reservoir.

Jan in the woodsy part of the hike

The view back down from the head of the lake

After fishing there for a while, this was the same lake we took the grandkids, we decided to try a new place, Shaw Lake, it is about 2 miles farther on the dirt road and even higher than Big Meadow, it's elevation is about 10,000 feet.  We found we liked it even better, it was smaller, fewer people, out of the wind, and loaded with fiesty trout.  We came back later to fish longer and have a picnic.

Shaw Lake

Settled in

Jan's biggest trout, a beauty!

Then it was time to move north to Creede, we stayed at a small campground we had enjoyed last year right on the Rio Grande with excellent views.  Jan drove us up.

Jan at the wheel

She did an excellent job on a very narrow and very windy road!  As we got settled into the Antler's, at first we thought we didn't get as good a site as last year, but on further inspection we feel we got the best 50 amp site in the small park. Psst, site 23.  It was a large site with excellent views and north facing which was important as the strong afternoon sun came in, so cocktail hour was in delightful shade:-)

We went into town to the fly shop to see where they recommended as the Rio Grande was still blown out and basically unfishable unless on a float trip which we are holding off on until we get up into Wyoming or Montana.  They recommended Clear Creek as a possibility.  Well we knew where that was, about 20 miles north on Rte 149 as we had actually looked at it when we went through last year.  So off we went the next morning, and wow, it was fantastic!  Very wadable, easy casting with few trees and shrubs in an absolute picturesque setting, and best of all full of trout including big ones!  An enormous Caddis hatch was coming off so the fish were feeding voraciously.

Yours truly flailing the water

And Jan working the fish.
Is this beautiful or what?

We fished for several hours and as the day heated up, the trout slowed down and it was time for coffee.  So we headed to a favorite spot of ours just a little bit south.

One of our favorite coffee spots!

We had such a good time we went back up to Clear Creek a bit earlier the next morning, still chilly at the 10,000' elevation and fished all morning.  We each caught several fish, and I got a nice one.

My fish
Quite a feisty one!

Another shot of Jan
This should be in a Fly Fishing magazine

Then since we had to go right by the creek as we left Creede through Lake City on our way to Blue Mesa Reservoir up near Gunnison, we decided to stop by and fish it for a few more hours, have lunch, and then go.  Well after several wonderful days, the wind kicked up pretty bad so we had to cut it short after an hour, so we had an early lunch and went to our site at Elk Creek.  Now we have been there several times and have our site all picked out and reserved.  It is up on the top of a loop with great views of mountains and the lake, quite private and very dark at night.  It is a 50 amp site with no water or sewer.

Well I mentioned a blip.  We get all backed in and situated, plugged into electric and the rear air conditioner quits running!  Now it doesn't just quit running it is popping the circuit breaker.  We have been using it all the time previously.  What the heck?  I turn it back off, reset the CB, and while watching the amps turn it back on.  The fan comes on normally, but when the compressor kicks in the amps climb rapidly, right up to 50+ and the CB pops again.  I try it on heat pump and of course it does the same, it should as the heat pump still uses the same components just in reverse.  Well isn't this a fine kettle of fish.

Now, Blue Mesa Reservoir is kind of in the middle of nowhere, 15 miles from the nearest town, Gunnison which has only a population of 5800, so not too many service centers or parts, but we are heading over to Buena Vista later, pop. 2700, not too much help, and then Colorado Springs, a lot more help.  I have been troubleshooting and spoke with a very nice mobile tech in Colorado Springs, and we both felt it was probably the capacitor, the most likely culprit.  I spent several very frustrating hours trying to find one, as our internet here is almost nonexistent, and finally found a place in COS that could get it.  With the strong afternoon winds here we can only get on the roof first thing in the morning.  So with much trepidation, a capacitor has the potential to kill you if you are not careful, we drained the charge and pulled it out and tested it, and what did we find?  It tested okay:-(  Another talk with the tech, and there are actually 2 different capacitors, so now we are hoping the other one is the bad one, not the usual culprit, and if neither one, we are probably looking at a new unit.  So thankfully we have 2 other fully functional units, so in a week, we'll see what we see.

So what else was there to do but go out to lunch to a very cool place in Gunnison, the Twisted Fork, and wow, did we have a fantastic meal.  It is an Asian fusion place with good reviews.  Well it was friendly, we sat outside on a nice patio and had a scrumptious lunch.  A kind of Vietnamese Banh Mi with pork, and I had a savory, spicy, fresh noodle dish called Dragon Noodles.  I told you we would end with food.

Jan's delicious sandwich and side salad

My dynamite Dragon noodles

So off we go to Buena Vista.

The too good to be true internet deal is dead!

I just learned last night that Verizon nixed the entire FMCA deal.  It will not honor any of the deals.  All money will be returned to anyone who has signed up.  Evidently, and details are sketchy, the response was overwhelming and Verizon for some reason just decided not to honor the deal.

An incredible deal for internet on the road!

I wanted to make a short post to tell you about an incredible deal from FMCA, Family Motor Coach Association in conjunction with Verizon for an unlimited data plan and hotspot.  One of the challenges we face as we travel around enjoying this lifestyle is getting an adequate and convenient way of getting online.  

FMCA is offering a $43.99/month with no contract and even includes Verizon's latest and greatest Novatel 7730L hotspot that is yours to keep even if you decide to cancel your service.  You can get this directly from FMCA.  Here are the details.  

It is a month to month plan that you can cancel after one month done directly through FMCA.  You have to be a member and at this present time you have to have a motorhome, although there is discussion that they may open the club to other RV's, i.e. 5th's and trailers.

It seems to me that this may be the answer to many people's hopes to get affordable and unlimited data while on the road.

Now just to be clear this is something I just heard about, nothing I am saying can be taken as gospel, please go to FMCA's link above for all the exact details.

On our way!

Now I don't want to sound like we are just starting our trip or anything, cause as you know we have been on the road for quite awhile and have covered a lot of ground.  What I do mean is now that we've had our time with our grandkids, and had a very nice visit with Tom and Karen, we have struck out for parts unknown, well kind of unknown:)

We were so happy to see Tom after his challenging situation and are ecstatic he is doing so very well.  Also we were happy to see great progress being made with their new house.  We were able to lend a small hand with a motorhome repair to get them back their TV, and enjoyed many delicious meals and discussions, a lot of catching up was accomplished.

So now we are in South Fork, CO, at a campground that is new to us.  Peacock Meadows.  It's a fairly new park, with large gravel sites, and unfortunately with the hellacious winds we are experiencing right now it is very, very dusty.  They are using "natural" landscaping which unfortunately makes the park look almost not done or under construction, or neglected.  But it is in a great location abutting the Rio Grande.  

So we will be here for 4 days, and hope to get in some fishing although the streams and rivers are still quite high from the runoff.  

And as Jan will tell you, I am very reluctant to remove my hands from the steering wheel, but Jan got to fight the wind for the last 40 miles into South Fork!

Proof she does drive.......sometimes:-)

Great times in Pagosa

We have had quite a good time here in Pagosa with our grandkids.  It is quite an interesting transition for Jan and I to have 2 really good and really active kids in our small motorhome.  It has been great though, and the kids have been excellent and pitched in to make it work out very well, a real pleasure!

So what have we been up to?  A lot.  Jan started off by taking them to Mesa Verde National Park.  It's a long 110 miles each way but worth it to see the ancient dwellings, and to expose the kids to some history.

Getting ready to hike

At one of the ruins

Another view

Exploring

The Balcony House

They came back tired but both kids really enjoyed the trip, and dare I say, even learned a few things:)

High on Jan and my list for them was to get them out in the boat, and most importantly out fishing.  We had picked them up rods and reels to be sure they would have everything they needed without messing around with our more complicated rigs.  And we even kept it a secret for quite awhile.  We went up to Williams Creek Reservoir, a gorgeous lake about 20 miles away on dirt roads to take them first for a boat ride.

Ready to launch

Out on the lake

They both had a chance to steer, here's Faith's turn

Then we went back in and got our picnic lunches, and went back out to float around for lunch.

Here we are all munching away

Then back we went to the truck and we got out the fishing gear much to their surprise.  We had gotten worms for bait, so we rigged up the rods and back out we went on the boat to give them a chance to try fishing.

Let's just say Faith didn't have any problem putting the worm on the hook,
Christian not so much:)

Christian hoping for a bite

Unfortunately, no bites and then the rain came in, so we ran for the dock, and after the rain stopped the kids went over to continue to fish off the bank while Jan and I packed up the boat.  Still no luck and with one of them getting quite frustrated and wanting to quit fishing, we headed back home.  So the next morning bright and early, Faith and I went back to try it again off the bank.

She gave it a valiant effort, casting well and baiting her own hook
but unfortunately no luck, but who can argue, where
else can you fish with a view and setting like this?

Jan and I wanted so bad for them to catch a fish so we headed out up and over Wolf Creek Pass to check out Big Meadow Reservoir.  Christian kept saying he didn't want to fish any more and we told him that was his decision, but when we arrived and got ready to hike to our "spot", he decided to give it another try.  Well we had success, each kid got 2 fish, Jan and I even caught several.  It was excellent and amazingly turned his enthusiasm back on for fishing.  We stayed there and fished for several hours, and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

The first fish!

Christian's fish

And Faith's

Jan and Christian fishing

A panorama, Christian on one side, Faith on the other
on a spectacular day!

And although they wanted to keep fishing we thought it better to quit when all was wonderful, so we headed over to South Fork for lunch, stopped at the top of Wolf Creek Pass so they could play in the snow, then stopped at the overlook on the way back.

What a view!!

So today is our last day here.  Jan and Faith have been baking all sorts of delicious things, cakes, cookies, and even Whoopie Pies.  Both kids have been driving Harvey's golf cart around and we've even gotten them to play outside by themselves for hours at a time.  We've enjoyed being together and watching movies and doing fun stuff.  It has been a wonderful time for Jan and I, and I hope the kids too.  Jan and Faith, and even Christian are going to work on making dinner for Friday night when we meet up with Karen and Tom in Taos.  It will be a nice time together before we return the munchins to their home.