Friday, June 23, 2017

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.

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