Weather has been unsettled, winter is coming

Once we got our truck back we needed to go to the storage unit we rented while it was being repaired and get all our "stuff" back.  We were warned by the body shop that it would take a couple months for our new paint to fully cure and be as hard as the paint on the rest of the truck, so our idea of getting the roof rack on and the cargo carrier back in place is postponed for awhile.  That made moving the stuff turn into a couple of trips, and now our carrier is sitting beside the motorhome on the ground.

The weather has been very unsettled this year.  We have had a lot of rain, wind, and cool cloudy days.  I'm sure the locals are cheering as there is quite a bit of snow on the higher elevations already.  Last year the nearest ski resort, Purgatory, had to delay their opening for lack of snow.  I don't think that will be the case this year, but we'll see.

After the snow and rain came one day, and the next day turned out to be beautiful we decided to go for a short hike around Andrew's Lake.  It was around 60 degrees at the campground and I didn't really think it through and didn't bring a heavy coat or gloves, and when we got to the lake it was a balmy 37 degrees for our hike.  But wow, was it gorgeous with the snow frosting the trees and the mountains.

Stunning!

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A snowy wonderland

So we bundled up as well as we could and off we went.  It was worth it, a very enjoyable trek around the lake.  And the hot coffee we brought with us sure was welcome when we got back.

Making tracks

We haven't gone back up since and they've had much more snow, even the town of Silverton got several inches two nights ago.  

We decided to go into town and see the Durango and Silverton train museum, no, even in all these years coming here, we'd never gone before.  It was interesting, lot of memorabilia, and 2 engines and several cars on exhibit.

This is the engineer's view
he stands or sits in the tiny area to the right

A view into one of the cars

It was an interesting time.  The museum is open every day and is completely free.  A good take if you're in Durango.  Then after we found a really good wood fired pizza place for lunch, Fired Up.

Yummy!

All settled in

Wow, we've been here over a week already!  The weather has been magnificent, highs in the 70's, low's in the low 40's.  Skies are crystal clear, no sign of smoke.  We have even seen a dusting of snow on the higher elevations already.  

We got our truck back from the body shop much sooner than we had hoped for, and it really looks good.  We are very pleased.  And man, is it nice to be back in our own vehicle again.  

We haven't been up to Silverton yet, they are doing construction on the side of the cliff just south, reinforcing and building cribs to hold up the road.  There are 20 minute delays north and south, so we are holding off a bit, they are nearly done, but the weather was clear, so we ran up to Molas Pass and Andrews Lake for a peek, yes, there are signs of color already, to have our afternoon coffee.

Coffee beside Andrews Lake

We had a few items on the motorhome to take care of, so no time like the present.  We replaced the engine air filter, and then when we were taking off our shades from the front in Montrose, we noticed that our windshield wiper blades were shot!  Wow, how did we miss that?  Anyway I ordered a couple blades and put them on when they arrived here.  So one of the biggies was the generator slide that didn't work.  I contacted HWH and after quite a wait finally got some troubleshooting info back from them, so Jan and tackled the project.  The pump, reservoir, hydraulic lines, and solenoids are all under an access panel in the entry steps, which puts them right in front of the right front wheel, to say it was dirty is the understatement of the year.  So first I spent 30 minutes, lots of scraping and brushing and 3 cans of brake cleaner to get them to a point where we could see and actually work in the area!  

The solenoids, pump, and reservoir
Look closely, that is Jan underneath getting the wires loose and then
rewiretieing them together 

We followed the very specific directions for troubleshooting which involved releasing solenoids, changing wiring from one to another, in and out with the slide, until we found out we had a wiring problem, not a solenoid issue?  When this initially happened, I had checked all pertinent fuses, all good, and since we could hear the pump run, never thought it could be a wiring problem.  I had noticed the switch that operates the gen slide had about 10 wires coming out of it, so I decided I would pull out the switch and with my meter determine first if the switch was working.  I should interject one thing in here.  When you move the switch to extend the slide, it does several things, it starts the pump, pressurizes the line to push out the piston to extend the slide, and also releases the opposite solenoid to allow fluid to come back to the reservoir, and vice versa for it to retract.  What we were experiencing was we had to manually release the solenoid for the return in order for the slide to move, when we switched the wires around it was apparent the switch was not sending the signal to release the solenoid.  Mumble jumble, I know.  So when I go over to the switch to check it out I look a little closer, sure, I had already done this, but OMG, is that a loose wire?  And an empty connector?  Sure enough.  Evidently, the bumps and vibration had loosened a poorly installed connector.  A simple fix, frustrating that I didn't see it initially, although I believe that when I first looked it hadn't fallen all the way out.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it...

The culprit, the yellow wire, and the empty
connector just above it

So, that project is complete and the generator slide works just as it is supposed to.

So we decided to treat ourselves and took our coffee up to a favorite overlook to walk around and admire the view.

The Animas Overlook
just north of our campground looking north

And since it was so clear we got a great view of Durango looking south.

Beautiful Durango

So since we got a few small projects done, we wanted to do one of our favorite hikes, Spud Lake, or more properly Potato Lake.  And yes, if you've been following my blog for awhile, you've seen other pictures of the lake:-)  Another gorgeous day, and decided to take my fly rod with me.

The beginning of the trail

A beaver pond on the way up

Spud Lake

No, I didn't catch anything:-(

And a few more pictures around the lake and back down the trail.

What a day!  Fantastic.  

A quick update and a few comments

First of all, from all reports we have heard from friends and family in Florida, and the park where we spend our winters, there was little damage from Irma!  Fantastic news!

After making the trip down to Durango to drop off the truck at the body shop, we killed a few more days in Montrose, then made our trek south to our home away from home for 5 weeks, Alpen Rose RV Park.  It is one of our favorites in one of our favorite towns.  We have been very lucky to have been able to stay at our favorite site there for the last few years, and made our reservation last year for the same site, but as at the majority of campgrounds they don't guarantee a particular site, so we drive in, separately this time, with our fingers crossed hoping we will get that site.  You can see it clearly from the entrance so when we see it vacant, our hopes go up until it is confirmed, or denied, by the host that meets you. Well, hooray, we got it again!

We have spent enough time in Durango over the years that it feels very homey.  We know where most things are, don't need a map or GPS to navigate around, where to eat, where to find things, etc.  This often is not the case as we travel, as we usually don't sit anywhere long enough to really get to know it.  It works for us.  

We had several appointments and errands to run.  Little things that are just a bit challenging when full-timing such as Doctors, hair appointments, getting items sent to you, repairs, you get the idea.  We also wanted to run over to Pagosa Springs to see Harvey before he shuts down his campground which we did yesterday.  We had a nice surprise as his and our friend Jan(Yon) was still there after postponing his drive back to Florida until the power came back at his house.  We had a really nice visit with them.  We spend the winter as neighbors in Florida with Harvey, tail to tail.

It has been extraordinarily dry this August here in Durango and the Animas River that runs through town is lower than we have ever seen it, in fact all the streams in the area are very low.  Otherwise it is beautiful, the smoke has finally blown away, hopefully for good, the skies are clear, there a a few signs of the upcoming fall and winter, and the evenings are getting chilly, just how we like it.  In fact our fire pit is out for the first time since we left Florida.  

So Jan got her hair cut, we've already eaten at 2 favorites, seen a Doc, repaired my computer, replaced my almost new phone, visited Harvey and Jan, kept in contact with the body shop on their progress, got a new air filter and wiper blades for the coach, 
walked around town, and just chilled out.  All good.

Now for some fishing, hiking, 4 wheeling, sight seeing, looking into our generator slide problem, our awning problem, air filter replacement, and just enjoying the changeover to fall for the next 4 weeks.

On an aside, I have mentioned several times this year that we are seeing more and more full campgrounds, reservations can become dicey, and many have warned us that if we want to come back next year we better make a reservation right now.  Now we usually make our travel plans for the year in Florida around Feb-Mar time frame, polish it up in April, make a few reservations for popular spots and over the holidays and off we go.  Well, unbelievably, we have already made reservations for 6 places for next year!  And amazingly we have had to move days around so as to even get a reservation at 2 of them. The times they are a changing.  Our size definitely has an impact on this, we still talk to folks that wing it but in most cases they have much smaller rigs and don't really mind where they end up.  We wish we could be looser, but we have talked about some specific destinations at specific times, mostly to do with fishing this go-around.  

Holding Pattern

Jan and I were sitting outside here in Montrose, enjoying the views, weather, and our drinks, imagine that, and she mentioned that she felt we were in kind of a holding pattern.  I thought about that for a minute and realized I felt the same way.

Our site

Cooking dinner and watching the sun go down

As I have mentioned many times for us full-timers, holidays can be a challenge, especially with the crowded campgrounds we are experiencing more and more.  So long ago we made a reservation at the Centennial RV Park, south of Montrose for the Labor Day holiday.  It's a park we have been to many times, large, huge sites, dark, full hook-ups, easy to maneuver, and has no amenities.  That is a big deal especially over holiday weekends.  No families, kids, crowds, a perfect place to hunker down over the weekend.  But it's different this year, feels like we are just waiting around.  We had a very scenic and enjoyable ride down from Carbondale to Montrose, read no problems:-)

Our lunch stop

One of our main goals while here in Colorado was to get our truck fixed, and we decided that it would be best to get a week's jump on it and do it from Montrose, a week before we were headed to Durango.  So Jan and I drove the 170 miles one way out and around, bypassing the Million Dollar Highway, yes, out of the way by 63 miles, more to follow, then rented a storage unit, unloaded all our stuff out of our truck, got a rental, turned our truck over to the body shop, had lunch, and then drove the 107 miles back, this time across the Million Dollar Highway, to our campground.  The section of that road between Ouray and Silverton is my weakness.  For years I would not drive it all, then decided when we had our motorcycle to give it a try, and since then I have driven it numerous times in a vehicle, never have nor will I ever drive it in a motorhome.  It has many scary spots, no guard rails, no shoulders, huge drop offs, but is absolutely worse going south than north, even though there are a few nervous spots going north, the really bad areas going north are on the opposite side.  Hence the long detour around to get to Durango.  And we had to leave early, at 6am to get it all done.  And we did.

A nice view for coffee

Now we are here until Sunday, and have planned a few things to do, but now we are without our truck and a lot of our stuff that we use, so we are kind of in limbo.  We have already had lunch at a very good pizza place in town, Colorado Boy, still have a few other places where we want to eat, we have finally been able to get fresh farm vegetables, read corn and tomatoes, weirdly not available the whole time we were in Montana, are going into Ouray to walk around and have lunch, and a few other errands, but mostly we are just waiting to move down to Durango.

We are thinking and praying for the folks in Texas and Florida, makes our smoke here seem not so bad.