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.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
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.
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:-)
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.
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.
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| Our site |
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| 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.
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| 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.
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