Not a fluke!

We left Creede to head just 22 miles up the road to our "secret" boondocking site.  Kidding about the secret, as it's actually right off the road, but no one else even came in the parking lot while we there for 2 full days.  And from the evening on, you are all by yourself in the absolute quiet and absolute darkness.  At night you just can't believe the stars!

Our spot

We wanted to fish in Clear Creek which is right outside our door, but it is very high with the snow melt, so we took long walks out into the meadow and out along the creek.  Not a soul in sight:-)  We had some rain and snow showers move through while we were there and it just added to the experience.  

How we dealt with the rain:-)

We woke up on our first morning and as we were having coffee, I looked up and wondered what I was seeing.

Good morning!
A young bull moose come for breakfast 

We went out and Jan got her camera and lens and she tried to get a closer picture.  We found out, it is just amazing how a bull moose can just disappear in the willows.

She was able to get this one

This is about 100 yards max from our window, how cool is that?  After the excitement we took another walk.

The over flowing Clear Creek
Look closely you can see our coach way out to the left

Another shot, the coach is nearer the middle in this one

I said we'd know more about our pump after we went up to Blue Mesa over Slumgullion Pass, 11,530'.  Well that part of the trip didn't solve it.  Turned out it was about 45 degrees out and there was absolutely no traffic so I never went faster than 30 mph which didn't put much strain on the engine. We didn't think of the serious hills, not passes, on the way from Lake City to Blue Mesa Reservoir, where we did run too hot, up to maybe 210 or so, still not right.  

We went into Gunnison for lunch to a place we'd been about 3 years ago and enjoyed, Twisted Fork.  It was just as good as we remembered.

Jan's delicious Vietnamese tacos

My amazing Dragon Noodles

After we took a ride up to Taylor Reservoir, still quite a bit of snow.  I decided while in Gunnison to pick up a new hydraulic filter to see if that might help our problem, and put it in when we got back.  The next day we left for Chatfield State Park, just south of Denver.  

We found out very quickly that we had completely forgotten Monarch Pass, 11,312 just a few miles out of Gunnison, duh.  We kept our fingers crossed and I was able to nurse it up in 3rd gear at 1800 rpm and was able to keep the temp to 212df.  But darn it is not right!

Monarch Pass

Chatfield State Park is a large park in Littleton with a lake, and nice large sites, even has a 2 paved runway RC field!

And a pretty nice view from our site

I knew Monday morning I was going to have to address this hydraulic pump, but one thing kept nibbling at us, what if it really wasn't the pump?  It's an expensive part, and boy to find out it isn't it would kill us.  I should explain a little further.  The hydraulic pump on our coach provides hydraulic pressure and flow to our cooling fan mounted behind our radiator stack, when you first start the engine the fan turns quite slowly, but when the wax valve senses heat over 185df, it starts to melt and ports more and more hydraulic fluid to the fan so it speeds up, in fact when it is hot the fan sounds like a turbojet, it howls.  Now when we got the top of Monarch Pass and the temp was 210 or so, I stopped and ran back to check the fan, and it was barely turning.  The fact that all our problems started exactly at the same moment the pump was rebuilt points to the pump, but......  So before I started calling around for pumps, I felt we really ought to make sure it wasn't a bad wax valve.  The procedure is to swap the two hydraulic lines on the valve and it will force the fan to high, if the fan goes fast, it is a bad valve, and if it doesn't, it's the pump, so we did the test.

The wax valve and you can see the 2 hydraulic lines 

Well, the fan did not speed up, bad pump.  Some explanation is in order.  The pump we have, a Sauer Danfoss CPC-1047 is a pump they don't make anymore, the company sold the rights to another company, in fact, the one I bought the rebuild kit from.  So to replace a pump with a new one is a bit of a struggle now, do you want another of the same that doesn't have a good track record, or do you try to find a compatible replacement.  Also to get a new pump from the company that makes them requires a 4 week lead time.  So with much time and research on one of the forums I use, IRV2, I found a company in California that has stepped up to the plate with a new replacement pump, one made in the US, has parts readily available, and is a complete plug and play replacement, also it is a commercial pump with a design life of 25,000 hours!  And when I called and talked to them they were very knowledgable, and had done a ton of work with this new pump, and it was several hundred dollars cheaper than the original remake, and best of all they had several in stock!  So it has been ordered and will be installed in Oregon.

So in the meantime we have been busy, one of our goals was to finally get the galley faucet taken care of and we did, it still took 2 trips to the store, but it's now all done!

We've done quite a bit of exploring around the area up to Estes Park, back through the mountains, down to Deckers, up to Boulder to visit the Liberty Puzzle factory, and have had a great time in the Denver area, we like it a lot.  Quick mention, if you have never heard of Liberty Puzzles, they are without a doubt the very best jigsaw puzzle available, they are high quality, made on maple plywood, extremely intricate, and very difficult to do, and they are made in Boulder.

Through the canyon to Deckers

Lots of snow near Estes Park

Also, just so you know, we show a lot of restaurant food on here, maybe too much for some folks:-)  But 95% of our meals we prepare ourselves, so I will just show one of our delicious meals here in Denver.

Beautiful fresh Copper River salmon ready for the grill

Baby bok choy grilling
yummy!

We are leaving this am for our mad dash to the coast, keep your fingers crossed that our failing pump gets us there without a problem.

Up to Creede, almost back to normal

Spring is late here in Colorado, even the natives are complaining.  Still cool and cold, highs in the 50's to 60, lows in the freezing 30's.  We have found many of our favorite roads are still closed.  We had an uneventful trip up to Creede, all 24 miles of it, engine temps were absolutely normal, we'll know more when we go farther north up to Blue Mesa Reservoir later in the week, over Slumgullion Pass, 11,530', but right now we are calling it a fluke.

Big Meadows finally opened so we went to take a hike around the lake.

What a beautiful spot

Well, our intention was to hike all the way around, but there was way too much snow, so we went about halfway and came back.

A little pile of snow

Jan, the happy camper

After our hike we came back, had lunch and I tied flies for the rest of the afternoon.

Fun

We poked around Creede, but there is nobody there.  It is so quiet still, I guess the weather has kept the people away.  We had a good lunch at Arp's, and had a nice visit with the owner who commented that every business in town is struggling with the prolonged winter.  We then went up high on the mountain above Creede for our coffee.

It is truly spectacular here!

Even had some deer come through

Just below Creede they have done some reclamation work as the area is just covered with mines, and have made a nice walking path with a stream meandering through.  We got in a nice walk.

Jan had heard about a Natural Arch near South Fork so we went to explore.  We had a nice 35 mile ride getting there, but it was worth it.

Very cool
It was caused by erosion in a "Devil's Backbone" the remnants of a lava flow

We noticed a trail that looked like it eased up and around the corner, so we gave it a go.  Turned out it was one of those that around each corner, just went up and up, and after awhile even I was certain it must have an end to it, so out of character for me, continued until we topped out with gorgeous views, about a mile straight up:-)

The top

Spring has sprung

This gives a great view of the "Devil's Backbone"

A great day!

Back down the hill, then after a picnic, we went to see the wagon ruts.

Back down

Not a bad spot for a picnic

Wagon ruts, we thought they were from one of the famous westward trails, and like most of the examples we have seen over the years were unimpressive to say the least, but we were in the area so off we went.  We found a poorly marked sign that indicated the wagon ruts were down this "path", so we drove to what was a parking area and then read the sign that showed a path that wound up and over a substantial hill and then we were told to look to the right after we headed down the other side.  Well, up we went and down we went, and we looked here and looked there and about the time we were really pissed that the directions were so poor we found them, and what an example they were!  The rock was just soft enough to be cut by the steel rimmed wagon wheels.

Pretty amazing

We did find out that these were not made by Conestoga wagons heading west, but by Spanish woodcutters that used large nimble 2 wheel carts hauled by an ox that cut the tracks.  Still interesting.

So after an amazing day, we came back home to find what?  A leaking galley faucet that must have just started leaking soon before we returned as it hadn't made too big of a mess yet.  Note to self, those folks that shut off the water every time they leave may have a clue.  Jan started cleaning out the wet cabinet and I tore the faucet apart to see where it was leaking, it appeared to be a fatal break, so Jan did the dishes in the bedroom sink.

The culprit

The auxiliary sink:-)

So when you are in Creede, CO, where do you get a decent faucet?  Well, Durango turns out to have the closest Home Depot, only a mere 125 miles away.  What else do we have to do?  We had a beautiful day to make a beautiful drive to get a faucet.  After Home Depot, we went to have a nice lunch before we headed back.

A nice view of the swollen Animas

And delicious brisket and ribs

Then since we were in the "big" city, we hit the grocery store and headed back, and found out the faucet wouldn't fit!!!!!  Different fittings.  Why aren't the fittings standard?  Okay I just need a connector so back in the truck, down to South Fork hardware store 24 miles away that we had just driven by on the way back to find............they don't have it!!!!!  The joys of being in the boondocks.

Okay let's recover and talk about our options, we are NOT driving back to Durango, we need a galley faucet, we will be near Denver in 6 days, let's jury rig the faucet to get us to Denver where can get either another faucet or the fittings we need.  Okay a plan.  So I carefully tear down the faucet, check it out as much as I can, silicone grease the hell out of it, bulk up the O-rings, carefully put it back together, and for now we have a faucet.

Okay so now we want to do a picnic high in the meadows up Pool Table Road, off we go to find the road is closed, okay, let's go back up north near Clear Creek where we can take the road to Bristol Head, but no, that road is closed also.  Well, let's have our picnic behind the bluff near North Clear Creek Falls.

Picnic spot, at least we can see Bristol Head:-)

So you can see we are having a great time, and that Murphy just won't leave us alone, hence the faucet, so now we have been thinking our refrigerator is 13 years old plus, hmmm.  And Lowes is having a sale, and Oregon has no sales tax, and.........

Just remember, life is good!