I'm Back

Jan picked me up at the airport after my trip with my favorite in the car lunch while we drive, Publix sushi.  It was delicious.  She has been planning a trip to Dresden, Germany to visit our friends, Larry and MaryEllen, so we've been working to figure out schedules, etc.  She washed the motorhome yesterday, and unfortunately found a problem with the coach that we are going to have to get fixed.  There is an area on the passenger side by the rear slide where the roof meets the sidewall that is pulling apart.  Evidently Monaco either didn't fasten it properly or didn't use the correct screws, or who knows.  We already had the seams over both of the slides on the driver's side redone earlier and there was no sign of the problem on the passenger side.  So we are going to set up an appointment at our favorite service facility, Alliance Coach in Wildwood, FL.  We are going to try to fit this in with my schedule, Jan's trip to Germany, and a visit with my mom and our son.  My mom who has cancer is struggling a bit more with the disease these days, so it will be good to see her before winter.  We'll see if we can't throw the dice and find a winner that aligns with all our plans.

L.A.

I'm sitting in a hotel in LA right now, having flown out here this morning from Atlanta.  As we flew over TX,  NM, AZ, and CA, I got to thinking about the many. many places I've seen from the air in my 35 years of flying that we have traveled to or wanted to travel to in the motorhome.  A few came to mind today.  It was overcast most of the way until we were about at the western border of Texas, but I was able to see Palo Duro Canyon south of Amarillo, an interesting place we visited 2 years ago.  Moving into NM, we could see Albuquerque, Santa Fe to the north, right where we were just a few weeks ago.  We could see Nancy and CT's house and the surrounding area.  As we went further west into Arizona, the Mogollon Rim came into view and I realized Jan and I haven't yet driven along it.  We tried in the spring of 2005, but the road was still closed due to mud from the spring thaw.  I could see up to Flagstaff, where we visited several Anasazi ruins, and where we ran from snow one April vacation down to Phoenix.  Sedona was gleaming in the sun and red rocks, and I could see Oak Creek Canyon.  I could see over to Jerome, the interesting little mining town perched on the side of a mountain full of artists.  A good view of Prescott, and then Lake Havasu.  On the arrival into Los Angeles, an amazing view of Big Bear Lake.  It was one of the places I had seen numerous times over the years that I knew we needed to go to if we could get enough time to go so far west.  One year I managed to put all my vacation from two consecutive years together and we made it to California.  We were traveling with good friends, Ray and April who were in their motorhome and came down to Big Bear Lake from Death Valley from the north up and over on a narrow, tight, winding road down along side of the bright blue lake into the most beautiful setting.  It was April, and they were still skiing on the mountain south of the lake.  We stayed at a condo type campground right on the shore of the lake!  A condo park is one where people own their own sites and rent them out when they aren't there.  It was all landscaped, with terraces, and outdoor kitchens, and did I mention, right on the lake.  It was fabulous, and the most we had ever paid for a camp site!  Worth every penny.
Another time after flying many times over a pristine spot in northern Colorado, I managed to mark a map right where this beautiful river ran up through a green meadow, way up into the back country.  We did go and visit the Yampa, CO area, and went up the Stillwater river drainage way back up in the country, even saw a black bear!
It is quite an opportunity to be able to see these sensational places both from the air and right down close and personal with the motorhome.  I imagine it's not something most people are able to do.  I'm very thankful to have had the experience.

TV

As I had mentioned earlier, we've been having issues with our front TV not being able to get cable, or the over the air antenna.  We had worked on this quite a bit, even enlisting Jason's help and not getting anywhere.  I was under the impression that the only feed to the front TV was either through the HDMI or the component cables.  We had to pull the Off Air tuner out since it didn't solve the problem and decided once and for all we would get to the back of the the TV one way or another.  We were able to pull the backing off the TV a bit so we could just look at the hookups, and lo and behold there is a coax cable plugged into the TV!  Well, figuring out where it came from was another matter.  There is a small, emphasis small, access hole behind the TV in the cabinet, but we couldn't find the coax in the maze of thousands of wires, so we decided to rip the entire electronics cabinet apart to see if we could discern anything that way.  We found two splitters, and 4 different coaxes going where?  I decided since all the connections seemed good I would pull the coax off the TV and using continuity I would determine which if any cables fed the TV, but first I wanted to ascertain which went to the rear TV.  We hooked up to cable at our site, and of course, no signal to the front TV, no surprise.  Thankfully, I decided to make sure the back TV worked before I started this process, but nothing on the rear TV either!  Turned out the receptacle at the site didn't work.  We wondered if that had caused any of our problems in the past?  Hooked up to another site and voila the rear TV worked.  I disconnected several coaxes til we could ascertain which coax fed the rear TV, and as we are screwing around the front TV gets a picture from the cable!  I don't know if I wiggled something or tightened something, or hooked something up correctly, but anyway it now works!  Nonetheless, it gave us an opportunity to label and clean up the whole installation in our electronic cabinet.
Not very exciting I know Sandy, but it pleased us to figure this out.
We've been watching Irene as it moves up the coast, hoping the damage won't be too bad.  It's down to Category I now so hopefully it will continue to weaken.  Meanwhile I've been hoping to pick up some premium pay flying to bring up my month, but so far nothing.  I did miss one jewel yesterday because I wasn't quite fast enough, so I'm hoping another will pop up in the next few hours.

Molding repair

Jan and I worked on the molding today.  We had to repair the small cherry slat that runs along the bottom of the molding first.  One end split and came apart, and the other end came loose from the main molding.  We got them glued and clamped and moved on to the "j channel" issue.  Monaco used a plastic channel which as I mentioned in the last post split and allowed the whole thing to fall.  This is what the plastic J looks like.

It is quite fragile as we found out.  It's funny because we checked the other three slide out molding which are all attached the same way.  The difference is on the other three there is a hard wooden block under each end of the molding so the weight and the bouncing doesn't put the plastic J in jeopardy like the driver's front slide out.  There is nothing holding it up other than the plastic "j channel".  We found a metal channel, actually used for a tile floor that fits perfect at Lowes.

We epoxied and screwed this channel to the molding.  It will not come down now unless we want it down!

The photos don't show it but we put three pieces of metal channel on the molding.  The black rectangles you see in the pictures are velcro.  They don't hold the molding up, they just keep it against the aluminum extrusion that is the front lip of the the slide so the molding doesn't move or bounce.

We are letting the glue and epoxy dry overnight and will install the molding tomorrow.  We will be glad to get this 12 1/2 foot molding out of our way!
Also today we set up a service appointment with an upholstery shop to have our two dining chairs tightened up and new cushioning put in the seats.  We sit in these chairs a lot, not only when eating but when we do our computing and office work on as well.  They have never been real comfortable and they need some more cushioning, yeah, even for Jan!  Our friends, Brett and Sandra had some work done by this shop and were very pleased recommended them.
Also, we got a body shop lined up and an appointment made to fix the Jeep which got sideswiped on our trip.  A good day with much accomplished!

I'm back

I haven't had a chance to post anything the last 5 days because I'm back..............WORKING!  5 full days back in the seat including down to San Juan a couple times, Tampa layovers a couple times, Indianapolis, and finished up flying a military charter this morning or should I say last night, either way I had to get up at 2am and we took off at 0430am.  The good part was I was back and in the car by 0930am.  I had a good visit with Jason on one of my layovers in Tampa.  It was quite a transition to be back flying after having about 7 weeks off.
Jan had quite an experience while I was gone.  A 12 1/2 foot trim piece that covers the front top edge of one of our slides fell down!  Doesn't sound like much, but this trim piece is a wooden decorative molding attached to a 1/2 inch piece of plywood backing, it weighs about 20 pounds!  It fell right where she had been sitting at the dining table just before, missing her computer by inches, bouncing off the dining table.  Amazing nothing broke except for a bit of the bottom of the molding which will be easy to repair.  All we could think about was what if one of the kids had been sleeping in the jackknife couch.  Man!  This molding had become just a little loose on the front end near the driver's seat, we thought the velcro had come loose, in fact we had gotten some help from Kelly and Todd to "fix" it.  Since we never took it completely off, I didn't realize it was held up by several pieces of plastic "j channel" over the metal lip of the slide out edge, and just used the velcro to keep it from moving around.  ALL the "j channel" had broken off, so it was only being held by the velcro.  We are now in the process of fixing it with aluminum "j channel" so that it will never again come down again unless we want it to.  WOW!  Another project that we were not planning:)  Ahhh, life with a motorhome.
We were going to fix it today, but a nap won out!

Reality

It was funny last night.  We found out just how addicted we are to number 1, the DVR, and number 2, the DirecTV.  We tried and tried but couldn't get the satellite, so we tried to hook up the cable.  I know that sounds simple to most of you, but on our motorhome the hookup is simple, but not for the front TV.  The front TV is hooked up to the latest whiz bang HD DVR receiver from DirecTV, and it's only output is HDMI which is what goes to the TV.  The old receiver we took out allowed you to connect either the off air antenna(bat wing) or cable to the receiver then it would feed through to the TV.  As most of you are aware, the new receivers don't allow that.  The problem arises in that it is very tough to access the back of the TV to just directly hook up the coax.  So we tried to watch two shows we wanted to see, near the end of the season you know, on the little TV in the bedroom.  Man o man we had to watch them when they actually came on and with commercials!  Can you imagine the torture we had to go through??
Another project we'll have to work on.  Maybe I can get my son to help and maybe I can wrangle a bigger TV up front at the same time?
We went to the office and begged to switch sites, which they allowed so we are back on satellite and DVR.  All is once again good in the kingdom!
FAA physical complete, the last one I hope?  Work tomorrow, oh joy, at least it's with a friend of mine which will make it a nice way to come back.  See you tomorrow, Kevin.

Back in Atlanta

Well, we're back.  We don't have to play musical sites as the people on our site left a day early so we are where we're going to be for month or so.  Only bad thing is I can't get the satellites here because of the trees.  We'll fiddle around a bit more tomorrow to see if we can't get one or two.  Oh well, cable it is, the lack of DVR is what's going to kill us :)
Temp is not too bad high 80's, so it's very doable.  And we've had an opportunity to hear the trains, oh joy!
Physical tomorrow morning, then work on Friday, can't wait.  Ha!

Meridian, MS

Sitting here in Meridian.  It's 665 miles from Kelly's to Atlanta, too far to go in one day, only 290 miles tomorrow.  Unfortunately our site there won't be available til Thurs, so we will move down after my physical.  At least we left some of the heat, down in the 80's now, sure beats the 105's!
We had a little issue this morning that I will have to look into.  Normally we start the engine, get on the air, pull in the slides and off we go.  Then later if it gets really hot, we start the generator to run the roof airs.  Well when we left this am, it was already into the 90's, so I started the generator first, then when I went to start the engine, it killed the gen.  Don't know why, so I've got to do some investigating to do to figure out what's going on.  We have a couple questionable items concerning our charging system and batteries that I've got to get to the bottom of and find out if they are all related.  I'm sure I'll have plenty of time in Atlanta.

Batteries and the boonies

We have been talking more and more about staying more often in National Forest, Parks, or State Park campgrounds.  The principal reason is for esthetics and room, but the money sure doesn't hurt either.  We made a real effort this trip to visit and evaluate a bunch of campgrounds, and most of them we can fit into, and are beautiful.  Most of the public campgrounds don't have hook ups, so you boondock.  That is, you are self-sufficient.  I've been doing quite a bit of research on solar systems and think this winter we will install 4-5 panels to augment our battery charging ability.  We have a large AGM battery bank that came with our particular motorhome.  We have a lot of capacity, but we draw a lot also.  With solar we would expect to run the generator less often, not replace it.  We have one solar panel now, but it does little more than supply a very small trickle charge.
I talked to Lifeline batteries, the brand we have, and to Magnum Energy, the manufacturer of our inverter/charger in order to set up a better charging profile to better accommodate our batteries.  Another challenge as you do the research is to find out what your electrical draw is.  Unfortunately, the bigger and more complex the motorhome is, our case, the more parasitic draw there is.  And it's very hard to isolate all the items.  Magnum makes a Battery Monitor which would interface with our inverter remote to allow us to see our draw and also the state of our batteries at any point.  Magnum informed me today my inverter is compatible with the monitor, but our remote is not, but if I buy the Battery Monitor, they will upgrade my remote for free.  So that is the first project, getting the monitor installed.
Visiting in Longview today, and off to Atlanta tomorrow.

Longview, TX

We got here yesterday about 3pm.  A straightforward trip of about 260 miles.  We had debated what route to take.  On our way west from here we cut up north around the Dallas/Fort Worth area to join 287 in Henrietta.  We had initially thought we would go much nearer the cities since it was Sunday, but decided to cut across 380.  Never again!  Definitely one of the worst roads we have been on.  Rough, bumpy, and I swear we caught every light, about a million, on the way over to join 69 south to the Interstate(20).
It got hotter and hotter as we got closer to Longview, and was a balmy 105 when we got here.  Yup, vacation is winding down.  We had a good visit and dinner with our grandkids, and Kelly and Todd, of course.

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Wichita Falls

Got up very early and decided we could head into Santa Fe for a quick breakfast at The Pantry at 0630 before we headed east.  We were unhooked, and off and running by 0745.  We tearfully left the mountains, the altitude, and the cool behind.  Fueled in Amarillo (diesel prices have come down since we left), and had planned to stop at a neat campground at Goodlett, TX where we had stayed years ago called Old Town Cotton Gin RV Park.  A pristene oasis with a restored cotton gin, just off 287 pretty much in the middle of nowhere, but it was only 3pm.  We opted to drive on to Wichita Falls, another 88 miles.  Good decision, as we were all in and hooked up at the Wichita Falls RV Park by 5:30pm, and we only have about 250 miles to Kelly and Todd's tomorrow.
It was a good drive, great weather, not too windy.  Jan and I talked about the things we need to get done when we get back, and things to do with the motorhome before we retire.  We also are roughing out plans for next year after the R-Day at the end of Feb.

Comments

I forgot to mention.  I would love to see some comments on the blog.  Feel free to join in with kudos, criticisms, both good and bad, questions, anything.  Thanks everyone!

Last day

We had a good last day.  We were having a problem with one of the power adapters for our computers, it was overheating enough we thought it might be dangerous, so we made an appointment at the Apple store in Albuquerque.  It was on the south side of the city so we decided to cut down on the east side of the Sandia mountains through Madrid where they shot a lot of Wild Hogs.  There were about 20 motorcycles out in front of Maggie's taking pictures so I guess people haven't forgotten about the movie yet.
We got the adapter switched out and then headed north to Nancy and CT's.  We had a chair that Jan had ordered sent there so were anxious to pick it up.  We have experimented with all kind of chairs over the years in the motorhomes, expensive ones, cheap ones, folding ones with tables and without and had pretty much found a cheap comfortable sling chair at Camping World that we liked.  We bought a bunch and because they are cheap and they sit outside all the time they deteriorate and fall apart fairly quickly.  Well, Camping World discontinued them.  While we were cleaning Vern and Viv's stuff out in Louisville, we found a couple more that they had used.  But now we are down to 3.  A new chair was written up in the motorhome magazines, called a Strongback.  It had rave reviews, folded up small, was made of quality components and fabric, and had lumbar support.  Well our initial reaction is very positive, it's comfortable and seems to be made well.  We'll let you know how it holds up.
We visited for a bit then went to pick up Vivian to go out to lunch.  We had a very good meal at Indigos in Corrales.  Went back to the house to visit a bit more, then off to the store and back to the motorhome to have an early dinner for our early departure in the morning.

Contemplation

We've been out moving around now for about 6 1/2 weeks.  We've used the bike one time on a great ride out of Pagosa Springs, and we didn't use the kayaks even once.  We are wondering if selling the bike is a possibility.  We don't take it out when the weather is iffy, and we don't like to take it on dirt roads, at least not too far, and as you all know we love our dirt roads.  Also it takes a lot more concentration driving the bike which takes away from the time I can really enjoy the scenery.  Although the ride we took in Pagosa was awesome, which makes the decision even more difficult.  We're doing a lot of thinking about it.
As to the kayaks, we sure love paddling around a quiet interesting lake, or a slow moving river, especially in Florida with the meandering rivers with the overhanging trees, and we really enjoyed Quake Lake outside of Yellowstone.  But the big lakes with the windy conditions that are prevalent out west keep us from launching.  So we are wondering whether we should just leave the kayaks in Florida for when we are there, as we figure we'll be spending most every winter there, and we are contemplating the possibility of a folding or inflatable boat to carry with us, so we can get out on the bigger lakes and even do some fishing.  Fishing is another reason we are looking forward to retirement, it would give us the time to fish.  When we go out on these trips right now, we seem to be in more of a rush to see things, hike, take photos, sightsee, go off road, etc., and that doesn't leave the time to slow down and just go fishing.  Seeing these gorgeous rivers and streams, especially with fly fisherman in them really remind me how much I enjoyed fly fishing back in Pennsylvania.  And going out in a boat leisurely floating around on a beautiful lake fishing really interests both of us.  Two more things we are thinking about and discussing as retirement draws nearer.

Changed day

Turned out Nancy and CT were tied up today, and we knew Brett and Sandra were busy with their show, so we decided to head north on some dirt roads to intercept Rte 502 near Los Alamos and Bandelier and then go over to Jemez Springs to have lunch at Los Ojos Restaurant and Saloon, a place that's been there since 1947.  Well that was the plan anyway.  We meandered north on washboarded dirt and sand about 15 miles only to find out the GPS was lying to us.  We couldn't get out and ended up at dead end after dead end, so we had to work our way back the 15 miles.  We were watched by this guy who probably was laughing at us cause he knew we weren't going to make it :)

Well by then the plan was shot, so we changed things up.  We had a quick lunch and decided to go up The High Road to Taos, at least to Truchas.  It's a pretty drive with more incredible scenery.  We made it to Truchas, a pretty tired little enclave that did not welcome visitors until just a few years back.  We also found out they filmed parts of Easy Rider there.  It is now more of an artist's mecca, with some fantastic views.

We debated whether to turn around there or continue north for awhile.  We opted for north and we worked our way to Las Trampas, a tiny town you might miss if you blinked at the wrong time.  But it did have an incredible Catholic church built in 1760!

The adobe work was fantastic, rich with detail, with the straw that was mixed in with the mud showing throughout.  It's hard to believe it has held up this well over the years!  We were disappointed we weren't able to go inside.  Leaving town we saw this interesting sluice made from hollowed out logs still being used for irrigation water.

It was getting late in the day and Jan wanted to talk to the campground owner about buying some of her cards so we headed back.  It was a successful and enjoyable day nonetheless plus we beat the rain showers that were building all around.

Switching time zones

We just had a salad for dinner last night as we were recovering from the huge cheeseburgers, 10 ounces! Then we tried to go to bed early, didn't do as well as we hoped 10:30pm, but we did get up this morning at 0415 local in our attempt to start moving towards eastern time.  The sunrise was spectacular, but it's overcast and raining off and on now.  Very unusual weather for Santa Fe, but they really need the rain.   We were planning to take the bike out today, but think with the weather, the Jeep may be a bit more appropriate.

Bobcat Bites

We got there at 1135, waited 40 minutes to get in, and you know what?  The green chili cheeseburgers were awesome!  It was packed, people waiting in line, now we know why.

New day

Had a good dinner at the Pantry last night, after seeing the condo Brett and Sandra rented.  Very nice, right downtown.  Got up about 0545, beginning to think about changing our bodies back to Eastern time, yuck! When we race east we lose hours very quickly.  Makes me think about the guys who commute to Atlanta from west coast time, and do most of their flying on east coast time, a doable 0600 report is a 0300 report to them.
Going to go to Bobcat Bites today for lunch.  Last time we were here we couldn't find it, but since then we've scoped it out and know where we are going.  Gotta get one of those famous green chili cheeseburgers!  We'll let you know how it was.

Santa Fe

We're back in Santa Fe.  Hotter than it's been the last few weeks, in fact, we're running the AC.  Supposed to cool off tonight to 57 or so.  Weather is good otherwise, a bit windy, but it usually is here.  We had a good, scenic drive 260 miles.  I know I say it's scenic all the time, but it truly is, we just love it out here in the west.  Not just the mountains, but the vast expanses are incredible, you can see forever!
Just got a call from our friends, Brett and Sandra, who flew in from Atlanta and we're going to meet them for dinner.  Looking forward to good food and good conversation!

Absolutely fabulous day!

I'm sitting outside the motorhome gazing at the mountains, thinking about putting on jeans since it's beginning to get cool.  Reviewing a spectacular day!  We weren't sure what to do on our last day in Colorado, and decided on a whim to go up and over Cottonwood Pass, cut over to Gunnison, and then return to Buena Vista.  We had no previous info on Cottonwood, but man did we luck out.  Route 306 goes right out of town to the pass.  We both believe if anyone asks you what the most beautiful pass in Colorado is, tell them Cottonwood Pass.  It is magnificent!  It is fairly narrow at the top so you can see for miles both east and west.  The view to the east:

And the view to the west:

The fact the weather was clear and bright didn't hurt!  We then descended to the west towards Taylor Reservoir down this winding road.

There weren't many vehicles so it was like we had it all to ourselves.  We wound our way lower and lower to about 9600' to gorgeous Taylor Reservoir.

This lake is only 37 miles from Gunnison up a nice paved road.  We could easily get our motorhome up here and we have marked it for future reference.  We will definitely come up here to stay in the future.  The road follows the river all the way into Gunnison.  We found a nice peaceful place for a picnic, even had entertainment in the form of a fly fisherman.

Gunnison is a very nice town, busy, with lots of shops, restaurants with a vibrant downtown area.  You could spend some time here walking around, but that would have to wait til another time as we still had about 80 miles or so to get back.  We left town on Route 50, but decided to veer back off onto the dirt, something we love, a shortcut actually up and over Black Sage pass.  This is a lower pass about 9475' in an area of huge ranches, rolling meadows that go as far as you can see.  Lots of horses and cattle.  Then we cut onto Rte 237 to go up and over the Old Monarch Pass, 11,375', not too bad as cliff hanging went as there were quite a few trees along the side of the road.  We came up the backside of Monarch Mountain ski resort.  We drove into a little pulloff right beside a babbling brook at about 10,750 to have our afternoon coffee. We intercepted Rte 285, went by the old Monarch mine

 and from there it was a quick trip back to the campground.  It was a stunning day!  Now to not think about the market.

Change of plans

With my work coming up the 19th and needing a FAA physical, we decided tomorrow we would head south, not north to Santa Fe.  We are looking forward to visiting with friends from Atlanta, Brett and Sandra who are going to be there for an Antiquities show.  It will also give us an opportunity to see Nancy and CT, and Jan's mom before we head east.  Also with this change, we'll be able to stop in and visit our grandchildren on the way back, oh yeah, Kelly and Todd as well.  It's funny, no matter how long a trip we can put together, time just seems to fly by and we are headed back so soon.  The clock is ticking, come on retirement!

Nice day

Today was a little less stressful, in fact, it was great.  We started off with waffles for breakfast, then took a ride to a ghost town of St. Elmo's, at least that's what the guide said.  It was a beautiful day, with beautiful scenery, (just another day in Colorado), into a cut in the mountains.  We ended up in a ghost town alright, but it was named Hancock.  Several hundred of our closest friends knew about it as well.

We took an off road detour around and back to Buena Vista to have a late lunch at the Evergreen Cafe, very good.  Thanks again, Tripadvisor.  We drove through old Buena Vista, a neat town, then headed over to an area called South Main by the Arkansas river.  It is one of those developments where they mix residential, commercial, and green space together.  The developer did a super job of it, very nice architecture, mostly prairie style, and it looked to be about 40% built out.  We parked and walked around some down by the river.  The Arkansas through this area is the leading place to raft and kayak in all of Colorado, and Buena Vista made a section of the river a kayaker's delight.  We sat and watched a bunch of people playing in the rapids.  We watched this guy doing stuff that we had never seen before.  We thought it was cool!  What do you think?

After spending an hour or so by the river we headed back to the campground.  It's funny, I'm still 12 days away from going back to work and I'm already dreading it.  I guess now that we've picked out a definite time to retire, it's hard to think of anything else.

Scary, but beautiful

I'm still trying to unpry my fingers apart so I can type this post.  Quite a day!  North from Buena Vista to Leadville to go up and over Hagerman Pass.  Supposed to be relatively easy.  It was very rough, definitely needed 4wd and high clearance, and the hanging off the side of the cliff stuff.  As those of you who know me know I don't do hanging off the cliff!  I think as we go on I'm frustrating Jan more and more cause I just can't deal with the heights.  I'm doing better and today if it wasn't for some trees and bushes along the side I would have turned around.  There were times today when we were looking straight down several thousand feet!  Enough of that.  We went by Turquoise Lake, an absolutely gorgeous lake near Leadville.

Then we went uphill towards Hagerman Pass and got another look at Turquoise Lake from a little bit higher :)

These pictures don't do justice to how steep and rough the road was or the dropoffs.  We continued and managed to make it to the top.

A little background,  Hagerman was the owner of the Colorado Midland Railway back in 1883.  He was trying to build a railroad that would go from Leadville to Aspen.  He decided to build it in the same pass we drove over today and ended up building a tunnel in 1887 at 11,530'!  The tunnel was used only a few years until a slightly lower one was built.  The railroad ceased to operate in 1918 and the lines were scrapped in the 1920's.
We then continued down the other side which I have to admit was less upsetting, into Basalt, then south through Aspen.  We had never been to Aspen before.  What a beautiful, clean, picture perfect town bustling with people and businesses.  We saw this very cool looking church as we went through.

We then continued on 82 over Independence Pass at 12,950'  This road was paved but in places was too narrow for two cars to pass!  Very beautiful, nonetheless.

The drive down the eastern side was gorgeous and not nearly as challenging.  We passed beautiful Twin Lakes again as we headed back to the motorhome to have a BIG glass of wine!

150 mile ride

Jan and I left about 9:30 for a ride up through Leadville and Copper Mountain, then down through Frisco, Breckenridge, and Fairplay, then across Weston Pass for a quick look at Twin Lakes, then back to the campground.  We are right along the Arkansas river, evidently a mecca for rafting, it does look exciting.

We went north to Leadville and checked out the campground we had stayed at back in 2001 with Ray and April.  It was late in the season, end of Sep.  In fact the campground was officially closed but the owner said we could stay and to leave the money in an envelope under the office door.  It was much busier today, packed!  Leadville looked much the same as we remembered, but busier.  We continued north through Copper Mountain onto I-70 east to the Breckenridge exit.  Even the interstate was busy!  We went down through an absolutely bustling town of Frisco, sidewalks crowded, cars everywhere, lines at restaurants, etc.  We continued to Breckenridge, and stopped to see an RV resort we had heard about called Tiger Run.  It is a condo park, a place where people own their own sites and when they are not there they rent them out.  It was completely full, and very nice as you would expect for a campground that charges $80/night!  Breckenridge is a very pretty mountain community.  Also extremely busy, people everywhere walking, riding bikes, shopping, eating, etc.  It's amazing to think that yesterday the stock market took an over 500 point hit, supposedly because we may be heading back into a double dip recession, but everywhere we went today, there were no signs of hard times.  In fact, we saw new construction all over, and only a couple for sale signs.  It's hard to figure.

Southbound, we went up and over Hoosier Pass at 11,541, through a little town of Alma, through Fairplay, then headed off road toward Weston Pass.  Beautiful scenery as we approached the mountains.

The road got windier and narrower as we ascended.  Only a few cars, peaceful and gorgeous.

We made our way down off the pass along a babbling brook on a pretty rough and narrow road.  Incredible scenery all the way.  Back onto the main road above Twin Lakes.  Dick and Ann were telling us about the lakes so we went by to check them out for kayaking.  They are big lakes and since it was quite windy, 10-20mph, we decided to try another time.

We had a wonderful day, including a great lunch at a little place in Breckenridge called Soupz On.  They make 6 kinds of homemade soup each day, and 5 different fresh salads, and out of the oven breads and rolls.  We each had a cup of soup and salad with a roll.  Yummy!

Buena Vista

Well, our clean beautiful motorhome we spent so much time washing in Pagosa is now dirty again!  And washing the bike before we left this morning is probably what caused us to drive in rain part of the trip up here.  Gene and Pam, we should have stayed at the KOA you recommended and not worried about only having 30 amps.  Arrowhead is pretty much a dirt parking lot with, you guessed it, 30 amps.  Oh well, the views are superb when we can see through the pouring rain.  It was a quick beautiful ride up here.  Safe and sound, having soup for dinner.

Leaving

We had a great time last night at our farewell dinner, in addition to the people we were expecting, we had a few more stop by, Dick and Eddie, Bill, Harvey and Jean, Jan, Jerry, and Al and Marge waved hello.  We really enjoy the wonderful camaraderie we have at this very special place, Cool Pines.  We hate to say goodbye to our "western" family, but travel and work beckon.

On another note, we have been looking for a flag pole that is easy to mount, store , and would do a good job flying a flag.  We found it in a 16' Flag Pole Buddy kit.  It was easy to mount to our rear ladder, super easy to raise and lower the flag, collapses to about 4', and looks excellent!

Anyway, we are off to Buena Vista!

10 days gone already?

Our 10 days in Pagosa are over tomorrow.  Wow, where did the time go?  We loaded the bike and the kayaks, visited with Ron and Jo, Dick and Ann and decided to go out to lunch.  Luckily we got the stuff loaded cause it has been pouring all afternoon.  Worked with Ron and Jo with their iPhone and computer.  Tonight we are having a farewell dinner with Ron and Jo, Dick and Ann, and Gene and Pam.  Looking forward to it.  Off tomorrow morning for Buena Vista!

Shooting

Several of us decided to go shooting today.  So, Dick, Ron, Gene, and I loaded up an arsenal and headed out to the National Forest land target shooting.  We had a good time.  We found out you can shoot anywhere on the Nat Forest lands as long as it's not hunting season.  We managed to use up several hundred rounds, it would have been more but Dick was not having much luck shooting his antique ammo ;-)
It worked out so well, Jan and I went back and Jan shot about 50 rounds or so.  She has been wanting to get more comfortable, and it's so hard in the Atlanta area.  So she really killed a soda can.

I joined Harvey, Jean, and Jan for Beer-thirty.  We had an interesting chat solving the world's problems.  The Congress ought to be listening to us!

August already!

Yesterday was a day devoted to washing the motorhome.  Funny how it seems to get a lot bigger each time we wash it.  As you folks who travel quite a bit know, it is very difficult sometimes to find a campground that will allow you to wash, so we took advantage of it here at Cool Pines.  Last night we had a spaghetti dinner for everyone, but mainly to welcome Ron and Jo who just got back, and to say goodbye to Terry, Sue, and Tricia who are leaving to go see Glacier National Park.  Then spent a few hours visiting and drinking wine mainly with new friends, Gene and Pam, who we are trying to convince to come to Florida this winter.
Jan and I decided to bring in August with a 6 mile hike along the Piedra River.  It was a fairly easy hike that started off in a canyon with steep rock walls that soared above us as we wound our way through.  It was cool and quiet with just the water rushing by.

The path went along the river for awhile then climbed high above then transitioned back down to the river.

After about a mile and a half we left the canyon and came in and out of meadows along the river with views of incredible mountains in the distance.

It really was fantastic and beautiful.  At about 2 miles or so, we had some company that watched us as he traversed the slope above us until he disappeared into the woods.

We also came across some smaller creatures.

We turned around at 3 miles.  We had started out at about 7 am and we saw no one else til we were almost back to the car, just how we like it!  One more view of the canyon area on the way back.

We were planning to go kayaking on William's Lake while we were here in Pagosa, but it is undergoing a phenomenon of "turning over".  Seems a couple times a year the vegetation that grows on the bottom of the lake dies off and lets go and comes up to the surface, kind of making it look like an algae covered lake.  Not good for fishing and not good for paddling, so maybe next time.  We have been on a social whirlwind while we've been here so tonight we're planning a quiet dinner for just the two of us.