On the move again, with just a bit of trouble?

Once we accomplished our goal of getting the hydraulic pump fixed, we had several other things we wanted to do.  We spend so much time in southwestern Colorado, specifically Durango we wanted to really explore the front range and see how it compares.  Now with our unexpected change of plans we knew we didn't have nearly the time we had originally scheduled, but we still wanted to give it a go after the coach got fixed.

Colorado Springs is a big city, but it does have a smaller town feel.  You can certainly get anything you want there, transportation, medical facilities, grocery stores, lots of outdoor activities, friendly people, at least the ones we talked to, a winter season absolutely, but interspersed with sunny, fairly warm days all winter long.  There is a town we wanted to take a look at, just to the west about 30 minutes, Woodland Park, which is a stepping off point for another area we are very interested in, the South Platte River, one of the absolute star fly fishing areas in this part of Colorado.  Our travels had never taken us to this stretch of water although we had quickly driven through Woodland Park several times previously without really looking.  One thing that jumps out at you is the incredible view of Pikes Peak.

It's a small town, 7500, but it is vibrant and alive, lots of shops with a real downtown, several grocery stores, 2 fly shops, and of course we found a good restaurant there.  Yeah food pics.  We saw they had an Asian place that served sushi that had good ratings and even though we were a bit skeptical we gave it a go, Japan Fusion.  And we were very pleased with delicious, fresh food, good service, and a nice feel.

Delicious pot stickers

Great fresh sushi

Awesome ramen soup!

Then we headed north to Deckers, a small dot on the map which is the epicenter of fly fishing on the South Platte.  It's an easy scenic 20 miles to the north of town.  And wow, we saw why the river gets so much good press, it is small enough to wade, large enough to contain some large fish, scenic, and yes, popular.  With our shortened schedule, we didn't have enough time to fish it this time, but we will be back!

The river in the "heart of Deckers"

We ran out of time to make the big loop we were originally planning so we drove back down to Woodland Park and back to COS.

Another view on the way back

Our colds are still with us, unbelievable, but we are medicating ourselves and feel we are slowly winning the battle:-)

Cheers!

So time to move on, we went south and west back over La Veta Pass, 9380' and noticed we were running a little warmer than we ever have, could it have to do with the rebuilt pump?  Well, we don't know.  We are hoping that the radiator got plugged up a bit from all the ATF flying around.  We got some Simple Green and when the wind cooperates we are going to do a good cleaning to see if that fixes it.  We are now in South Fork, CO, with gusty winds, night time lows in the low 30's and snow and rain.  It's so odd with so much of the country in a heat wave, spring is taking a long, long time getting here this year.  But some of it has been great news for this area, snowpack in many places is 400% normal!  And that will go a long way to help the perpetual drought.  The manager here at Peacock Meadows said Wolf Creek Ski Area got 47.5', yes feet of snow this year!

Our site for Memorial day

An early morning visitor, still fuzzy from the winter

We went out for a picnic and to hike around, and maybe fish one of our favorites in the area, Big Meadows Reservoir, and found it still closed up, so we continued up to Wolf Creek Pass, 10,857', and had our lunch there.

Top of the pass, still a winter wonderland

After South Fork, we are going north a few miles to Creede to Antlers for a few days, and then we had planned to go to our boondock place another 20 miles up the road toward Lake City, to chill and fish for a few days, so we decided to take a ride up that way, reconnoiter, and have coffee.  We went through some very hard snow squalls on the way, even covering the road.

Can't do it justice with this picture, but it is snowing hard

Unfortunately Clear Creek where we wanted to fish was blown out with the spring melt, so we won't be fishing, but we will still stay a couple days there for the peace and quiet, beauty, and will survive the cold, over 10,000' as we are confident spring is coming very soon:-)  We went on around the corner to our "coffee spot".

Quite the view!

Coffee, and Jan's homemade apple turnovers
Yummy!

Now don't think we've just been hanging around, we did manage to get another project done.  Remember back to our wipers not working in the pouring rain?  And how I ordered a new clockspring?  Well, with us under the weather, I couldn't bring myself to tackle it, and I have to admit I was a little intimidated by the install, one I have never done before.  I had read mixed forum posts about on one hand it was very technical to reports of it being easy.  Now I had no real idea what a clockspring even was up to now.  Suffice it to say that any steering wheel that has controls on it, pretty much every one nowadays, has to get those buttons and circuits to work on a wheel that rotates around, so they put in a clockspring. It is basically a ribbon that has many individual wires embedded in it that will allow the wheel to go lock to lock while winding and unwinding.

This gives you an idea.  There is a lot of "ribbon"
in there to give enough slack to turn each way

So we gave it a go.  First you have to get the steering wheel off.

The cap off.
Now where the 2 angles are is where I have already
removed the nut that holds the wheel on

But we can't just pull off the wheel, I tug and tug with no result.  So I go rummaging around to find a puller that I have somewhere, but it's the wrong kind.  I guess I'll have to pick up a puller at a NAPA store when we go to lunch tomorrow, but then I get to thinking, always a scary thing, and determine with some rube goldberging I may be able to rig it up.

Yes, that is a stack of quarters under the puller
that is hooked on the angles I inserted.
But after putting a hole through 2 quarters,
IT WORKED!

Now before you get the wheel off, it is important to mark it to be sure it is pointed straight ahead, because it is imperative the clockspring be exactly in the middle so it is able to go to the the lock each way without breaking.  This was the part that had me a little worried, but our new clockspring came pinned in the center.

Getting the cover off

The old clockspring

You've got to remove the covering on the steering
column to get at the connector at the bottom.
Yeah, a little dirty under there:)

The new pinned clockspring next to the old

So very carefully we removed the old one and installed the new making sure it was exactly lined up before we pulled the pin out.  Then back together, test to be sure it worked, tighten up the nut to hold the wheel on, and boom, done!  So in actuality, it was a piece of cake, at least in our coach.

Ready for the new one

Making sure it is aligned perfectly

All back together!