Northward, Sort Of

We said good bye to Karen and Tom as they returned to Taos.  We only had one more day so we took a ride around and enjoyed the last bit in Creede, in fact we saw a huge bull moose just up the road, but he was too quick to get a picture.  There was quite a crowd of people pulled off the road and I guess he decided he had had enough:-)  As we took our walk through the campground, we saw 3 newcomers to the area.

They are literally 2 days old in this picture

After a quiet evening we had big plans for the day of departure, we had been in contact with the campground in South Fork, 28 miles down the road to see if we could check in early.  We were planning to get to South Fork, park, plug in, and then take off for Durango immediately so Jan could make her hair cut appointment.  We were staying at Peacock Meadows, so I called them first thing and they said they had no one leave yet so we were out of luck, although we could come in at 11am, the normal checkout time and they would see what they could do, but after I hung up, they called back and said come ahead, a site just opened up!  Off we went our 28 miles and arrived at 1015am, plugged in, set up, and off to Durango we went.  It was a whirlwind, Jan got her hair done, we got lunch, did several errands, went grocery shopping in Pagosa Springs on the way back.  230 miles, left at 1030am, returned at 540pm, but don't feel too bad for us, it is a spectacular drive from South Fork over Wolf Creek Pass into Pagosa Springs, then on to Durango, and back.

We had a nice site in South Fork, and even better as we watched a crew wash and wax a 5th just down from us and it looked really good.  I inquired as to price, it was very reasonable, so we got our atrociously dirty motorhome washed and waxed the same day!

Jan in front of our gleaming coach!

We only had one more day, so we went over to Big Meadows reservoir to take one of our favorite hikes around the lake.

This is a very popular fishing lake, look closely you can see many trout

Had a great time with beautiful weather, then stopped at a weird, funky food truck for lunch on the way back, it was okay, no pictures, 30 min wait, over $30 for two sandwiches, won't go back to Rachel's.  Then when the showers moved in, got a shot of a double rainbow from the campground.

So that was our last day in South Fork, on to Buena Vista in the morning, about 120 miles.  The day started out gorgeous, then we started to see showers here and there, and finally about 30 miles away from our destination, it started spitting on the windshield, then started raining hard for all of 15 minutes, ruining our wash job after only 30 hours!  Thanks Murphy.

We pulled into our site at Mt Princeton RV Park, and Jan went out and cleaned up the coach with our magical Wash/Wax, and I took the filthy truck over to the coin car wash, so within an hour or so, we had both vehicles looking good again.  We only planned on 3 nights here as well.

When we were here a few years ago, we found a great place to go shooting.  It is perfectly legal to shoot on public lands, BLM, National Forests, etc.  We hadn't been shooting in too long so we were looking forward to getting out and getting ourselves back up to speed, and we had a new shotgun that we bought over a year ago that we hadn't ever shot!  It is a nicely sheltered spot with a big hill as a backdrop.  We went out and shot for an hour and a half until we both felt comfortable and current again.  And the shotgun was awesome.  After we went out for lunch at Eddyline on the way back.  They have excellent wood fired pizza, and in this case awesome home brewed root beer.

Our two halves leftover for lunch the next day
Veggie, and BBQ chicken, both yummy!

We got back, sat down and cleaned the guns, and took a nap:-)

So one more day and we wanted to go up to Cottonwood Pass, 12,126', but the smoke had been moving in and made the views not as spectacular, so with the miracle of saved pictures, here are a few from an earlier time.

Looking back towards Taylor Reservoir to the west,
that road is now completely paved

And the road coming from Buena Vista, the way we came this time,
and yes, there is still snow up there

So tomorrow we move farther northward to Grand Lake, CO, near the western entrance to RMNP.  There had been a very large fire in that area since we were there before, and the campground, Winding River was impacted by it.  We are anxious to see what the actual damage has been and what the surrounding area looks like.  We'll let you know.