June 2014 - Denver

Not really Denver, but Ft. Collins. With the truck on the fritz, Bruce & Bernie picked us up at the campground and off we went to the zoo in Ft. Collins. This was no ordinary zoo for this zoo had dinosaurs and other creatures one does not often come across. 

Swetsville Zoo  Fort Collins, Colorado with Bruce in the center

 We’ve been wanting to come to this place since we moved into our park in Texas and met Bill Swets one of the owners. Bill is the creator of this little whimsical zoo and has created some creatures that also live in our Texas park. We knew Bill was scheduled to be in Texas running our park there, so we were surprised when we found him here at the zoo and were delighted to get a personal tour. The unfortunate part of the story was that he had to come up early to deal with the spring flooding which was threatening his property.

Cache la Poudre River flooding the zoo

 Although a good 1/3 of the park was under the rising waters from the Cache la Poudre River receiving the snow melt from the front range of the Rockies, we were able to view a good portion of the park. This was once Bills farm and as he pointed out, they’re squeezin’ me out, with Walmart across the street to the northwest, and Costco on the western side of his property, soon he’ll give up the whole kit and caboodle.

swimming upstream

2 old dinosaurs

After bidding aduie to Bill, our day in Fort Collins was not done. We found the Benson Sculpture Gardens in a neighborhood of Ft. Collins. There were many Sculpture and these are just a few:

And yes, the crows are sculpted.

The day was delightful and we stopped for ice cream on the way out. The town was not to be out done by a couple of parks and presented this sculptor on the street next to the ice cream parlor.

 

Somehow I seemed to have missed getting a picture of Bernie in this blog, oh bother, maybe next time. Monday came around and we put the car into the shop, and sure enough they had it ready for us Tuesday Morning with new bearings in the front, a new U joint in the rear and lots of servicing to the drive train with a nice whopping $$$. I guess we can’t complain, with 140K driving and another 60K+ pulling the service was needed. The rest of our stay in Denver was more visiting with Bruce and Bernie, a quick howdy to one of my high school chums a round of golf and dinner with my cousin’s son Blair, which makes him my cousin once removed, eh? We met at a restaurant called steakhouse 10 in Denver, which if you go prepare to have some great food and service but also prepare to pay. Don’t worry Blair, you were worth it.

That was our 5 day stay in Denver, tomorrow we get ready to attack the mighty Rocky Mountains and pass through the Eishenhower Tunnel, ta ta.

May 2014

Sounds like a song title, oh wait, it is a song title! Yes, we hit the road for our summer 2014 travels and headed north. We are going to a club in McDade, Texas to visit some friends for Memorial Day Weekend.

It has been 14 years since we have not lived in the RV and had to move from the house to the RV. Sure is a lot to remember. When we put the house in, we had emptied the RV out. I mean emptied it of everything from silverware to toothpicks. Over the winter, we made decisions and purchases for the things that we wanted in the house and those same things to be kept in the RV and tried to get everything ready but you know how those things go. When it came time to pack, we realized the many things that we had overlooked and the many things that we just did not want to duplicate but did not want to travel without. It was a good thing we gave ourselves a month to do the packing. Of course the last minute packing was still maniac!

We did it! Friday Morning we were on the road again and we think there were only a few minor things that we had forgotten, time will tell. Our route north was interesting. We decided to avoid San Antonio and the wonderful traffic that the city could offer us. For those of you unfamiliar, you have to understand, Texas has a wonderful road system. With all of the farm to market driving necessary, those roads are fairly well maintained. However, the further north we got, it seemed the less macadam they seemed to use, for the shoulders became narrower and narrower to the point of becoming non-existent. By the time we were within the last mile of our destination, if a vehicle saw us coming, they stopped in a wider spot in the road to let us pass. Well here we are, no worse for wear. 

Downtown McDade

McDade downtown is a bit slow these days.

Pat and I did take off and go to a quilt museum over in LaGrange, Texas. You have just got to love the county seats in Texas. There was a small farmers market next to the courthouse and it was really nice to see folks coming up to the tables and visiting with their neighbors, while perusing their merchandise. And oh my, aren’t the courthouses a sight to see?

LaGrange Courthouse

Oh yes, the quilt museum, well I’ll leave that to Pat to tell you about on her blog at www.bajorlane.blogspot.com but I will tell you that I did enjoy it.

Memorial Day turned into a very rainy day, but started to clear late afternoon and we hoped it would dry out and allow us to exit the campground easily the next morning.

May 27 – 30 On Our Way To Denver

Well the rain returned early Tuesday morn and we got away a bit later than planned and much wetter than planned but, with careful maneuvering we did not get stuck. We like to get an early start and get off the road early to rest up, however, this day we did not get off the road until later, we were quite tired. We did make it as far as Abilene where we were looking for the prettiest girl we’ve ever seen. Cranked up the A/C, cause it was mighty hot and dried out.

As we drive along, we cannot help but notice all of the effort being put into ENERGY! A lot of fracking going on in this country. We see areas where “man camps” are advertised for the workers, are there no women working in that industry? 

Texas Windfarm

Not only oil drilling, but wind farms. This one is on the Texas Panhandle and stretches for miles and it is just one of the many we passed on our trip to Denver.

After a stop in Abilene there was an overnight in Amarillo and then we pulled into the Elks Lodge in Lamar, CO where they had 50amp hookups. Well that’s not the best part. We were in and set up by 11am (mountain time) and after a quick lunch, I walked to the pro shop behind the lodge checked out a golf cart, came back to the rig for my clubs and went and played 2 rounds of nine holes on a sweet little course. Now that’s taking camping to an all new high. After golf, I called the campground I expected to stay at in Denver and found it to be full, no room for us (oy vey!). We checked around not finding anything in the Denver area available, but some were closed, so we figured we would call in the morning.

Up and away, we’ll fuel in Limon and make some calls from the Flying J. Well there is an Elks Lodge up in Westminster that might have a space. We called around from the flying J and found nothing but we left a message at a small park that only allowed old folks with no pets (we qualify). Half way to Denver the park called us and lo and behold, they had one spot they could fit us in, yeah! So, here we are, but the truck is giving us trouble, Monday we go to Chevrolet, keep your fingers crossed.