Category: Trips

Some Days are Better than Others

We were meeting some of our old A-frame camper friends for a week of camping in Golden Gate Canyon State Park, which lies in the mountains above Golden, Colorado.  We no longer own the A-frame, but we still love camping with our old friends.

Since we had not used the current camper for a couple of months, we arranged to take it down for a night in Robb State Park in Fruita to re-sanitize the freshwater tank. 

I went out to start the truck and the starter wouldn’t crank.  Dead battery.  I pulled out our charger, topped up the battery and it started right up.  I pulled the trailer down to the campground, filled the freshwater tank with bleach water and locked up the trailer.  Back into the truck, I hit the starter and nothing happened.  Battery was dead after sitting for only an hour. 

Thinking there might be a problem with Tighty’s charging system, I took the truck down to the Nissan dealership.  They checked it out with their state-of-the-art battery testing equipment.

and declared deader than a smelt. 

So, I paid them for a nice new $500 battery.  At least now, the truck worked, and I had only lost half a day of trip preparation time.

Plans were to get up with the sun, finish loading the trailer and take off for the hills by 10:00 in the morning. 

We actually hit the road a bit after high noon.  That’s when the next issue popped up.  Our trailer tire monitors were not working.

Figuring it was just the button batteries in the tire sending units, we stopped by our neighborhood True Value hardware and bought four new batteries.  I installed them all in the hardware store parking lot and the system still didn’t work.

It was now 1:00 p.m. in the afternoon…

…and we had a good five-hour drive to make it to our reserved campsite at Golden Gate Canyon State Park. 

We arrived and found our campsite to be short and slanted with the starboard wheels 3½ inches lower than the port-side wheels.  Adding to the problem was that the slideout had to fit into a tight space between a tree and the pole with the electrical hookup connections. 

We positioned the trailer, placed stacking blocks under the low side wheels and slowly drove forward.  The blocks slid, refusing to stay in place.  We tried twice more with the same luck.  It was now getting dark.  We resorted to Plan B. 

I fashioned a long ramp of blocks and drove around the block.  Reentering our site, I pulled the trailer up onto the ramp.  The ramp stayed in place and the trailer now sat nearly level left to right.  We disconnected the truck, leveled the trailer front to back and turned in.  Instead of devouring the planned bowls of chili for dinner, we decided to just nuke some popcorn and call it a night.

That’s when we discovered the microwave wasn’t working.  It appeared to have no power.  The trailer was plugged into 120-volt current, all of our outlets were working fine, and the microwave breaker hadn’t tripped.  Threats cast and curses mumbled at the appliance did nothing to solve the problem.  So, we just got out some crackers and cheese, opened a box of Argentine red wine…

…and vowed to make the best of things.  Tomorrow will be repair day.

Repair Day

The first thing to fix was the microwave.  I figured it was just a disconnected power cord, and after removing four screws and lifting the unit out, I discovered that was exactly the problem. 

Dianne, being a member of the female persuasion, decided she needed to clean the dust off the top of the unit – the part that sits unseen inside of the cabinet.

I plugged the cord back into the outlet, lifted the now dust-free unit back up and screwed it black in place.  The blue “clock” indicator light remained still lit, assuring me that it’s still plugged into the 120-volt outlet.

My next project was to see if I could fix the Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS).  Our aftermarket, Tire Minder unit, is a four-part system.  Sensors on the tire valve stems measure the tire pressure and broadcast the readings to a sending unit mounted near the front of the trailer.  A receiving unit inside the truck receives the signal and sends it to an app on my cell phone, which screams at me if the pressure readings on any of the tires drops below a preset level.

I figured the sending unit near the front of the trailer may have had its power cord disconnected when I was working on some other electronics in the same compartment.  Inspecting the wires, all seemed to be intact, but without my wiring tools and clips, there wasn’t much I could do.  Repair of the TPMS will have to wait until we return home.

Next project will be repairing the large window blind in the dining room.  These accordion blinds have been something of a hemorrhoid.  I’d love to replace them with something different, but the wife seems to be not fond of that idea.  We’ll see…

Done.  Blind now stays up.  At least it does right now.  The strings on these accordion blinds break with regularity, so I suspect it won’t be long and I’ll be doing some more blind repairing.

Now, time to finish my coffee and contemplate what to fix next.

Hiking Day

It was Wednesday, our third full day in camp.  Anything needing repairing today will just have to wait until tomorrow.  Today, we were going for a hike. 

Our destination was the remains of the Tallman Ranch, built in the 1870s by Swedish immigrant Anders Tallman.  The total hike down the Buffalo Trail would be around four miles with 600-feet of vertical.

We drove Gap Road to the trailhead where road crews were out installing new washboard ridges in the gravel roadway.

The hike to the ranch was mostly downhill on what was once a road.  Along the roadway, we saw gilded aspen and passed the unnamed remains of a former homestead.

A fork in the trail led to the Tallman Ranch, whose buildings are still remarkably well preserved. 

The home was locked, but we tested the front porch swing…

…and walked down to a small dam-built pond that covers the Tallmans’ old potato patch.

We followed the Mountain Lion Trail back to the Buffalo Trail and began retracing our steps back to the trailhead.  We tried to spot the Phillips Homestead which the Park’s Historic Places brochure indicated was in the area, but no luck.

We took it slow and easy on the walk back to the car.  The foliage and the terrain provided a glorious setting for ogling the beauty of nature.  I’ve often wondered if the pioneers who lived out here appreciated the setting’s beauty or did they only see the landscape as an array of obstacles to overcome.

A word of warning to anyone following in our footsteps.  The park’s trail names are lies.  Approaching the trailhead, we spotted a few rabbits…

but on the entire length of the Buffalo Trail, we spotted nary a single bison.  We also failed to see a cougar on the Mountain Lion Trail, which was fine.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll head down to the park’s visitor center and file a complaint. 

Or maybe we won’t.

Rain Day

We woke up to the sound of rain. 

In the olden days, we camped in our old pickup.  It had a shell over the bed with a carpeted platform from side to side mounted over the top of the wheel wells.  We slept on the platform, which with the help of Thermarest pads was comfortable enough, but we didn’t have enough room to sit up in the bed.  Cooking was done on the truck’s tailgate.  It was miserable in rainy weather. 

Many’s the time in rainy conditions, we’d abandon our camping plans and head to the nearest motel.

But not this time.  We’re planning to stay right here, snug and dry in our little trailer.  We’ve got one bar of LTE cell coverage and plenty of beer, wine…

…and food to consume.  My only worry is that at some time today, we may need to get Bob (our portable wastewater tote) down and drain our gray and black water tanks.  That will come later this afternoon, after the dishes are done.

Oops

Friday was getaway day. We had a dinner to attend back in the Grand Valley, so we got up early, packed things away, hooked up the trailer and headed down the road to the dump station where we would drain our wastewater tanks.

We pulled in and lined up the wastewater outlet on the trailer with the sewer opening on the ground. We got out our flexible Rhino hose from the trailer and were ready to dump.

For those of you who have never had the “pleasure” of dumping sewage from a recreational vehicle, let me explain how it works:

In addition to a 50-gallon freshwater holding tank, our trailer has two 30-gallon wastewater tanks. One, designated the “black water” tank, holds water flushed down the toilet. The other, designated the “gray water” tank, holds water washed down the kitchen and bathroom sinks. Pipes from both meet at the sewer orifice, which is covered with a twist-off drain cap.

Pull-handle slice valves keep the wastewater from entering the sewer drain until the drain hose is connected. The procedure is to twist off the drain cap, hook the inlet side of drain hose to the sewer drain pipe, place the outlet end in the dump station sewer pipe and then open one of the slice valves. Properly done, it’s a clean, painless procedure. Of course, we failed do it properly.

For some reason, the black water slice valve on our trailer had somehow been left in the open position, which I failed to notice. As soon as I removed the cap to attach the drain hose, there was nothing to stop 30 gallons of black (mostly yellow) water from gushing out with force, which it did.

Uttering every four letter word I knew (and some I didn’t), I immediately tried to screw the drain cap back on. When that failed, I implemented Plan B and reached around to push in the handle to close the slice valve. That worked and the outflow finally stopped.

I could finally hook up the drain hose and properly drain the remainder of our wastewater. We hosed down the area as best we could, put everything away and headed for home with the odor from my sopping wet shoes making the truck cab smell like the back alley behind a homeless camp.

I’m very much looking forward to our next trip, which will be taken in the Subaru, not the truck.

Instead of bunking in a trailer or tent, we will be “camping” in rooms we’ve reserved in motels and hotels along the way.

No trailer leveling, no microwave repairing and no dump stations. I am so looking forward to the next trip.

Celebrating in Palisade

Forty-five years ago, Dianne and I decided to legalize our POSSLQ (Persons of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters) status and actually get married. 

To celebrate the most current anniversary of that life-enriching event, I planned to fly my wife of 45 years to Bora Bora…

…for some thatched-roof romance in the sun, sand and surf.

Unfortunately, my lovely wife had an important Zoom meeting to attend online, so we reluctantly decided to forgo our 4,744-mile trip to French Polynesia. Instead, we would just enjoy another anniversary weekend, 23 miles away in beautiful Palisade, Colorado.

I booked a patio-king room at the Wine Country Inn…

…which is one of our favorite Colorado hotels whose first name doesn’t start with Ritz Carlton or Four Seasons. The patio offered a nice place to sit out and enjoy some of the local wine.

Dinner that evening was to be at Pêche Restaurant in Palisade.  The eatery has a reputation for being one of the best (and priciest) restaurants in the Grand Valley (their cheapest red wines, Syrah or Grenache blends, cost $90 a bottle). We were excited to be dining there. 

While the prices suggest opulence, the indoor seating had the romantic ambiance of the neighborhood iHop with tables and chairs lined in open rows across one large dining room.  The noise reverberating off the walls was so loud (amplified by a well lubricated birthday party seated in the center of the room) that Dianne and I had to shout across the table to be heard. 

There would be no $90 wine for us.  We bailed and drove back to the Wine Country Inn where we dined in a much more romantic setting at Caroline’s. The place was quiet, the meal was delicious and the wine (Grande River Cabernet Franc) was a mere $48 a bottle.

On Saturday, we hit the streets.  Our first destination was the Blue Pig Gallery where friends of ours sell their National Geographic-worthy landscape photos.

We then walked a couple of doors down to Fidel’s Cocina and Bar, a Mexican restaurant owned by the same folks who opened Josephine’s (one of our favorite Italian restaurants) in Fruita.  Not wanting to spoil dinner, we just had margaritas and chips served with three different types of dips – black bean hummus, toasted pepita and, of course, guacamole.

We had a bit of time to kill before Dianne’s Zoom meeting, so we drove the Palisade Fruit and Wine Byway, a collection of roads looping around the nearby orchards, vineyards and wineries.  Along the way, we stopped at the Palisade Pie Shop…

…for some delicious peach pie served with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

After the Zoom meeting was over, we headed over to Carboy Winery where we exchanged coupons for a free glass of wine each.

Next stop was up the hill to the Bookcliff Vineyards tasting room for Sunset Saturday, a weekly event featuring a local musician, nourishment from a local food truck and, of course, Bookcliff wine.  The singer that afternoon, Gerry Goodman, is one of our favorites…

…the food truck (Ciao Baby) offered some tasty pizza…

…and the Bookcliff wine was, of course, savory (and cost a lot less than $90 a bottle).

Sunday is Farmers’ Market day in Palisade with dozens and dozens of “farmers” vending everything from fruits and vegetables to crafts and clothing.  We confined our purchases to lettuce, sourdough bread and a bottle of green chili salsa before rain closed the open-air market down. 

We stashed our purchases in the car and splashed over to Fidel’s for lunchtime sustenance.

It was then time to drive home.

On the way out of town, we stopped to pick up a half-box of peaches from some growers with whom Dianne was familiar.

A few miles later we bought a few melons that a Hispanic friend of Dianne’s imports all the way from Green River, Utah.

While we didn’t celebrate this anniversary in French Polynesia, we did at least get to enjoy a bowl of French onion soup with dinner at Caroline’s.

Maybe next year we’ll get to celebrate our 46th anniversary with our friends at Bloody Mary’s in Bora Bora.

Colorado to Nevada

Dianne’s dad (age 100½) was experiencing some medical issues, which ultimately resulted in him spending a few nights in the local hospital. 

To help her mom (age 94½) handle issues (and translate what the doc was telling her), we thought it would be a good thing for Dianne to head out to their estate in Western Nevada.  Dianne booked a ticket, packed her bag and a few hours later was onboard an Amtrak heading west. 

She arrived in Reno a mere eight+ hours behind schedule, which for Amtrak is pretty much on time.

Her dad survived and was soon at home again and functioning well.  Dianne could have taken the train back to Grand Junction, but I had a better idea.  I would drive out, load up the wife and we’d take the Subie back home by way of Death Valley. 

My route from Colorado took me out Interstate 70 to Salina, Utah, and then across Nevada on U.S. 50, the loneliest road in America.  Stops included lunch at Mom’s Café in Salina…

…with an overnight stay at the Grand Central Motel in Ely, Nevada.

There, I enjoyed my usual on-the-road evening dinner. 

Continuing westward the next morning, I continued across the Great Basin Desert, which some us actually find to be strangely attractive terrain.

I made the obligatory stop at the shoe tree near Middlegate, Nevada.  This is the replacement shoe tree.

Vandals chopped down the more impressive original (see below) in 2010.

I finally reached Chez Giles in Gardnerville, Nevada, where I stayed for two pleasant nights.

Death Valley

After two nights with the in-laws, I loaded suitcases and wife into the car, filled the tank with fuel at California prices…

…and we set off for Death Valley. Our route would take us down U.S. 395 along the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada. This is a drive I enjoyed many, many times while living in Reno.

We stopped for breakfast in the little town of Bridgeport…

…and as we always do, made an onion-cheese bread stop at Schat’s Bakery in Bishop.

Unfortunately, they no longer offer onion-cheese bread, so we settled for a loaf of sourdough, and a couple onion-free cheese loaves.

Before long, we arrived at the entrance to Death Valley National Park.

To mitigate danger, we made a rehydration stop at the Stovepipe Wells outpost…

…before continuing on to Furnace Creek where we checked into our cottage in the Ranch at Death Valley for a two-night stay.

We first bunked in one of these last year on a trip in October and loved it. This time, we got the summer discounted price.

That evening, we walked over to the Last Kind Words Saloon at the Ranch for dinner…

…after which we enjoyed a golden sunset…

…and a pleasant evening sipping wine on our cottage’s front porch.

On our layover day, we decided to drive to Badwater Basin, the lowest point on the continent. Our first stop was the Devil’s Golf Course. Maybe this is why I’m not a golfer.

The low point was a short drive farther down the road…

…where we were once again warned that it gets hot around here in the summertime.

We explored a few other roads, enjoying the stark beauty of Death Valley’s barren hillsides.

Fortunately, the day was relatively cool by Death Valley summer standards.

That evening, I had made early dinner reservations for the restaurant at the Inn. The food there is upscale as are the prices.

“What could be a better way to spend our kids’ inheritance,” I suggested to my darling wife.

“We don’t have any kids,” Dianne reminded me. I didn’t feel the least bit guilty ordering a $50 bottle of Washington state Merlot to go with our duck breast and steak dinners.

After all, that wine was cheaper than the half-tank of California gas at our last fillup.

Heading Home

Our route home took us down to Las Vegas where we caught Interstate 15 and headed north to Interstate 70. It should have been a nice, 80 mph jaunt with a stopover at the Super 8 in Richfield.

But it wasn’t.

Flash flooding around Beaver, Utah, closed the interstate and we became stuck in a long traffic jam. We were finally able to exit, turn around and head over the hills to U.S. 89, which we followed north to I-70 and our Super 8 lodging.

The next day, we continued east, dropping into Green River for gas…

…grub…

…and, of course, melons.

Our home in Fruita lay an uneventful 90 miles away.

Paonia

It was getting towards the end of June, which meant it was time to once again go camping.  On this trip, we would be joining some of our local hiking group members on a two-night trip to a Forest Service campground near the western end of the road over Kebler Pass. 

It’s a first-come, first-served campground, which meant we needed to be there early to catch a site as weekend campers departed on Sunday morning.  To ensure that happened, we decided to bunk Saturday night somewhere nearby so we could arrive at the campground in plenty of time to snag a vacated site.

It would have been nice to spend that preliminary night at Kebler Corner, but all of their cabins were booked.  The next best option was to stay in the nearby town of Paonia.  With the help of Google, we booked a night at the Rocky Mountain Inn.

…our room was simple and clean…

…and the inn had a grassy open space lawn area behind the motel office, where we escaped to enjoy a glass (or two) of wine we brought from home.

The location was near downtown…

…where we enjoyed a burger and beer dinner at a restaurant frequented by several otherwise attractive young ladies whose tattooed skin made them look like crayon-colored pages from a toddler’s coloring book.

No, I’m way too old to find this look attractive.