Update Archive

Archive 6/9 - 7/13/2005:
6/9/2005 - (183 miles – 4 hours - L:39F – H:77F) Today we drove from Capulin, NM to Manitou Springs, CO. The drive was uneventful, just the way I like it. I love my truck, it is kick-ass. I just wish it had more oomph going up over the mountains. Our speed dropped to 3 5 m i l e s a n h o u r going over the Raton Pass. It’s embarrassing. Thankfully we’re on an interstate and people can go around me…. Which believe you me, they did. Like I was standing still. Once we were over the Pass, it was smooth sailing. We arrived at the Pikes Peak RV Park in Manitou Springs around 2PM. It turns out that this park doesn’t have any pull-thru spaces. Yikes! You mean I have to back into a space??!!?? One of the nice ladies in the office offered to guide me, which I took her up on before she even finished speaking. She showed me the spot I was supposed to back into…. Yeah, I don’t think so. So she changed my camping space to one that would be easier to back into, and with her help, I did it. That was pretty cool. There’s nothing like necessity to push you to expand your boundaries. The beautiful Fountain Creek runs right behind my campsite and the park next to the campground is absolutely charming. Fountain Creek has been diverted to make a few little ponds, which a Mallard hen and her four goslings have made home. It’s a beautiful spot.
It rained a bit in the early evening. The kind of soft, steady rain that makes you want to pull on some thick fluffy socks and curl up in front of a fireplace with a book and some hot cocoa. Do they make travel trailers with fireplaces?
6/10/2005 - (84 miles – 5-1/2 hours - L:48F – H:60F) It’s cloudy and gray today, but that just gives everything a different perspective. We drove to the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument near Florissant, CO. It’s a short drive on US24 and takes you through some beautiful country with picturesque little towns every couple of miles. We stopped in Woodland Park for coffee… Mmmmmm…. Starbucks. Once we reached the Monument (8,200 elev.) I took two different trails, the 1.5-mile ‘Petrified Forest Walk’ and then the .5-mile ‘A Walk Through Time Nature Trail’. The clouds were really starting to back up and look fierce and then, half way through the .5-mile trail I started to hear thunder. Cool. I finished the trail and then headed back to the truck. We drove over to a roadside exhibit (1878 Hornbek Homestead) and stopped to watch the storm for a while. Some great lightning and thunder, then wham-o, the rain hit. We headed back toward Manitou Springs hoping to outrun the rain. We’d planned on stopping at the Cliff Dwellings and I was hoping we could beat the storm to it. We made it to the Dwellings in plenty of time and I was able to take pictures before it started to sprinkle. The Manitou Cliff Dwellings are examples of cliff dwellings of the Anasazi culture period (1100 – 1300 A.D.). They aren’t real dwellings, but are reconstructions built with the original stones used by the Indians in McElmo Canyon in Southwestern Colorado. I was kinda disappointed. I thought these were going to be real cliff dwellings. You can walk into, through and over the dwellings, which is pretty cool, you usually can’t do that with the real thing.
Next we headed over to Seven Falls – a seven tiered waterfall in the South Cheyenne Canyon. The canyon is beautiful. From the parking area and platform you can only see three of the falls. There is an elevator to take you to the Eagles Nest overlook (140ft up) or you can climb 184 stairs to get there. I took the elevator. Once at the top you can see all seven tiers of the falls. While I was standing on the overlook the lightning and thunder started up again. Oh man, was it close! Everyone was kicked off the overlook and back into the gift shop. Apparently lightning has hit the overlook before. It started to hail (boy am I glad I didn’t take the stairs!) and rain and hail some more. It was little baby hail, but it made everything slippery. The thunder and lightning was awesome! What a great vantage point to watch the storm from. Some folks had been up at the top of the falls (214 some odd stairs) when the storm hit. Luckily no one was hurt. Just soaking wet and a bit rattled. Management closed all the trails after that. I think we’ll go back on a sunny day and take a few of the trails.
6/11/2005 - (300 miles - 8 hours - L:41F – H:69F) It’s the weekend, so I try to avoid the touristy places and thereby avoid the crowds. I decided it would be a good day to scout out our next stop. We drove toward Denver… I haven’t decided if I want to stay in Golden for a few days or skip right on to Boulder.
We arrived in Boulder so quickly I decided to press on and do a preliminary check of the Rocky Mountain National Park. Wow. If I suddenly disappear it’s because I’ve decided to do a female version of Jeremiah Johnson and have headed into the backcountry (wait, does he die at the end?). This place takes my breath away. There is so much to explore. I want to just head off on a trail and keep going. It’s like a reverse Grand Canyon… instead of deep canyons there are towering mountain peaks, still sporting some snow, but not so much that they look inhospitable…. They look so close! Everywhere I look is a perfect Kodak moment. It’s breathtaking. I’m going to have to break out my thesaurus for this one.
6/12/2005 - (434 miles – 8-1/2 hours - L:49F – H:67F) There was a hell of a thunderstorm last night. The rain was torrential. My trailer is leaning a bit to the right so the run-off created a sheet of water that prevented me from opening the door very far. Then I noticed that the seal on my door isn’t what it should be. The water was running down the inside… not good. Word to the wise; buy new if you can.
We went back to the RMNP area today. I went a different way, looking for roads that I can pull the trailer on. I want to camp close to the RMNP so that I can spend more time exploring the park instead of driving to it. On the route we took the map didn’t show any mountain passes, which is a major plus in my book. Once we were actually on the roads I discovered that the mapmakers are apparently on crack. I-70 at the Eisenhower Memorial Tunnel definitely fits my idea of a mountain pass. We went from 8,800ft to over 11,000ft. It doesn’t look like I’ll be taking the trailer over this. As we approached the end of the EMT I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t see anything outside the tunnel…. Then we left the protection of the tunnel and entered a full-blown blizzard. Nice. The snow seemed to be localized at the top so we went on to the camp that I was hoping we could stay at. It’s a beautiful camp on Lake Granby in the Arapaho National Forest, about 30 miles from RMNP. It would have been choice. I just don’t think we’d make it. We would have gone on into the RMNP but the roads were closed due to heavy snow. On the way back, the clouds were growing darker and darker. It started to snow in earnest when we reached Dillon, which is at 8,500ft. Yikes. There wasn’t much to do but go on…. And wish I wasn’t such an absolute chicken when it comes to driving in the falling snow. I made sure I had a full tank of gas just in case we were stopped going over the top. It was a nerve-wracking drive but we weren’t stopped, the roads were clear and we made it through with no problem. On the other side, once we cleared the cloud cover, it was bright and sunny, with just enough water in the air to form a rainbow in front of us. I could almost hear the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background. From then on it was smooth sailing.
6/13/2005 - (L:48F – H:74F) Day of rest. The wind is really gusty today, but it’s clear and bright outside. What a beautiful day to lounge around camp.
6/14/2005 - (140.5 miles - 8 hrs - L:42F - H:74F) What a fantastic day!
We started out around noon and headed toward the Pike’s Peak Highway. It’s a 19-mile drive from the gate. The elevation at the gate is 7,406ft and the elevation at the summit visitor center is 14,110ft. The road is paved till mile-marker 10. Then it’s dirt and gravel switchbacks going up, up, up. They are doing lots of work on the road so we occasionally encountered road crews and would have to stop for a while. It was actually a very decent road considering that it’s dirt and the weather up here can be pretty fierce. The views are spectacular. There are plenty of conveniently located pull-offs so you can stop and take pictures. On the way up there were these two guys sitting on the tailgate of their truck trying to flag down passing motorists. They were dressed in ski gear (I had noticed tracks in the distant snow and thought maybe these guys were responsible for them) so I slowed down to see what was up. They wanted to hitch a ride up the mountain so that they could ski back down. How cool is that! They hopped in the back of the truck and I gave them a ride up to about 13,000ft and they took off for the slopes. The mountain isn’t snow covered by any means. There are a few bowls and canyons with ribbons of snow leading down to where they parked their car. That’s what they’re skiing. I’m so jealous.
We continued on to the summit. It was 32F at the top but felt much warmer. The views are spectacular. You can see Denver, Colorado Springs, the Sawatch Mountains and the Collegiate Peaks. It’s amazing. The Rocky Mountains dominate the horizon, stretching from one end to the other, for as far as you can see. I can understand why this view inspired Katherine Lee Bates to write the words to America the Beautiful.
I had two of the ‘World Famous Donuts’ at the concession stand. They tasted like funnel cakes and looked like misshapen donuts. I stayed at the top for about an hour. It’s really nice, they don’t treat you like idiots, with everything roped off and guardrails everywhere. You can roam pretty much wherever you want.
On the way back down I ran into the two skiers again. They had just finished their run so I offered to take them back up if they wanted to go again. It only took a few minutes this time since most of the roadwork had stopped for the day. I dropped them off at the same place and then headed back down the mountain, stopping on the way to take pictures of them skiing down the bowl. That is so cool!
I had read in the Colorado Official State Vacation Guide that the views of Pike’s Peak from Gold Camp Road near Victor were spectacular, especially at sunset. We headed over that way… I couldn’t find Gold Camp Road on my map, but figured we’d probably run into it. We did. It was still pretty early (only 5PM-ish) so we did the Victor-Cripple Creek loop and came back around to Gold Camp Road. The views of Pike’s Peak from R81 and SR67 were fantastic. I was anxious to see what kind of views were going to be presented from the narrow, dirt Gold Camp Road since it had been so highly recommended. Well, I think the Vacation Guide meant to say R81 or SR67 because you can’t really see Pike’s Peak from GC Road…. You’re too close to Pike’s Peak when you take that road, you can’t see the mountain for the hills. It was, without a doubt, a beautiful drive but was only supposed to be 16 miles long ending in Colorado Springs somewhere. By mile 24 I was starting to get worried. There had been several forks in the road, no signage and it was getting dark. I finally spotted a very faint ‘Colorado Springs 8-miles’ sign so turned and could only go about 20 yards before there was a closed and locked gate. Nice. I turned around, cautiously because this little side road was all tore up, and headed in the only other direction I could, hoping that I wasn’t going to have to turn and go back the way I came. When I finally hit pavement (that was a happy moment) I had no idea where I was. I tooled around some residential neighborhoods for a while (huge, beautiful houses) and finally asked a nice lady that was out walking for directions. She headed us in the right direction and we made it back home with no problem.
6/15/2005 - (18.5 miles – 2.5 hrs - L:47F – H:82F) The skies where partly cloudy when we headed over to the Garden of the Gods this afternoon. What an amazing place. There is no entrance fee and a $2 charge to see the 12-minute movie on how the rocks in the park were formed. I sat for the movie, it was very well done, and then we headed out to see the sights. During our second loop the clouds really started to get serious. At the ‘High Point’ overlook, where you can see Pike’s Peak clear as a bell, I was out scrambling over rocks when I heard the first faint rumblings of thunder. The parking lot here is a perfect spot to watch approaching thunderstorms. We sat there for about an hour, watching the clouds slide over the mountaintops and rush down to the valley. The lightning and thunder weren’t that frequent, but fierce. A Severe Thunderstorm Watch had recently been issued for the area, and more storms were on the way so we headed back to camp (I had left a few windows open… ). Amazingly enough, it cleared up, and heated up, during the afternoon. We were treated to another light show after dark, but it didn’t get very close.
6/15/2005 – 7/13/2005 Big time frame, I know. I had been suffering from a sore throat for over two weeks so I drove to CA for some family TLC. I also had to have my truck smogged for CA registration by 6/30, so I needed to go back anyway. It was a 1,200 + mile trip and took me about a day and a half on I-80. Beautiful drive. I spent time with friends in Sacramento, then some time with friends in Fresno and friends in Las Vegas then some time with my grandparents in Pahrump, NV. It was a great trip. The drive to NV took me about 9 hours. The drive from NV to Manitou Springs, CO took a day and a couple of hours… and boy howdy what beautiful country. I took I-15 to I-70. the Interstates pass through such wild, rugged and beautiful places. It takes your breath away. I almost crashed more than once, trying to take pictures while zooming along at the posted speed limit of 75mph.
Oh, and I bought a new truck. It is super-duper kick-ass. Wait till you see the pictures! We’re heading out tomorrow. Gotta go see some new country. Happy Trails!


New Pictures: CO, RT, CA