We recently went on a little trip to Colorado. Main focus of the trip was the Harada Annual Reunion at Ron & Marge's house in Fort Collins. Marge is Patsi's cousin and they've hosted the reunion for quite a few years, can't remember exactly how long.
Recently I'd had a friend help me trouble shoot the auto transfer switches that have been giving me trouble since we bought the BMC. The rear AC would not run on generator power. I've had numerous people look at it and couldn't figure out why the rear one would not run on gen power but run fine on shore power. Anyway, Brad Clayton came over one afternoon and he suggested getting rid of one of the transfer switches. He couldn't see any purpose the second transfer switch was providing so we tried it. It worked!
So we left on August 5 and drove to Buffalo Thunder Casino just north of Santa Fe. The AC's worked fine and we kept cool throughout the trip. We dry camped in the parking lot. The weather was great and it was nice and cool in the evening.
Very nice casino and we didn't lose a thing there. Didn't lose any sleep either.
It was a about a 4 hour drive from the casino to Monte Vista where we dry camped in the Wal Mart parking lot. We scheduled a stop in Monte Vista to visit our favorite massuese, Kendra Ringle. We used to go to Payson, Az to see her natural doc dad, Dr. Gary Lalman and I'd get a massage from Kendra while Patsi would get a massage from her mom Margo. These two ladies aren't your regular every day muscle manipulators. They are really good and do the body a great service using a variety of techniques. Kendra and her husband moved to Monte Vista to help her father-in-law and she opened her practice there.
We had our appointment on Thursday morning. She worked on me nearly 2 hours. Patsi did a foot bath detox while I was getting a massage. I spent about 45 minutes in the infrared suana while Patsi was getting her massage.
Kendra's Office - Alive! Bodyworks & Fitness
We got through about 2:30. We had time to fix a bite for lunch and drive to Walsenburg to spend the night at the Dakota RV Campground. Not the nicest rv park but we had full hookups, so that was kind of nice since we were beginning to run short of water. We had not tried to be real conservative with the water since we knew we were going to grab an rv spot every so often.
The next day we met Kirk and Donna (one of Patsi's cousins) in Castle Rock at the Outlet Mall. We had lunch at Chile's and visited for quite a while. I think we nearly ran out of our welcome in Chile's since we stayed so long. Luckily they weren't busy. We headed for up I-25, dreading the drive through Denver and the traffic and they headed for their property in Hartsel. We were nearly to the edge of Denver when Kirk called and he'd left his bag in the coach on the couch. Luckily we were just approaching the exit to the new Cabelas and it wouldn't be a problem finding a place to park and wait on them. Had a short wait while Kirk and Donna doubled back to pick up his stuff. Seems like we're always meeting them in some large parking lot.
We got through the Denver traffic without any stop and go traffic even though the traffic was pretty heavy. Not unusual for I-25 especially through Denver. I-25 is scheduled to be closed down Fri night thru Sunday. It was going to make getting through Denver pretty tough for lots of people. We cut northeast on I-76 then up to Greeley on 84.
We had a spot reserved for 2 nights at the Greeley RV park. Pretty nice park and pretty full. I was surprised that there is as much oil & gas activity in this area. There were a lot of welders staying in the RV park. Greeley was picked because it is pretty close to Fort Collins and the only park within a 100 mile radius that had any open spots. Seems like all the campgrounds and rv parks fill up on the weekends all summer, except in the flat lands.
Saturday we drove to Fort Collins, about 30 miles away, to Ron & Marge's house where we meet for the get together. We got there about 11. Food was arriving and so were all the relatives. There was a short Buddhist ceremony remembering some of the ones that had passed on. Nice ceremony. We headed back to Greeley about 4pm.
The next morning we got up and got everything ready to head south to Denver again. I-25 was closed due to construction around 6th Avenue in Denver so we too 470 toll road around the east side of Denver. No traffic to speak of. We parked in the new Cabela's parking lot south of Denver and spent the night.
We had to get diesel the next morning. Stopped at King Sooper's since they had some type of promotion going. I didn't quite understand it and they couldn't quite convey how it worked. After 2 hours and 100 gallons later we were on our way again. We did save some money, got diesel for $3.29/gallon when it normally was going for $3.55-$3.65/gallon. Luckily we weren't in a hurry.
We drove to Lamar and camped at one of the local RV parks. Got up the next morning and drove to Borger to meet Roger Sepulveda. I found a set of bucket seats on Craigslist before we left and I told him we'd come through and pick them up. So now I have a set of comfortable seats for the Powerstroke flatbed. Just have to find time to put them in.
We drove onto Lubbock and camped at the 289 RV Park. We got there in time to go by and visit mom at Raider Ranch. She was pretty surprised. We took her to lunch at Cracker Barrel the next day and then we drove on home. Super nice 9 day trip.
Until next time....
Overthehump
