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Not much going on

It has been a slow time around here. We had a fabulous Thanksgiving dinner with my oldest son’s family. I ordered a fresh turkey from our local meat-specialist grocery store (Fareway, for those in the Midwest), and they even spatchcocked it for me for free! They really do have great service. Good thing I had them do it, because even on a small turkey the ribs are strong. Cooking it that way was really a good idea – faster, gave lots of crisp skin, and even the breast meat was lovely and moist. We also had an Amana smoked ham. You can never go wrong with an Amana ham, and it gives us lots of leftovers. Leftovers are a critical part of Thanksgiving!

We did have dinner on Friday instead of Saturday as planned due to a huge snow storm that hit us Friday night into Saturday. We got 14” of snow, a huge amount for us. Sadly it has been added to significantly since then, and I doubt it will thaw anytime soon. The kids are all happy for snow sledding and snow boarding, but Kevin and I are not nearly as pleased. I have basically just been hibernating. I had some sinus surgery a week ago, and it threw me for a real loop. I had no idea I would feel as bad as I did, and it didn’t help that I had terrible insomnia for the first two days. The surgical center just said, “Well, that happens sometimes with general anesthesia.” I just wish someone would have warned me. I am hoping it eliminates the horrific sinus infections I get on a regular basis. I go back for a post-op appointment tomorrow, and I am expecting more antibiotics since the pathology report identified there were a lot of bacteria still around. Note I already had one full course of Augmentin, based on the culture and sensitivity from a swab taken a month ago.

The ukulele practice is going well. I still have trouble holding it correctly so I strum the lower neck rather than the sound hole like I did for a guitar, so I bought a ukulele strap and pulled it tight. It does help my positioning, so I guess I will keep using it. I also bought a page turner for my iPad. I have some PDFs and some Kindle books, and it works fine with either source. It is a Lekato brand, and it runs off Bluetooth. The most recommended brand is Donner, but it doesn’t work with the Kindle books. I hope this one lasts for a while.

I did get my 830 Record into a local Bernina shop that has a great repair guy who loves older machines. The buttonhole mechanism was really seized up, and I was just too lazy to keep working on it. While he had it, he also worked on the electrical system so the light wouldn’t keep burning out. It runs like a charm now. I also took my DILs 1031 in for just a clean and adjustment since it hadn’t been done since I gave it to my DIL 15+ years ago! He said it was in great shape too. I used it to sew some lovely lavender sachets that will be a stocking stuffer this year, just to make sure I remembered all its quirks.

All this snow and really cold weather is quite depressing. I re-followed the Quartzsite FB groups I have joined, and the fact they are having 70 degree days is really rubbing the weather in my face. The below zero weather and the snow depth is something Iowans would expect to see in January, not November and early December! I just hope it warms up a little before Christmas so we can get the motorhome packed more comfortably.

Regarding the lots behind our house and the HUGE swale for water, I finally got hold of the city Planning and Engineering groups. The lots behind me will have a 25’ wide easement for the swale, so they will have to mow it and such. I am slightly worried it is too abrupt at the edge of my lot, but we will have to wait until the snow is gone to see what needs to be done. It is supposed to be graded to a 4:1 drop (4’ linear, 1’ drop), but it sure seemed much steeper than that to me. However I have registered my concern, and I am pretty sure the city will make sure the developer follows the plans.

We are firming up our plans for next summer’s RV trip. We hope to head to western Canada, spending 6 weeks or so there. But since the US government seems firmly determined to piss off every ally we used to have, we will have to keep an eye on the border crossing situation. We do have some plans for this winter other than Quartzsite. We are going to the FRVA rally at Indio, CA in early January, then at least one rally with the Anasazi chapter of FRVA we joined. That will be in Benson, AZ at a spot with lots of astronomy action. We decided to not go to Death Valley for their Dark Sky Festival since the US government has also decimated the public relations budgets that funded the speakers. We will still get there (it is one of my favorite parks), but we have more flexibility of timing now.

I don’t anticipate any more posts until we are on our way to the Southwest.

A beautiful fall so far

It has been a really beautiful fall season in Iowa, at least so far. Yesterday it was in the upper 60s, and we decided to take the RZR to Wisconsin for a ride. Kevin has added all sorts of things to the RZR – new lighted whip lights, a new winch to replace the less capable one we had, and an emergency brake. Did you know emergency brakes don’t come standard on most sUTVs? I didn’t! This one just holds down the brake pedal when activated. Hopefully it will keep the RZR from moving around so much when Kevin loads it in the truck. Regarding the trip, no pictures because we road only 7 miles! Turns out the power steering is screwed up again/still. Luckily we can now reproduce the problem easily for the service shop, and Kevin had already made an appointment with them for yearly maintenance. Sigh. This was the reason we had decided to take the ride, just to make sure everything works well before our winter sojourns. Better to wait for service and parts now than when we are in Arizona!

I actually have been piecing quite a bit, but I didn’t take pictures. I added 72 piece border blocks to what will become our RV bed quilt, then I added an additional 4” border all around those. Now I have to add enough borders to get it to an RV king bed size with a 10” drop. I even planned for 5% shrinkage, just to make sure it fit. I will probably get those borders on tomorrow. Then back to the Block of the Month!

I do have some nice pictures though. The first two are a follow-up to my last post which shows the development behind our house. The first one shows our house and how it sits now, while the second shows the new lot lines. They are priced outrageously in my opinion. I live in a nice neighborhood in what is considered a LOCL area, and the lots are going to $110,000-$140,000 for a 1/4 or 1/3 acre lot! No scenery, just previously fallow Iowa farm land. No wonder young people can’t buy houses!

The new lot lines. Arrow points to a newer elementary school.

We also had some real excitement with the recent solar storm that lit up the sky with auroras. We could see them with the naked eye, but the photo sensor on my iPhone caught them even better. These photos are not processed at all, as should be obvious from the dust and the porch light flare. I think they are still pretty impressive though.

My ukulele playing is definitely improving. I remember the chords pretty well, and I am moving between them fairly quickly. The chord transition is what I am concentrating on now. I have a book of mostly old folk songs, and I am just working through the ones in the key of G and C. Once I get these in good shape, I’ll work at some others.

I have a birthday coming up, and Kevin has already gotten me a present – a new GoPro remote control that charges with a USB C plug. My previous one had a weird custom plug that was always getting mis-placed. Since we now have 20-30 USB C cords around, I doubt that will be an issue with this one!.

First week at home in 4 months

We definitely did the right thing by staying at Canton two nights. The wind gusts towards our destination were 45+mph. The winds were great when we finally got on the road towards home on Wednesday. 22 October. We put the motorhome on a site at Big Woods park, our standard clean up location. We cleaned and cleaned! All kinds of cabinets were opened, emptied, and cleaned. Amazing how out of date seldom-used spices accumulate! The other thing we did was clean out under the slides and do a major cleaning project on the floors. Our Dyson stick vacuum died on this trip, and we replaced it with a well-regarded Shark version, but it is heavy and doesn’t clean nearly as well! I found a good sale during a “Prime Day” special, and I bought a Dyson v11. We filled a trash can halfway with cat hair the Dyson picked up! It was rather embarrassing.

On Sunday we had some of our kids and grandkids up for dinner. It was awfully nice to see them after so long. The cats adjusted quickly and seem to enjoy the extra space. I realized I hadn’t put up too many pictures of them, so here is a cute one of Minnie on the cat tower.

These next two are while camping, but they are awfully cute.

My other big news is that I bought a baritone ukulele! It uses guitar tuning and chords, but just on four nylon strings. I am so, so happy with it. I have already learned some of the simpler chords and can sing along with the “easy ukulele” versions. It also convinced me to try to sell my acoustic guitar. Hopefully I can cover most of the cost of the ukulele with the sale of the guitar.

Kevin also replaced the toilet in our hall/guest bathroom. It was only a standard height with a round bowl – not very comfortable for adults. We replaced it with a really nice comfort height elongated bowl version with smooth sides. He also added a bidet sprayer, because once you get used to a bidet you have real trouble using a toilet without it.

In other local news, construction has begun on the fallow land behind us. It had been platted years ago around the same time our place was platted. My concern has been the area behind us is higher than our lot, and I was worried we would get flooded. However the rough grading showed they dug a deep swale in the right spot. Obviously it won’t be as deep as it shows here because they will back fill with top soil and then sod. But it pretty promising! The picture below is a screen capture from Kevin’s drone. The other thing is they finished the street the other side of this lot! It took only 2 days to finish the three blocks of city streets.

I am pushing myself to start sewing tomorrow. I need to finish the last 3 months of my Kona Block of the month. On 1 December we will have our last meeting where we will talk about finishing approaches. I also need to get a couple of quilts quilted. Oh, and there is always Christmas items to finish!

Oh, and I forgot to add: yesterday was Halloween and we had 340 trick or treaters! We had maybe 20 pieces of candy left at the end of the night because we planned for a lot of kids. The weather was cool and crisp, and there are hundreds of kids in the neighborhood. We are known as one of the neighborhoods with the “good stuff,” so we get children from other neighborhoods coming by. It was great fun. Kevin had the garage nicely warmed with propane heaters, and we sat in the garage with the candy, animal crackers, and chips. We ran out of chips and animal crackers way before we ran out of candy, so we will add more of those next time.

Finishing the summer of 2025 trip

We left Red Bay this morning. Until about an hour after we got up we weren’t sure if we were going to stay an extra day or leave. Last night a front came through with a significant amount of wind, and it was forecast to be windy until Wednesday morning. The worst will come on Tuesday, and it seems we really shouldn’t be going anywhere that day. The motorhome and I don’t handle 45-60mph wind gusts very well! We finally decided to head out, but we didn’t leave until 11:00 to let the storm get a bit farther past us.

We did get pretty much all of our miscellaneous work done while in the area. The motorhome looks fabulous! $$$$ but the body work and paint look great. The drip rail that joins the top cap to the sides needed a complete recaulking and repainting. That took one day. The second day was putting the new bay doors on and repairing the two that didn’t need replacing plus painting everything. We also had them polish our headlights, and they look like new. The whole thing took 2 days and 4 hours (they were long days), but we got to stay in the motorhome while they worked. This picture was taken by the guy who did the FABULOUS wash and wax – Ricky Johnson of RV Cleaning in Vina, AL. Note I am wearing my “No Kings” shirt. We both attended a protest in Florence, AL while the rig was being washed.

We had Lindsey & Winchester make washable slipcovers for our pilot and co-pilot chairs. These are to protect the seats from the claws of our cats. They never scratch the furniture on purpose, but they do launch from it some times! The can be tucked much tighter than shown, but this was after driving all day, so don’t blame the manufacturer for the looseness.

We also had top covers made for both recliners. Again, this was really just to protect against “launch” scratches. The fit quite well when tucked down a bit.

I also had L&W make washable, removable covers for our dining table chairs. These are well-built IKEA chairs, much sturdier than the originals from Tiffin. But they had a very light colored seat, and they were starting to spot. The woman who took the measurements and delivered them said these were the first she had ever done. I am quite happy with them.

L&W also re-upholstered the headboard, but it is virtually indistinguishable from the original so I won’t show a picture. L&W makes all the soft furnishing Tiffin uses, so the similarity isn’t really surprising! While my side of the headboard was just fine, kevin reads in bed so often that his (rough) hair had caused some minor holes in the vinyl.

Today’s travel finds us in the parking lot of an Elks Lodge in Sikeston, MO. The temperature is cool enough we don’t need AC, so we are just dry camping. Tomorrow we will be well north of St. Louis at Canton on the Mississippi at Lock and Dam 20. We plan on staying there Monday and Tuesday nights due to the wind storm coming. It is a nice place to settle for a bit since we can watch the barges lock through. Wednesday we expect to be back home! I admit that I am completely ready to be done traveling for a while. By 3 1/2 months, I am usually looking forward to home, and we have been gone for over 4 months this time. Now to get to all the doctor and dentist appointments we have scheduled between now and Christmas when we take off again.

Finally in Red Bay, AL again

No pictures in this post.

After the Elks Lodge we chose to stay at a KOA west of El Reno, OK for a night. We got some laundry done, cleaned the tanks, and generally reveled in the idea of unlimited water LOL! The next night was at the Grand Casino parking lot outside Shawnee, OK. We took a short day because we really, really needed to get the motorhome washed! There was a Blue Beacon on I-40 in western Oklahoma City, so we took the time to get it washed. It is always an hour or more, because they are always busy. But the Casino was an awful place to spend the night. We had been in such quiet places for months that all the noise and lights kept me from sleeping well at all. Ugh. I begged Kevin for no more parking lots, so we stayed the next two nights at Corps of Engineers campgrounds, one in Russellville, AR (Old Post Park) and last night outside Hernando, MS (Hernando Point). Both were lovely and quiet.

Hernando Point was where we found out the truck’s battery was 100% dead! Kevin tried to charge it with the MH and the battery cables we had, but they were cheap ones and didn’t do a good job. So off we went to the next bigger town, the metropolis of Senatobia, MS population 8,500. Of course it was 20 miles from the campground! We made it to an auto parts store, but they didn’t have the booster and cables Kevin wanted, so he ended up at a Walmart nearby. Hard to park a MH at the auto parts store, so I parked on the street and he walked to the stores. Got back to the campground well after 6:00pm, and we started the generator and the new charger to get things working. We didn’t want to leave the truck, parked in a closed boat ramp area, so the CG host said we could just boondock in the lot instead of the site we had reserved. By 9:00 pm the truck was 40% charged, and we turned off the generator. The next morning Kevin charged the truck a bit more, then he drove the truck to Red Bay while I followed in the motorhome. Once we got here, he was able to isolate the charging line error in the umbilical that connects the powered items in the truck to the motorhome. He will fix that first, then he’ll see about getting a new battery for the truck. It has been my experience that once a battery is completely exhausted, it is not reliable in cold weather or under loads. If we were in civilization all the time, I wouldn’t worry because you can always find someone to give you a jump, but that is NOT where we generally stay!

So tomorrow Kevin gets to rewire umbilical cords (dead one and the spare which was from the Jeep). Should keep him busy. I intend on getting a bunch of oven mitt blanks quilted, ready for cutting on the Accuquilt. He will probably finish first!

This next week is for getting hte motorhome worked on. We have some body work (oops!), getting some slipcovers for the pilot and co-pilot chairs, covers for our dining chairs, and replacing the headboard fabric. We will also get our yearly engine, chassis service, and generator service plus a real detail job on the MH. There are a few minor things we are getting repaired too, but just little nits and lice stuff. However we have to be at the body shop ten miles away at 6:00am! Shiver!

RMMA Rally and heading home

We spent our last night in Ignacio visiting a bit of Chimney Rock Monument and a Native American flute player. The weather was threatening as we drove up, and it got worse. Lightening and thunder were all around us, so the planned outdoor aspects of the visit were superseded. We got to listen inside the Visitor Center, but I did get just a hint of a small ruin, shown below. The giant kiva and the Big House were out of reach this time, so I guess we will have to go back!

One of the smaller ruins at Chimney Rock

We drove to Farmington, NM where the Rocky Mountain Motorhome Association, a regional group from the FRVA, was having a rally. It was our first time at a regional rally, and it was a nice change.It was small enough (100 or so rigs) you got to meet people more easily. The Frustrated Maestros I mentioned last time were a blast! Not all were great musicians, but the purpose is FUN, and I am pretty sure everyone had a lot of that. It took me a while to get into a popular music style since I do so much more formal choral music, but I finally figured it out. Now if only I didn’t get so nervous singing a solo!

Oh, I have to mention that the Verizon service at the Fairgrounds where we had the rally was astonishing! Look at this screen shot; even Starlink could only run at about 180 or so.

In addition to singing three mornings, I also taught a class on making oven mitts. The students got to pick their favorite fabric kit, quilt the fabric, cut it with the Accuquilt, machine bind the edges, and then finish sewing. We had a blast! One of the nicest groups of folks I have ever had the pleasure of teaching, they had enthusiasm and great attitudes as you can see from this picture (yes, they gave permission). Everybody finished one mitt completely, and the second mitt didn’t need much more work but wasn’t quite finished in the two hours we had. I had so much fun picking out the fabric, and I have quite a few kits left. Guess what some of my Christmas presents will be?

All good things must come to an end <sigh>. We are heading to the Red Bay, AL area for work on the motorhome, so most of the rest of the trip will be pretty boring. We spent the first night out of Farmington at the Santa Rosa State Park in NM. We would normally have planned on somewhere closer like Albuquerque, but the Balloon Fiesta is running and there isn’t a place within 100 miles at a reasonable distance. But the state park was lovely. There was a lot of water in the lake since they have had heavy rains, and the area was a lot greener than we had seen it before. Here is a picture Kevin took from our site. The only issue we had getting here was a major accident just a few miles from our exit to Santa Rosa. It took us about an hour to go 3-4 miles! Somehow a semi had destroyed their trailer (peeled the roof right off!) and crunched the tractor pretty good just at the start of a big construction zone. It was awfully tiring driving 2-3 mph. Just about everyone was well behaved, but I was glad to get to the campsite.

We are now in a crowded Elks Lodge parking lot in Amarillo, TX. There are 7 other MHs here, and we are parked awfully close to each other. But the price is right, and it is fine for a single overnight. I got the chance to clean up and sort all my sewing stuff, so that is good. We plan on averaging 200-230 miles a day to get to Red Bay on Saturday. We stay in a parking lot there too!

I probably won’t post again unless I get some sewing done. I have a pair of oven mitts that are partially complete that I was using as a sample, so I need to finish them. I also have the October Kona Block of the Month to finish. Oh, and all those Christmas presents!

Fall along the San Juan National Scenic Byway

One word – WOW!

We actually drove the Byway on Monday, 21 September, first – Cortez, Durango, Silverton, Ouray, Ridgeway, Telluride, then back Cortez. The eastern loop was lovely, but the western side was considerably behind it in color. We thought Thursday would be close to the peak color, so we drove from Cortez to Silverton again then. I took SO, SO, SO many videos, but I am not going to inflict them on you. They are lovely, but videos take forever to load. So you will get a very abbreviated tour of stills, mostly taken from the videos.

If you blow up this one you can see the color on the mountain plus a bit of the color in the undergrowth. Note the aspens this low weren’t doing much.

But the trees made up for it as we continued!

This picture shows both the hillsides with yellow, green, and gold, plus the line of traffic all wanting to see it with us. People were actually quite well behaved though. There are a number of construction areas, but people waited their turns nicely.

And didn’t I say things got better? Notice the aspens intermixed with the conifers on this higher elevation hill.

This was the stand out spot! Not yellow but orange/gold.

And for contrast, here are a few pictures from Monday. It was very overcast and cloudy. Note there is some color, but it was amazing what four days difference can do.

Red Mountain is between Silverton and Ouray. The area shown is a mine that is being reclaimed for pollution issues.

I love how Silverton, 9000+’, gets such lovely color. It was really, really crowded though!

We moved to the Southern Ute Fairgrounds RV Park today. Full hookups means lots and lots of laundry! I will spray the shower, sinks, and toilet too. It’s nice to get some real cleaning done without having to worry about water, and we have so much dust in all the corners!

I actually have done some work on sewing tasks, though it doesn’t always seem like it. I am teaching a class next week at the Farmington RMMA rally, so I finally packaged all my fabric and insulation. I will work on my samples tomorrow probably. We will be heading to Chimney Rock National Monument for a special activity – a Native American flute player will play while we get to watch the night sky. I am looking forward to it, though we will definitely take warm coats and a quilt for our legs.

We leave on Sunday for the Farmington rally. I am trying out the “Frustrated Maestros,” a chapter of singers and instrumentalists who entertain at rallies. We sing at 8:00-8:45 the main three mornings of the rally. That is, by the way, a God-awful time for a singer! I will have to get up early to get my voice warmed up for that time. While most of the songs are old standards, some I have never heard of. Not complaining because some of the standard repertoire of the groups is awfully dates, but I have had to spend a significant time listening to the play list on YouTube. Most of the new stuff is definitely country/rock and indie. I have no idea how they will get a choir to sing them, but I am guessing we will just try to be close to each other. Even really well trained choirs with professional singers have difficulty with lots of 16th note runs and odd rests. I miss singing so much though! Hoping this works out well. We practice a total of 12 hours!

RZR ride from Bradfield to Benchmark Lookout (and back)

We had one of the loveliest Goldilocks-type days on today’s ride. We carried the RZR to Bradfield Recreation Area (a parking area next to the Dolores River near the Bradfield Campground). We off-loaded it (oh I mean Kevin off-loaded it), and we headed across the river and up the mountains. The temps were in the 70s, there was just a puff of breeze, the sky was brilliant blue with a few puffy clouds, the mostly BLM roads were easy, and the scenery was spectacular.

Here’s what it looks like as we leave the truck. The landscape was sage with some nice pines. It was just us as we left. There were 3 others here when we got back. And the correct comment on the ramp length is “My what long ramps you have!” Yup. Makes it easier to get the rig on and off. The brand name is actually “Long Ramps.:

We were in mostly a sagebrush area as we headed up the mountain and towards McPhee Reservoir. As usual, click on the link to see the video. And sorry for the edit; I accidentally deleted the first video.

Climbing the first mountain

After the last picture we took a series of sharp switchbacks down to the edge of the reservoir. There was a pickup of men heading out to fish, and there was a couple on a canoe trip. The boat was pulled up on the shore, and they were walking around the rocky shore many feet below us. The water is very low.

We then decided to head to the Benchmark fire tower aka Benchmark Lookout. Absolutely beautiful ride there. As we took the last turn to the lookout, the trail became dirt and a bit more rutted. However the oak scrub (Gambel oak maybe?) was in glorious shades of orange to red. Sadly the GoPro didn’t capture the colors well, and I didn’t realize it until I downloaded them. Kevin got a couple of good iPhone shots though.

Here is the path to the lookout.

On the way to the lookout

And then the lookout itself showed up. If we had been a week earlier we could have visited it, but it is closed to visitors now. We did have a lovely lunch break where the final few hundred feet of road was closed.

The lookout

On the way back we took some side trails, just because. At least we weren’t on gravel passenger vehicle roads the entire way!

A side trail

It was a total of about 60 miles over 4 hours, including a long break. You can put a lot of miles in when you are driving good gravel roads. However the RZR is so much more comfortable for driving gravel than the truck. Something about 10-12 pounds of air in the tires!

Cortez, CO

We are still in Cortez, and we have decided to stay her a bit longer. The Elks lodge parking lot is very quiet, and there is so much to do in the area.

We decided to visit the Bar D Chuckwagon in Durango. We’ve been a couple of times, and it is always fun. Dinner was good if you like pepper, but I couldn’t eat most of the (well-cooked) steak because it was just covered in pepper! I was not a fan. The music is always fun though.

Another day we visited the Canyon of the Ancients Visitor Center. The outside has numerous native flowering plants. I was amazed they still had columbines!

The museum was absolutely fabulous! Lovely curated artifacts from the surroundings placed in context of the land. It was probably the best Ancestral Pueblo museum I have ever been to. There are over 1.5M artifacts, many gathered when the nearby McPhee Reservoir was being built. The water is very low due to the long-term drought in this area.

The half-mile switchback trail to the XYZ ruins had some beautiful views. One significant view is of the Sleeping Ute Mountain on the Mountain Ute Reservation.

Once we got to the top of the hill we were able to see the Escalante Pueblo ruins.

Another day we went to the Lowry Ruins. It is more extensive than the ruins near the Visitor Center. Part of the ruin, the taller pieces, is covered for protection against the elements.

Some of the ruin is two stories tall. The homes and workshops were generally accessed from the roof, and the builds were built into the ground some. The walls were very thick, and I am sure it was warm in the winter and cool in the summer. The climate was significantly wetter and cooler than it is now.

The main attraction is a great kiva, one of only a few known in the Four Corners area. Quite impressive!

We have been enjoying the little towns of Cortez and Dolores nearby. We have met friends for lunch at Montezuma Mexican Restaurant (good mole!) and other friends for pizza and beer at Dolores River Brewery. We also took a Ghost Tour of Cortez. It was more a history tour of downtown than a lot of ghosts, but, since I don’t believe in ghosts but love history, I enjoyed it.

One of the claims to fame in Cortez are their numerous murals. This one is at the origin of our tour.

There were a number of black light posters scattered around. They are lit with black lights at night, powered by solar panels.

We have been eating out some too. The burgers we had at Burger Boy Burgers was absolutely fabulous. The Elks Lodge has decent drinks, but the food is nothing to write home about. We are just hanging around to do some RZR trail riding and to do the big loop in the truck to Durango, Silverton, Ouray, and Telluride to see the trees some time next week, day dependent on the weather. Hopefully we will see the aspens glowing.

Procrastination in posting

I have no idea why I sometimes just don’t get in the mood to post. Maybe I get overwhelmed with beautiful things, and I have trouble deciding what to show. Ok, I’ll go with that one, at least this time.

We spent four nights at Elk Creek campground in the Curecanti National Recreation Area. Nice sites with electricity, a rarity for NPS campgrounds. My youngest grandchildren had noted I hadn’t sent them any post cards (bad grandma!), so I picked some up at the visitor center. They didn’t have any way to mail them though, so we had to wait until we got to town. Gunnison wasn’t too far away, so that is where we spent some time. I came down with a UTI, so I had to spend time at a very nice clinic and the local pharmacy. Sigh. They don’t allow UTVs in the park, so we kept to the truck. Pretty country though. Kevin got an oil change on the truck and we did laundry – fascinating stuff. Not all of camping is sightseeing!

Currecanti National Monument

After Elk Creek we stayed at a BLM dispersed site halfway between Alamosa, CO and Great Sand Dunes National Park. We were in a large sagebrush covered area on the flanks of Mount Blanca, the fourth tallest peak in Colorado. While we could ride the RZR there, the trail got rougher than we like about 5-6 miles up the trail to the top. The area is called the Lake Como dispersed area, but we sure never saw a lake. As you can see from the photo, it is a pretty isolated area. We were at least 100 yards from our nearest neighbor. We took Minnie to a vet in Alamosa for follow-up blood work. Thanks fully everything is perfectly normal! She is acting like her old self again, and I am thrilled.

Sunset, the motorhome, and the Clam shelter.

One of the other things we did while we were here was take a long waited for ride on the Toltec and Cumbres Scenic Railway. Kevin bought tickets a few months back for the “Parlor Car.” It was pricy but absolutely worth it. It was an enclosed car with half the number of seats. Each seat faced the window and was comfortably padded. Since we went a bit over 60 miles over 5 hours, that padding was important! I can’t begin to pick the best photos from the trip, but here is a sampling.

And of course we went to Great Sand Dunes. It was intermittently raining so we didn’t get out much. I am always thrilled to see just how huge the sand dunes are. If you blow up the picture a bunch you can see two people on top of the far dune.

And like most parks, the animals get to know people won’t harm them. This doe and twin fawns are an example. They were perhaps 6 feet off the road and totally ignored us.

After the dry open sagebrush of Lake Como Road, we splurged on 10 days at the 4K River Ranch in Red River. We had a big site right on the river, though we did have to move for the last 3 mights a few sites farther down the row. Full hookups of course (laundry!),and green, lots of green. We had a few dozen teal ducks keep us company, and there were lots of other birds flitting around. The ground squirrels had obviously been fed by previous campers, and they would come within inches of our feet. Kevin’s sister came over for a few days, and they did some sightseeing and hiking. It was nice for Kevin to have a hiking partner since that’s something I can’t do anymore. He also took her on her first side by side ride. She had ridden an ATV before, but she agreed the SXS was a lot more comfortable.

Red River area USFS “trails”

Easy riding

The old Questa Church was lovely. At one point an entire adobe wall fell down, and the community spent 49,000 hours of work to rebuilt with original techniques.

As a change from the barren sagebrush We had grass and trees. Those led to visitors.

We also had our first significant mishap of our SXS career. There was a very deeply washed area where our tire slipped and we ended up tipping sideways. It wasn’t anything really serious; both the rig and us were fine. But it was slow going to get the right on its four wheels and get it winched out. You can’t work very hard or very long without a break at 9600’! We also decided we needed a winch with a longer work cycle. Ours had to rest 20 minutes for every 5 it was working, so it took quite a while to get it all done. Yes, we travel by ourselves a lot, and yes, we carry a full complement of self-rescue and self-support gear. Still took us (well, Kevin) two hours to get us all out. Just as we got on top of the washed out area and stashed the gear back, along comes two rigs that could have helped! It never fails.

“Kevin, I don’t think we should be lying on our side”

After Kevin’s sister left, we visited Taos more extensively. We finally got into the Taos Pueblo World Heritage Site after being disappointed three other times due to religious ceremony closures and COVID closure. Fabulous place. The church, San Geronimo, was lovely. Here is the outside. You can’t take pictures inside, but it was lovely too – very traditional southwest.

The Pueblo itself is well worth visiting. We took a guided tour, and she was worth her tip. The three story adobe buildings have the homes of multiple families inside them, but no more building is allowed there due to structural concerns. Families still live in the houses, but most are only used for ceremonial or tourist businesses. Building is allowed for one story adobes, but since the homes inside the wall cane have no electricity or plumbing, there isn’t much new construction. The older ones are occupied though. Our guide said 40-60 people live full-time in the historic Pueblo, but thousands more live just outside in more modern houses.

When we left Red River on 12 September, we spent one night at the Sante Fe Elks so I could pick up a prescription, then we spent two nights at the Farmington Elks. The Sante Fe site was just dry camping, but Farmington had electricity. We didn’t need much because the weather has been quite pleasant. We are now at the Cortez Elks lodge, staying until Friday morning, 19 September. Then we will find one night at a FHU campground to get laundry done and generally clean up the rig and ourselves before heading to the Rocky Mountain Motorhome Association Ramble. Kevin is going to help with parking, and I am joining the “Frustrated Maestros” musical group. I am also doing a class on sewing oven mitts,

I actually have done some sewing, but not a bunch. I made a cover for a little folding table we have, but I forgot pictures. I also finished the September Kona Block of the Month a bit before the last day! As usual, it hasn’t been pressed, and I noticed just now that I have some spare threads here and there. Oh well!

We do have some things planned while we are here, so I will try to be more diligent at posting.