Travel Day! Only 200 miles or so, should be an easy day. HA!

We have breakfast at the park, with them cooking. It’s ok, but not really anything to write home about, the big advantage is it’s right here, and we don’t get any dishes dirty, so that’s a win in my book! Eat, pack up, head out.

There’s a lot of traffic, and we have to drive through town, so it’s a slow start to the day. I get behind a red truck that drives like I do, so he runs interference, and I follow along, close. On the outskirts of town, I’m close, but not TOO close, it’s a slight downhill, and things look clear. All of a sudden, he slams on his brakes – BRAKE CHECK!! Of course, I slam mine on, get a little trailer tire squeal, and find out what the problem is as a deer bounds in from the left – he barely misses it, and it bounds off to the right. Faster than you read that sentence we’re back to normal, returning to speed. They have big deer here! Looked more like a little colt than what I’m used to for deer – Texas has big everything, except deer – the deer in Texas are more dog-sized.

Things are going great! Then we run into Bicycle Tour of Colorado. We had seen some riders on the road late yesterday, and figured there was some tour going on, but we never checked it out. Well, had I known, I would have delayed our departure a day. These are mostly average cyclists, and it shows – they need to ride on the shoulder, so as to minimally impede traffic, but unfortunately, most of them hug the white line, even though at times they had four or six feet of shoulder – VERY irritating, as now I have to drive with the trailer hugging the yellow center stripe, and be very wary of oncoming traffic, who glare at me for doing so.

I kind of get used to it, and even get to the point where I don’t mind so much, but then we get to the real selfishness of these damned cyclists. Most of the time, these roads a two lanes, one each way. On some of the long climbs, they’ll put in a third lane so climbing traffic gets the chance to pass slower traffic, and there is ALWAYS slower traffic. Well, EVERY_SINGLE_TIME we get to one of these, the cyclists invade the outside lane, so traffic doesn’t have a passing lane. So, not only do they slow us down on the rest of the highway, the prevent us from passing slower traffic where we would normally have the chance. THIS is why drivers get a hatred for cyclists, and I fully understand, as I’M getting really pissed about it. We end up doing a four hour drive in SIX hours. The one that REALLY steamed me, though, was some idiot on a tandem who just HAD to pass another group on a downhill. The uphill side had a passing lane, we had a no-passing stripe. This jackass decides he HAS to pass, even though he’s only going marginally faster than the other riders, and he’s in THE MIDDLE OF MY LANE! I can’t slam on the brakes, because I risk fishtailing the trailer into the whole bunch of them (If I could have managed to only take out that tandem … mmm … tempting), so I’m forced into oncoming traffic coming up the hill. Lucky for me, the guy who wanted to use HIS passing lane going uphill saw it and aborted his pass to let me by, or we’d have had a massive wreck. Idiots!

Anyway – the rest of the drive was uneventful, though SLOW. We left before ten, arrived after three. A whopping 200 miles in almost six hours. The first half took 3.5 hours, I remember that.

The campground is West of Salida, kind of sparse, but has full hookups, so life is good. We have some friendly neighbors, from Colleyville! We’ll talk to them later, right now, it’s go-to-town time.

First things first – LUNCH! We are told there’s a very good Mexican restaurant in town called Los Girasoles (The Sunflowers), so we head there. I get the Mole Enchilada:

This thing is HUGE, which is good, ’cause I’m HUNGRY. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, and it’s late afternoon. The food is good enough we’ll be back.

Now, it’s off to find beer! There are two or three microbreweries in town, the first place we go is Moonlight Pizza, The Bear has their Baltic Porter, and I have the Smoked Stout:

Wow! This is the best Stout since Guinness! I’ve tried MANY Stouts, in many places, and never really liked any of them – THIS is GOOD! Scratch that – THIS is GREAT! We’ll be back for more, and also to try the pizza.

After that, it’s off to Absolute Bicycle, where we end up buying new tires for both bikes. The DFW tires we have just aren’t gripping the soil here, so it’s time for a change. We get some with massive knobbiest, and will install them tomorrow.

Back at camp, we go talk to the neighbors, and end up chatting until almost midnight! I see  lot of late nights in our future, these folks are fun to talk to! It finally gets too cold for us, and we head off to bed, where I am EXTREMELY grateful we bought a heated mattress pad the other day. A warm place to sleep is ok, but I prefer a slightly chilly space, with nice, warm heat rising from the mattress to keep me warm! It does NOT get any better than this!

Tomorrow – work on bikes day! Yes, our legs STILL hurt from the hike!

Ah, travel day today. I won’t miss New Mexico very much. I WILL miss the trails, the ones we rode were very nice, and I’m sure there were many more, but a lot of things leave a LOT to be desired. FINDING trailheads is difficult. It doesn’t have to be, other States make it very easy to find trailheads, I’m not sure why these folks don’t. Also, as I mentioned in an earlier post, a lot of government employees don’t even seem to be aware that mountain biking exists, or why it’s important – now, the guy at the Visitor’s Center in Angel Fire sure as hell knew! And he admitted that it now brings in almost as much revenue as skiing does in the winter, allows them to have a much more even year, so they LOVE it. He was horrified to hear of our experience in all the places we had a hard time. Hopefully he can put out the word it needs to be fixed. Now, don’t get me wrong, we met a lot of very nice and helpful folks, just not so much related to trails.

Anyway, leaving New Mexico, we did see some really VERY beautiful scenery, not just sand and scrub brush – check these out:

Yes, yes, iPhone through the windshield or side window, but the scenery is beautiful none the less.

Once we crossed into Colorado, of course we saw this:

We’re in the North side of the city this time – last year we were down South of town, because that’s where the KOA is, but this time we decided to try an independent campground, and tell you what – this is GREAT! Wi-Fi that WORKS! Incredibly friendly people, and my kind of folks. Love it!

Tomorrow, we ride. Ned Overend’s haunts, is my understanding – can’t wait! Yeah, it’s gonna hurt, but so what? We’ll be on a bike, on a trail. Woohoo!

Ok, not too early a start today – short drive, and can’t show up too early. We are leaving Albuquerque … thank GOD! This is NOT my favorite town. Crappy drivers, and not much besides wind and dust and sand. Trails were great, I’ll give them that, but not worth what you have to put up with. Last time I was here was about forty years ago. I think I’ll wait at least that long to return.

Anyway – took off, need to get fuel, and we had seen a place on the North side of town that had it cheap – found it, and there was one car in each lane, completely hogging each lane. Well, not a problem, as most lanes were gas-only, and we use Diesel, which was in only one lane, and there was a pickup in the lane. Of course, he did not pull up to the front pump, so someone else could have access to the rear one. Sigh. And of course, they were getting GASOLINE. I just love it when people clog up the only Diesel lane to buy gas. I forgot to mention, one lane WAS open, but of course, gas only. And the funny part is they (there was a man driving and a woman assistant – they were in a work truck) looked thoroughly confused as to why I was waiting for them to get done. Double sigh.

Anyway, soon enough we got done, and headed off up the highway. Beautiful scenery!

Finally arrived at Angel Fire mid-afternoon and realized “This is going to hurt!”. Angel Fire is at 8,600 feet, and I didn’t do well at Crested Butte last year, which is only about 300 feet higher. I do ok up to about 7,500. That last 1,000 feet really gets to me! I especially had trouble sleeping. We’ll see how I do tonight. But it is cool up here!

This is the town from our campsite:

And this is our campsite:

Yeah, grass and trees! Life is good!

Travel day! Early start! Well, not so much. Woke up at six, but didn’t get headed out of the park until exactly 7:51. We did pretty well – got to the West IHOP in Amarillo and breakfasted, then back on the road by 9:00. I was impressed!

Pulled into Albuquerque around 13:00, local time, about a five hour drive (we gained an hour coming into Mountain Time).

Here’s a shot of what greets you at the border:

Got set up in the campsite, so let’s try out the WiFi! Yeah. Like so many of the KOAs we stayed in last year, these folks are using TengoInternet for their ISP. Well, if you’re speaking Spanish, “Tengo Internet” translates to “I have internet”. But what it MEANS is “I HAVE NO internet”. Or at least, I only have dog-slow internet. Crap. Well, I have my Verizon Jetpack, and if all else fails me, my new iPad Air uses AT&T, for added variety. That one saved my bacon at Palo Duro, as Verizon has NO connectivity on the canyon floor, and AT&T’s is absolutely minimal, but it let me do the few updates I managed to get done.

Anyway, did some running around, and discovered that Albuquerque’s drivers are some of the absolute worst I’ve seen anywhere, and I’ve seen a bunch! People cut each other left and right. Damn! A little courtesy, folks! Really … be nice, be kind.

Tomorrow – petroglyphs!

Travel day! Shorter than yesterday, but probably going to be a very boring drive. I kind of hope so – the excitement yesterday was a bit more than I wanted!

Well, you don’t always get what you want … coming out of a fuel stop at a Pilot in Amarillo, TX, I notice the truck shifts hard getting on the on-ramp, and seems to have no power. Damn! Now what? I’m on the highway, and everything seems ok once I get up to cruising speed, although I can’t seem get the truck to go more than 65 mph. Hmmm … then I notice trees in this part of the country have a decided bend towards where we came from – I’m guessing wicked head wind, so I don’t worry too much about it. Soon enough, we’re outside the State Park, at the Zip Line place where we are to pick up our packets. We’re early. Over an hour early. Oh, well, I guess we wait!

In due time, we get our packets and head into the park. Show the green wrist band, and we are IN. Let’s go get set up! It’s a steep downhill into the canyon, so I pull the shift lever to 1, to slow us down on the steep grade. The transmission doesn’t downshift. Hmmm. Get to the bottom, and I find out why – no second gear! Again! This happened last October, on the last day of our last trip, and we had the transmission rebuilt  – I’m pissed! Well, we’ll deal with it Monday – too much to do in the days between. Welcome to PDCSP!

Oh, yeah … that evening, at 21:35 (that’s 9:35 PM for you non-24-hour-ers) we hear BOOM! An explosion so loud it rocks the whole trailer back and forth a half-dozen times – what the hell? Then I remember – PDCSP does some sort of show on weekend nights, and they start it off by firing a cannon. About an hour later, it’s followed by more explosions, not nearly as loud though, thank goodness. Fireworks to end the show. Yeah. Ok, there’s a BURN BAN in effect. If I lit a firecracker, I’d probably go to jail. But the park? Well, the show must go on! Welcome to PDCSP.

I do have pictures!

And here’s one at night:

Ah, headed for Palo Duro Canyon S P today – under 200 miles, so an easy day,

Ok. Life not so good. Pulling into Wichita Falls, I smell diesel, but figure it’s the rig I’m about to pass. Get past him, and realize I figured wrong. VERY strong smell of diesel, and a check-engine light. And there’s diesel on my floorboard. UGH! Thankfully, there’s an exit a half-mile ahead, so we take it, and I coast into the Flying J. Ok, I coast into the entrance to the Flying J and stop there.

Pop the hood and what do I see? LOTS of diesel over the left rear of the engine compartment. Thankfully, diesel won’t catch fire like gasoline might. We’re stuck. Call Good Sam Club Road Assistance, and The Bear is on the phone about an hour. While we wait for them to get someone and call us back, we notice a truck repair place next door, so we go over. He’s talking to Good Sam! He’s working on it as I type.

Ok, no pictures, so I guess it didn’t happen. I cannot fathom a better way this could have happened. Talk about good timing! Karma. We did a good deed at Clearfork, when we loaned money for the guy to get his truck towed out of the lake, so I guess we get paid back by breaking down in a fairly painless way.

Long story short, the fuel line to the number four cylinder split – evidently a common problem as the new one is designed differently, and made of a different material. Three hundred bucks for a half hour of work and the part, but we’re on our way! Life is good.

Ok, I did get two photos after the fact, so it DID happen. This is the old part:

And this is the new one:

See how the old one was gold colored, and the new one is silver? Also, the bracket that holds it in place is a different design. Hmmm…

This only delays us two and a half hours, so we’re good. Still arrive at the park while they’re open, and we get a slot. Very nice park with a flavor all its own. I actually got some photos!

Here’s the State Park office:

And here is the park itself, first to the left:

Then to the right:

Here are the campsites – different!:

And here is us in our campsite:

Our little hutch had some ancient pictographs in it!:

So, all in all, a good day! We’re still hooked up so leaving will be quick tomorrow. This is just a quick stay for the night …

Wait – WHAT??? We’re not supposed to be down here! Well, true, but I need to sell my minivan, and my paperwork should finally be home tomorrow, so here we are.

Got an early start, l o o n g drive, but uneventful. We’ve been here before, but I do NOT remember it at all. What I do remember about it is that we showed up late at night, in the dark, with a brand-new fifth wheel trailer, and had to back into a campsite. It took me a few tries, since I was new at it. Woke up half the camp. They were NOT happy. This time, we got a pull-through spot!

Anyway, today we veg out, and tomorrow we go into Plano to take care of business (and pick up a few things we forgot, but we won’t talk about that!)

Well, today is a travel day! We finally go on to Camp Clearfork. Sadly, YET AGAIN, The Bear is injured. She’s GOT to stop doing that!

We pack up early to get on the road, and show up at camp early afternoon. Ah, the peace and quiet! Of course, part of that is absolutely NO cell service whatsoever, which is good, because there are no distractions, but it also means I’m posting this several days later. Oh, well.

Anyway, uneventful trip, not but about fifty miles. We get set up, and life is good!

This is the camp layout:

Wonderful place!

Ok, the trip starts today! Let’s get an early start! Just so we will, last night I set the alarm clock for 6:00 AM. Can’t wait!

You know, sometimes things don’t work out quite according to plan … Oh, the alarm went off at 6:00, like it was supposed to. And I hit snooze, like I knew I would … and only once, quite unlike what I thought I’d do! So yes, we’re up early, raring to go. Gotta finish loading up, and hit the road.

But first.

There are quite a few “but first”s today. Won’t bore you with it, but finally, at 11:30 (yes – almost noon!) we’ve loaded the truck, moved the tree (several hundred pounds worth – don’t ask!), and took the pop-up so it can stay where we keep the new trailer, instead of at the house. Yes, eventually it will park at the house, but we have to put in the pad for it to park on. That will happen when we return. FINALLY, we are on the road. Truck mileage is 191,550. Wonder how many miles we’ll drive this time? Who knows … but she’s not saying!

The drive is fairly uneventful – there’s some construction (Really? Wow! Who knew!) but not bad at all. I like uneventful drives. Of course, it turns out we’re not going to make the 17:00 closing time at the park, so we’ll have to hope they post our assigned spot for us. Oh, well – if that’s the biggest snag we hit today, I’m certainly fine with it.

Oh – we would have made it, but needed to fill up along the way. Getting worse mileage than I figured, not sure why. We started with a real strong tail-wind, but maybe it turned on us. So we pull in about 17:20, but there’s a very pleasant ranger who greets us outside the now-closed visitor’s center, tells us what slot we’re in, and even goes into the visitor’s center to get us a couple of different maps. Who said rangers can’t be nice? This guy was great!

Camping area A, site 12. VERY nice site, plenty long and wide, with a place to park the truck. We can even see the lake from here! And, unlike in Texas, this lake has water in it! I’d forgot what lakes are supposed to look like. It’s nice!

Gotta go into town to get some things we forgot, but no big deal. At least the trip’s begun!

Here’s my only start-of-trip photo: