Overnight Trip (Royal Gorge, CO)

2014/10/17 davidhobden@mac.com

It’s been rather uneventful here at the homestead for the last several days. Stilla has mostly been playing tour-guide for son William and his girlfriend Jasmin who are visiting from Germany. I usually stay home and putter around while Stilla is out showing them the local sites or doing more shopping. I guess our visitors want to stock up on such things as brand-name clothes, shoes, handbags, etc., which can be found cheaper here in the States.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like shopping as much as the next guy… but I’d rather be shopping at places like Cabela’s, Bass-Pro Shop’s, or Western Outfitter’s. So I find things to do here at the house while they’re out and about.

Although, I did go with on a few excursions. For instance, we went to the grand opening (late in the day) to the first Trader Joe’s that opened here in Colorado Springs. We also visited Fort Carson and wandered through the PX. One evening, we did drinks and appetizers at my youngest daughter, Joleen’s workplace, The Famous Steak House, and then went out for an evening at SouthSide Johnny’s. (Click on the green-font names for more information)

We also hosted a small get-together (pizza party) at the house one evening complete with fireworks that someone had brought.

(L to R) Stepmom Elaine, Dad, Stilla, Jasmin, William

William and his girlfriend Jasmin wanted to experience camping in the RV so we pulled in the slides and lifted the jacks on the Urban Escape Vehicle to go visit the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park near Canon City, CO. We left on Monday and came back on Tuesday. There are several RV parks near the Royal Gorge but most are already closed for the season. We found the Prospectors RV Resort which is open year-round.

It was a little more expensive than we like.. it was a little over $40 for 50 amp full hook-ups. We met the nice owner’s who had just purchased the CG at the beginning of the season. We wish them all the best in the future… nice campground.

It was pretty empty in the CG. But it looked like they had some seasonal workers and a few others that were preparing for a cold Winter stay with skirting and insulation.

William & Jasmin walking little Coach around the Prospectors RV Resort near Royal Gorge, CO

Since it was later in the day on Monday after we settled in at the campground, we decided to drive back into Canon City for sight-seeing and dinner. We’d save the Royal Gorge Bridge for tomorrow.

Before going into Canon City, we took Skyline Drive, which is a ~3-mile one-way paved road with drop-offs on both sides. Go to the link for more images of this cool, scenic and somewhat scary (for some) side trip.

Stilla, William & Jasmin at the top of Skyline Drive, Canon City, CO

Checkout time was noon at the CG but the kind owner’s of the Prospectors RV Resort allowed us to leave the Coach as long as we needed for the day while we visited the Royal Gorge Bridge.

Along the drive from the main highway to the bridge we saw evidence of the fire that almost destroyed the bridge last year. If you missed that in the news: I linked more info on that here, and here, with some images here.

Royal Gorge area, single tree damaged by fire.

Here’s the view driving into the parking lot.

You can see the fire damage on the back of the coal car. Good thing the locomotive survived.

And here’s the new Visitor Center/Entrance to the bridge.

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (front view)

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (souvenir shop)

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (guest services window)

They were charging $16 a person to walk onto the bridge. It’s usually more expensive but they’re charging less since everything else burned down. The gondola across and the cable car down into the gorge are gone.

View of Royal Gorge Bridge after exiting the Visitor Center/Entrance building.

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (rear view)

William and Jasmin in front of the Royal Gorge Bridge

The old cable cars that used to take people down to the bottom of the gorge is out-of-service. I overheard a park representative telling another tourist that it requires $9 million in repairs and may not be fixed. Here’s a picture of the track.

We walked across the bridge.

William & Jasmin on the Royal Gorge Bridge (holding the Colorado flag)

Here’s Stilla and I on the bridge. I’m wearing the doggie front-pack I blogged about in an earlier post. We bought it in Florence, OR back in September.

View from the Royal Gorge Bridge (cables at top of photo)

Will and Jasmin took some photos of the gorge below through gaps in the planks.

Have to include this pic… one of my favorites.

A shuttle service takes people back and forth across the bridge all day. How do you get that job?

Stilla walking on the Royal Gorge Bridge.

The gondola is gone but we could see evidence of reconstruction.

There’s a lot of rebuilding going on. This is the South side of the gorge.

We walked on up to the Sky Coaster.

We chickened out and didn’t do it. There was a moment when Jasmin and I were ready to go 😉

Stilla, William & Jasmin on the south side of Royal Gorge at overlook near the Sky Coaster

View of Royal Gorge Bridge from the South side.

View of the Royal Gorge from the South side overlook

We walked back to the Visitor Center building and had lunch on the newly renovated deck.

They even put a fire place and heat lamps on the new deck. Pretty nice!

Many folks probably don’t know that you can stop at the parking lot and take a trail down to an overlook for good views of the bridge and visitor center. This is good if you can’t afford the entrance fee.

View of the Visitor Center deck from the North looking SouthWest

We returned to the CG and hooked up the Silverado for the return trip home. Will and Jasmin have plans for the evening.

Tomorrow we plan on driving up Pikes Peak, so stay tuned…

Colorado

Uncle Alan’s (Floride, CO)

2014/10/08 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

On Tuesday I rode the Harley over to my Dad’s house to help him load a log-splitter into his trailer. My Uncle Alan (Dad’s youngest brother) needed it at his house for some logs that are too big to do by hand.

Stilla chauffeured our visitors from Germany around town in the Silverado to do their own thing.

Meanwhile, I chauffered Dad and Stepmom Elaine in their Jeep with trailer attached up the pass (I-24 West from COS) to my Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly’s house. They live on approximately 10 acres that borders the Florissant Fossil beds. It is halfway between Florissant and Divide, CO so my Uncle calls his homestead “Floride”. Get it?

Here we are after unloading the heavy log-splitter from the trailer.

My Uncle Alan (Dad’s brother) got a quick block of instruction on how to operate the splitter from Dad.

Here’s the wood he wants to split.

And here’s some of the wood he already split (by hand!).

And here’s more piles of wood he already split!… Unk – I think you got enough to last awhile…

Here’s a picture of the Hobden homestead in “Floride”, CO.

We then had a picnic, complete with campfire, at a spot near the house that Alan keeps on the ready with picnic table, chairs and fire pit. Here’s Uncle Alan burning some hot dogs.

Stepmom Elaine and Aunt Beverly set the picnic table.

Dad & Elaine tried out the comfortable swing while waiting for the dogs and beans to finish cooking.

After our fine picnic, Uncle Alan loaded the extra picnic accessories into his little trailer to take back to the house.

We had a little fun touring around the property in Alan’s older model ATV. Here’s Dad going for a spin.

Off into the horizon…

For the afternoon, Uncle Alan suggested we go on a hike to take a look at a house that sits on over 300 acres located on the West side of Pikes Peak. Us folks from COS would call it the “back-side” of Pikes Peak but my Uncle says it’s the “front-side” for him. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Interesting story – a gentleman by the name of Harvey Carter owned the land and house until his passing in 2012. He was a pioneer rock-climber and entrepreneur that envisioned a ski area being developed on his land, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Here’s a couple links for more information on the guy: Link here for obit and here for a short video. It seems that the Broadmoor Hotel bought the land and house after Harvey’s passing and worked some sort of trade deal with the National Forest Service. It is now NFS land. The Colorado Springs newspaper, “The Gazette” did an article on this here.

My Uncle is a real-estate agent by trade and met this guy a couple years ago. He got an exclusive personal tour of his land and first- hand account of Harvey Carter’s vision.

We had to park about a half-mile away from the house and hike in. The spot where we parked at is at the end of the dirt road past the Crags campground. It was good to walk off the hot dogs we had for lunch, but it was slow going due to the high altitude.

Here’s a view of the trail we hiked on the backside of Pikes Peak.

Many of the Aspens still have their leaves, but not for long…

And here you can see one of the peaks just coming into view as we hiked the road on the back-side of Pikes Peak.

We came upon a tree that had fallen across the road. Unsure what could have caused it – maybe high winds.

Pikes Peak as viewed from the West side.

Once the trail we walked joined the main road. We could see that the road had been clearly widened and graded recently… not a good sign. Alan speculated that the forest service may have already demolished the house and had widened the road to get the dump trucks and bulldozers in.

We hiked and hiked… Alan kept telling us that it’s “just around the next bend”. And he’d say the same thing after the next bend…

View of Pikes Peak from the West side (you can see the “Crags” on the left)

Uncle Alan at the end of the road ahead of us where the house used to sit.

When we finally got to the end of the road, we found that the house had been demolished. All that’s left is dirt and boulders. Hardly any evidence that a house was ever there.

Sure must have been a nice view from the house back in the day.

We tromped around on the dirt that had been brought in to cover the old homesite. There was still some glass and electrical wiring mixed in with the dirt. Whoever did the demolition for the Forest Service must have been the low bidder as usual.

We enjoyed the scenic views… and then headed back down to the Jeep.

We said our goodbyes to Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly when we got back to his house. Thanks for another memorable day Unk! See you soon.

We hooked the empty trailer back up to the Jeep and headed back down the pass. Dad treated at Wendy’s in Woodland Park where we stopped for supper on the way down.

It was already dark by the time we got back to Dad’s house. So after storing the trailer, I jumped on the Harley and went straight home to see what Stilla and the Germans did for the day. I think they spent some time at Helen Hunt Falls and did some more shopping.

In other news – I heard about the eclipse of the moon tonight, so I set the alarm for 4:15 AM and got this picture.

Hopefully you can see the moon almost eclipsed. I took the pic with my iPhone and probably should have pulled out the Canon S100 but didn’t. As usual, if you click on any of the photos in this blog, it should enlarge for easier viewing.

Until next time… stay tuned…

Colorado

Yay! Willi’s Here (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/10/06 davidhobden@mac.com

I spent most of Sunday detailing the Silverado after I downloaded the Harley and everything else we’ve been carrying around in the truck for the last several months. I put the bikes, the motorcycle, the inflatable Sea-Eagle boat, the trolling motor, metal detector, firewood, etc., into the garage because we needed the room to pick up son William and his new girlfriend Jasmin from the airport in Denver.

They came in on Iceland-Air from Frankfurt, Germany to DIA. I was supposed to drive to Denver to pick them up with Stilla and youngest daughter Joleen, but I got bumped at the last moment when oldest daughter Jennifer and grandson Kaan wanted to go too. So I stayed home and waited while Stilla took the rest of the family to meet the flight’s expected 7 PM arrival time.

They came in on time and Stilla got everyone back home by 9 PM. They were pretty jet-lagged, so we didn’t stay up too late.

The next morning (Monday), Stilla made us all a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast. Then we all piled into the Silverado again for a fun-filled day of sightseeing and shopping.

We started off by driving through the Garden of the Gods park after a quick stop at Wells Fargo bank to exchange Euros for Dollars.

Here’s William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock.

William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

Rock formations near the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

After checking out the Balanced Rocks, we stopped at the Trading Post in the Garden of the Gods to look at souvenirs and then we went on over to the Kissing Camels to walk around a bit.

Kissing Camels rock formation in the Garden of the Gods

L to R: Joleen, Jasmin, William, Stilla and little Coach in Garden of the Gods park.

I almost forgot what the Silverado looked like without the Harley sitting in the back.

After our tour of the Garden of the Gods, we stopped by my Dad and Stepmom Elaine’s house. They live just down the street from the Trading Post and were glad to see William again. It’s been over 2 years since he was last here. We didn’t stay long because everyone was getting hungry and it was almost time to pick up Kaan from school.

The rest of the day was spent shopping at the various stores in the Broadmoor Towne Center aka Southgate. William and Jasmin were interested in stocking up on some new clothes to take back to Germany. We also ate at the Panda Express located there.

I think I’ll take a break from the sight-seeing and shopping tomorrow. I’ll let Stilla be the chauffeur for the day. I think my Dad could use some help getting a log-splitter up to my Uncle Alan’s house near Florissant, CO.

So, til next time.. stay tuned.

Colorado

FCRV Rolling Springs (Colorado City KOA)

2014/10/06 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

Friday was another wash & wax day since I was so rudely interrupted by the exploding expandable hose that I talked about in my previous post. I decided to get another pocket hose from WalMart on Friday after doing some research on-line. It seems that no matter which version of expandable hose you choose – there are many negative reviews on each. The pocket hose is cheaper than the x-hose and this time I saved the receipt. Anyway, I finally got the whole coach washed… it’ll take awhile for the waxing though – one section at a time is the best approach 🙂

On Saturday, we decided to go see the folks in the camping group we belong to – the Rolling Springs Chapter (FCRV). So we jumped into the Silverado and drove down to the KOA in Colorado City where the group is having their weekend campout. We “crashed” the party and got caught-up with folks… especially my Dad and Stepmom. This KOA is about 65 miles South of Colorado Springs. We stayed here with the group once last year. Nice campground, but of course at KOA prices…

When we arrived around noon-time, most folks were out enjoying the local sites so we hung out with Biff & Linda Anderson outside their Monaco Coach (we still had our folding chairs in the back of the Silverado) until my Dad and Stepmom Elaine got back. It was great catching up with them… Biff & Linda were especially helpful to us before we started our trip up to the Pacific NorthWest back a couple/few months ago… they provided us invaluable tips on routes and best places to stay because they had been before. Thanks Biff & Linda! It was great seeing you again.

Finally, my Dad & Stepmom Elaine arrived back at the CG. It was really good to see them again too! We haven’t seen each other since late July when we convoyed together to Lake Tahoe and spent an awesome week together at the Sugar Pine Point CG with some cousins that live in California.

This is the first opportunity we had to see Dad’s new Jeep! He hasn’t gotten the baseplate installed yet to tow it behind his “FRED”. That’s short for Front Engine Diesel. It is made by Gulfstream and the model is the Crescendo. Elaine drove the Jeep down from COS, following Dad in the Coach. Next time, I’m sure he’ll have it set up to tow.

Nice Jeep Dad!

Of course as soon as a hood goes up, others come by to check it out too 🙂

I got to test drive it. We all piled in and went over to Graneros Gorge which is just minutes South of the CG. Although we didn’t need 4-wheel drive – it was still fun hitting the dirt road to get there. Here we parked near the edge of the gorge.

There are the remnants of a gazebo on the edge. At least that’s what my research determined this was.

View down into the gorge.

And here we are looking down into the gorge. You can see Dad’s new jeep in the background.

I posed for a picture near the edge… Stilla kept telling me to take one step back…

We got back to the CG in time for happy hour with the group.

It wasn’t long after happy hour was over and we all gathered together again inside the community room for our traditional Saturday evening potluck. Tonight’s potluck theme was chili. We had every sort of chili known to man and as usual there was more than enough to go around.

Again, it was fun seeing all the great folks again in the Rolling Springs Chapter of FCRV. C U all next time!

I started this post yesterday morning (Sunday) but just now (Monday) got it posted due to interruptions. We picked up our son William and his girlfriend from the airport in Denver (DIA) on Sunday evening and have been running around all day today doing some sight-seeing and shopping… but I’ll do a separate post on that shortly… I need to post this one first.

Colorado

Reunion with old Co-workers (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/10/03 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

We’ve been parked at the house since my last post and I’ve been taking my time to wash and wax the Urban Escape Vehicle while Stilla is inside the house cleaning in preparation for son William’s visit from Germany this coming Sunday. The undercarriage and especially the wheelwells got pretty muddy when we left Westley, CA in the rain as I mentioned in this earlier post: (http://www.urbanescapevehicle.com/westley-ca/). We also drove through a lot of rain along I-70 while hurrying back from Las Vegas.

My washing efforts got slowed down yesterday when my expandable hose burst. I’ve been carrying around one of those “pocket hoses” that I got from WalMart which has been great for it’s storability characteristics but apparently not so great for durability. When I went to use the hose, I noticed that water was squirting out of a pinhole. It wasn’t long before the green outer covering split and the clear plastic inner hose oozed out… it looked like a big fat sausage skin that bloated up until it exploded in a shower of water. This incident made me think about the commercial regarding the X-hose where they warn you not to be fooled by imitations. Wish I saved the receipt. Anyway, I got rid of all of my old hoses here at the house when I was down-sizing to go full-timing, so I need to go buy a new hose. I certainly don’t want to use my drinking water hose for washing, it’s important to keep it clean and free of contamination for filling the water tank and hooking up at campgrounds.

The Urban Escape Vehicle parked in front of the house.

I got a surprise message from my good friend, old co-worker, and former roommate, Maile Unten, who follows the blog and noted that we were back in town. She kindly invited me on behalf of the agency that I used to work for, the Missile Defense Agency Integration & Operations Center (Schriever AFB), to come to their “end of fiscal year” celebration to be held at Cheddars on the North end of town. The end of the fiscal year (FY) is a big deal for the Contracting Directorate that I used to work for… a lot of long hours and hard work is put into getting all the funds obligated and contracts awarded before the end of the FY when funds expire.

I went alone since Stilla was in the middle of cleaning the house as I mentioned earlier. It sure was great seeing most of my old co-workers again. There were a couple new faces too.

The MDIOC “Contracting Directorate” crew. Maile Unten is at the bottom left.

The MDIOC “Contracting Directorate” crew. The director (Bob) is at the head of the table.

We caught up on things while we passed around appetizer dishes between folks. Bob, the “Contracting Directorate” Director, graciously showed his appreciation for everyone’s hard work and dedication by paying for the first round of drinks. Thanks Bob!

And Maile surprised me by paying for my appetizer and drinks… Thanks Maile! You didn’t have to do that. And thanks for the invitation! It was nice seeing everyone again, I just wish that my old boss, Sandra Yaden, had been there as well… I was told that she is on a well-deserved vacation. Take care Sandy – hope all is well with you.

I was told that the group’s annual Christmas Party is already scheduled for Dec 10th at the EdelWeiss restaurant here on the South side of COS. Our current plan calls for us to be far South by then to stay ahead of the freezing weather, but you never know…

I made it back home in time to watch the sun go down behind Pikes Peak from our front porch. Our house is situated at the end of a cul-de-sac, so we get a nice unobstructed view of the mountains up the street from the front of the house. The back of the house overlooks downtown COS.

Stilla, oldest daughter Jennifer, and grandson Kaan on the front porch.

In other news – the camping group we belong to along with my Dad and Stepmom; the Rolling Springs Chapter of the Family Campers & RV’ers – is holding the last group campout of the year this weekend. It is down in Colorado City at the KOA. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to attend since William is coming in on Sunday and we have to drive to Denver to pick him up along with his new girlfriend. If time permits, we plan on maybe driving down in the Silverado on Saturday to visit with folks. My dad already went down a day early on Thursday to get the most out of the weekend. Hope you guys are having fun Rolling Springs FCRV!

Welp… I have to go find a new waterhose, so that’s all for now.

Stay tuned…

Colorado

6000 miles later – Back at the House (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/10/01 davidhobden@mac.com

On Monday we left the Elks Lodge in Saint George, UT early in the morning. I really would have liked to stay here, what a nice lodge and RV park area! The lodge had brats and nachos for donations in the bar area, so that was our dinner.

We needed to get back home to prepare for our son William’s visit from Germany. He’ll be here the 5th of October and he’s bringing his girlfriend that we haven’t met yet. So we made a bee line straight for our house in Colorado Springs. Sorry, no pictures today… I know you’re disappointed, but with the fast pace and often rainy windshield, the pics wouldn’t have turned out very good anyway.

We continued North on 1-15 until we hit I-70. We made it all the way to Grand Junction, CO by Monday evening. A grand total of 392 miles! If you’ve never seen the San Rafael Swell along I-70, it’s definitely worth stopping at the rest areas to view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Rafael_Swell

We researched the Elks.org website and found a lodge in downtown Grand Junction that claimed to have 4 electrical hook-up sites. I didn’t call ahead figuring that since it was Monday, they were sure to have a spot. Sure enough, they had 4 electrical hook-ups all on the same pole in the middle of their empty parking lot. The lodge was closed so I called the number listed on the website, which was the same as the number posted on the door, and got no answer. There was a box on the pole with empty envelopes in it, so I put $10 along with our business card in it and slipped it under the lodge door. We hooked up to the 30 amp, watched a little TV and went to bed so we could get another early start in the morning.

On Tuesday, we continued on I-70 and drove through the rain at times. It sure was beautiful near Vail with all the aspen leaves changing colors and snow on the mountains around us. I was a little worried about the rain turning into snow on the Eisenhower Tunnel Pass so I researched a “short-cut” over Hoosier Pass and the weather outlook said it was dry. So, we turned South at Dillon Reservoir and took 9 through Breckenridge and then over Hoosier Pass. Sure enough, it was dry and easy going. The weather even cleared up nicely the closer we got to I-24 and then home.

So, after another 290 miles for the day, here we are in Colorado Springs again. We’ve put a grand total of 6,100 miles on the Urban Escape Vehicle since we started full-timing in May. It’s good to be back for a short time and see daughter’s Jennifer and Joleen again.

I’ll post again soon to keep you apprised of our status… hopefully we can get back on the road again soon. Maybe, I can use this “downtime” while son William is visiting, to update the blog with the places we visited before I started the blog… I’ve got some great pics of our time at such places as: Lake Tahoe, Crater Lake, the RV Rallies in Portland and Redmond OR, Mt Rainier, and Mt Saint Helens, etc.,

So stay tuned…

Nevada, Utah

Ma Time (Las Vegas, NV)

2014/09/29 davidhobden@mac.com

It’s been a busy few days since my last post. I’ll try to get caught up here.

We found a (somewhat) quiet corner of the truck stop in Barstow for Thursday evening as I mentioned in my last blog post. Here’s a picture I took Friday morning before we headed on up I-15 to Las Vegas.

About 150 miles later we passed the Welcome to Nevada sign:

We found a RV park by using the “Points of Interest” option on the Rand McNally GPS. Of course, I researched it quickly on the internet to validate it’s authenticity. It was a very reasonable $20 per night.

We ended up at the Main Street Station Casino, Brewery, Hotel & RV Park near the famous (or infamous) Fremont Street. That’s on the North side of Las Vegas. I called ahead to confirm a spot and they assigned me to site 200… and what are the odds – we were parked right next to another Alpine Coach! With only ~1,400 Coaches ever built between the years 1999 and 2009, that’s a somewhat rare occurrence. Unfortunately, we never got to meet the owners in the two days we were there. They were always seemed to be out and about at the times we were in the park.

It wasn’t long after we arrived that we were met by my brother Steve, his long-time girlfriend Cheryl along with my Mom and Stepdad in their chauffeured Escalade. They have a time-share of sorts with Wyndham Resorts which is where they were staying. The limousine service is courtesy of the resort.

They took us to Caesars Palace to enjoy the Bacchanal Buffet.

The food was excellent albeit rather expensive. All the dishes are prepared by Chef’s. Here’s a link to learn more if interested: http://www.caesarspalace.com/restaurants/bacchanal-buffet.html#.VCorPUtGGQc

And then we supported the local economy by playing the slots.

Here’s an indication of how our evening went… notice that the “7’s” aren’t on the payline 🙁

Here’s my beautiful Ma and wonderful stepdad! Love ya mom & Jimmy.

Obligatory picture of one of the Las Vegas signs.

We spent the rest of the evening touring the Fremont Street Experience. For those of you that have never been, here’s a link: http://vegasexperience.com

The light show is pretty cool.

And there were lots of characters walking the street… many of whom I couldn’t post to this blog in order to maintain something less than an “R” rating.

This is the zip-line that runs above the street. You can see some people getting ready to go in the second picture below.

These folks got stuck and had to be rescued.

We ended up at the Heart Attack Grill, http://www.heartattackgrill.com for a late night “light” snack 🙂

On Saturday morning, we said goodbye to my Mom, Stepdad, Steve & Cheryl after a hearty breakfast at the Plaza Hotel’s Hash-a-go-go http://www.plazahotelcasino.com/dining/hash_house_a_go_go They have to get back home to Las Cruces to go on diets 🙂

After breakfast and goodbye hugs… Stilla and I then spent the rest of our Saturday checking out a few local tourist attractions… the first was one of my favorite’s, the site of American Restoration.

The free guided tour through the shop was really neat, but they don’t allow photos inside because customers haven’t seen their finished restoration projects yet.

I pulled the truck up front for a photo-op. Rick didn’t come out to offer to restore the Harley for me 🙁

I did get the T-Shirt at the gift shop though.

Next, we went by the site of Pawn Stars. I honestly have only seen a few episodes… not one of my favorites, but it was cool to see.

This Elvis painting was for sale at some outrageous price.

We must have arrived at just the right time… there was quite a long line forming as we exited. Must be a popular site, or a tour bus might have shown up.

Then I tracked down where Counting Cars is filmed at Counts Kustoms http://www.countskustoms.com was located and we headed over there. I bought the T-Shirt.

Stilla and I visited Fremont Street again to close out the evening and took in some of the street band music that plays in a few different spots along the covered street.

On Sunday, we hit the road again for Saint George Utah.

We continued on I-15 and went through the corner of Arizona after leaving Nevada.

It had clearly rained the day prior as evidenced by the very soggy desert.

Interstate 15 passes through a pretty cool canyon at one point.

And here’s the Saint George, UT Elk’s Lodge 1473. Now this has to be the most scenic Lodge we’ve stayed at to date. Travel distance for the day was around 120 miles.

We pretty much had the RV Park portion of the parking lot to ourselves. Only two or three other rigs there. We heard that we just missed a busy weekend, the lot was full this morning.

Here’s a couple pics of the lodge.

The view from their deck.

And this was our spot below the cliffs. It’s only $15. Electric hook-up only. Wish we could stay here longer, but son William is due in from Germany on the 5th of October, so we have to be back in Colorado Springs. Also, we have a small problem with the rent – we haven’t gotten any for the last month or so…

Til next time… stay tuned.

California

Bro Time (Westley, CA)

2014/09/25 davidhobden@mac.com 1 Comment

It’s been a couple days since my last post. We’ve been busy hanging out at my brother Ron’s house in Westley, CA. Let me bring you up to date:

We arrived early Tuesday evening after our long day’s drive down I-5 and through Sacramento. After hugs and a tour of the house and adjoining machine shop, we made a trip to the local WalMart to replenish the fridge and more importantly – get some steaks for the BBQ grill. We spent time grilling and catching up. It was great seeing them again, it’s been a long time… years in fact.

We parked on the street beside their house during our stay. Ron graciously provided a power outlet so we could run one of the air conditioners or the microwave without having to start our generator.

Wednesday ended up being a full work day in the fully-appointed machine shop next to the house. I conned (I mean, talked) Ron into doing some modifications to the Silverado’s bed-rails and motorcycle ramp. Nephew James stayed home from work and helped out as well. Ron figured out how to slice a long piece of aluminum off the bed rails so I can better secure my tonneau cover when I’m not carrying the Harley. He also invented a quick-release mount for the motorcycle ramp to secure it on top of the rack. Now I don’t have to struggle with a bunch of bungee-cords every time I transport the ramp.

Here we put everything back on the Silverado after having to disassemble the truck rack to make the modifications.

The tonneau cover now rolls shut and and fits tightly between the bed rails. Thanks Bro!

Ron even took the time to modify the pivot bar that holds the three-piece motorcycle ramp together… the bar was too long and the hole for the pin allowed for too much movement between the individual pieces, so he cut it shorter and re-drilled a new hole for the pin. Now it’s much safer to use, and there’s no chance for a foot or even worse – a motorcycle tire to accidentally slip between the pieces.

I forgot to take a picture of the quick-release mount that Ron invented to secure the ramp on top of the rack during transport. But here’s some pics of Ron in action:

We closed out the evening with another great BBQ meal in the back yard.

It rained Thursday morning… just enough to make us not want to get packed up and move. But, we need to move on down the road and get back to Colorado Springs before our son William comes to visit us in October. So we slowly got packed up by noon, said our goodbyes’s and thanked Ron & Terry for everything. It was about 1 PM by the time we hit I-5 headed South.

Hopefully, I get to see my brother again on Thanksgiving… he’s planning on being in Arizona, as do we.

The roads between the many orchards in the area were muddy from the rain. Lots of vehicles coming onto the roadway from the orchards had made a mess of the pavement. Looks like I get to give the Urban Escape Vehicle and pickup a serious washing now.

The sun came out and it dried up quickly. It wasn’t long before we had to turn on the dash AC again.

We started going through our routine of finding a campground or RV park while traveling down the road since we had good cell signal on I-5. It looked like the Elks Lodge in Barstow would be a good destination for the day. The website said it had 77 RV spots in the Lodge parking lot. So I plugged it into the GPS and we decided to make it a long travel day. Also, we still needed to decide what route to take back to Colorado, and Barstow happens to be located at the point where we can either choose to go North on I-15 through Las Vegas and then on to I-70, then I-25 at Denver to get to COS; or – we can catch I-40 East at Barstow which will take us through Flagstaff and Albuquerque to get on I-25 to COS.

It so happens that my Mom, Stepdad, and other brother Steven along with his better-half Cheryl, are currently in Las Vegas on vacation. So I contacted them to be sure they are still there (they will be until Saturday) so that cinches it – we now have our next destination… Las Vegas, here we come!

Typical highway scenery after we got close to Bakersfield.

It was 7 PM when we finally rolled into Barstow looking for the Elks Lodge. We found it, but it was closed! We wondered why the Elks.org website didn’t show info on the Lodge but we did find all kinds of info and reviews on google. The place looked like it was being sold. Anyway, we chalked that up to another lesson learned… don’t trust google without verifying!

So we did a quick search for other overnight options and found a Flying J truck stop 4 miles further down on I-15. Good enough for the night since it’s late anyway. And besides, we now want to hurry up and get to Las Vegas tomorrow so we can get as much time as possible in with my Mom/Stepdad & other brother Steven and his better-half Cheryl before they go back to Phoenix and/or Las Cruces on Saturday!

We did 335 miles today… whew! I don’t want to do that too often.

Signing out from the truck stop… C U tomorrow!

California

Avenue of Giants & Moving Day (Westley, CA)

2014/09/24 davidhobden@mac.com

We did it! We completed the entire Hwy 101 “Pacific Coast Highway” although as I type this, I remembered that the signs started calling it the “Redwood Highway” once we dipped into California.

Our Hwy 101 adventure started in Olympia WA, where we went North to Port Angeles, and then headed South along the entire Washington/Oregon coastline – all the way to Leggett CA where you have to either choose to turn on Hwy 1 (which continues along the CA coast) or stay on 101 which starts inland. We chose to continue on 101 inland so we could jump over to I-5 via State Highway 20.

We had decided to head down to Westley, CA to visit my brother Ronald. Westley is located about 80 miles South of Sacramento.

So to catch you up on our continuing adventure – we left the Chinook RV Resort in Klamath CA on Monday at a leisurely 11 AM. Our goal for the day was to take the “Avenue of Giants” because you just can’t get enough of these magnificent redwoods.

But first, we caught our last few views of the Pacific Ocean.

After driving through the town of Eureka we finally got to the turnoff for the Avenue of the Giants which is a 31 mile scenic byway that parallels Hwy 101. It was awesome – but again, pictures just don’t do it justice. Here’s a link to my friend Wikipedia for more information on the route: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avenue_of_the_Giants

We pulled off to the side at the first opportunity to view some of the trees first-hand.

Here you can see that the leaves are already changing colors… more evidence that it’s time to keep heading South 🙂

After our scenic (but somewhat slow-paced) excursion through the Avenue of Giants, we got back on Hwy 101 proper and noticed that the scenery was changing dramatically… it was definitely drier here.

We turned East on 20 to get over to 1-5 but it was getting late (about 5 PM) so we started consulting our resources to find a spot to spend the night. Our Passport America app turned us on to Kelly’s Family Kampground near the town of Upper Lake which is on the North side of Clear Lake.

After turning off the highway for about 2 miles to get to the campground, our Rand McNally GPS guided us in. What a beautiful campground… and we had it all to ourselves with the exception of the owner who bicycled from her house at the entrance road to greet us. We decided to boondock for the night because the sites were heavily wooded with no line-of-site for the satellite. Also, it just looked so peaceful by the pond – so that’s where we decided to lower the jacks.

This is the road into the campground. The owner – I think she said her name was Patti Kelly, only charged us $12 for the night. Our travel distance for the day was about 230 miles. The only bad thing about the campground was no signal on the iPhones with AT&T and only one bar on the MiFi JetPack with Verizon which also equated to no signal because we couldn’t get any emails or websites to upload. But we had satellite, which was nice after sitting by the pond in our folding chairs to watch the evening local wildlife and stars.

The camp store and office – all but closed for the season.

Our boondock spot next to the pond.

That’s the Urban Escape Vehicle on the other side of the pond.

Our view out the front window.

There were wild turkeys everywhere.

Little Coach didn’t know what to make of the turkeys… he didn’t know whether to chase them or be scared.

In the morning (Tuesday) I did a PMCS, that’s Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services for you non-Army types, and found that one of the baseplate connections on the truck seemed loose. It moved up and down and it shouldn’t do that! This is the towbar connection point on the truck that is permanently mounted to the frame on each side. I inspected further, and found that the bolts were slightly loose, the bolt head was gouging into the frame as you can see from the picture below. There should be a flat washer there. I didn’t have any large flat washers on hand in my stash, just smaller diameter ones, so I tightened the bolts (on both sides) as best I could and made a commitment to stop at the earliest opportunity and get new washers.

So after just a few miles, we found a NAPA store in the town of Upper Lake with a big parking lot. I broke out the tools and took the bolt out to go inside for the right sized flat washers and also new split-washers for the “nut” side of the bolt.

Good thing I had everything needed. It pays to be prepared. I had to use the cordless drill driver to grind down the edges where the bolt head had gouged the frame and then I used my red loc-tite to put everything back together.

I only did the one bolt because it was so difficult to get the lock-nut off in the limited space available, and the other bolt looked fine at this time. I figured that once I get to my brother Ronald’s house, I could tackle the other one. I purchased extra washers to keep on hand.

Here’s a picture of the “wallowed out” hole in the frame caused by the bolt head not having a flat-washer underneath it to spread out the clamping force. There’s a lot of weight and pressure put on these two bolts when we are pulling the truck around corners and over some of the “fine” roads we have traveled recently.

With my confidence at a much higher level about the safety and security of the truck and Harley behind us, we continued our travel along State Highway 20.

Very dry with evidence of recent forest fire here.

Once we got to I-5 and started heading South, we stopped at a Pilot/Flying J to fuel up. 80 gallons at $4 per gallon 🙁

We continued through Sacramento – man do they ever need to fix these roads! And the traffic was terrible… Lots of folks passing and weaving – in a hurry to get to who knows where – and lots of trucks too. There were uncovered gravel trucks, open loads of tomato trucks, and even an uncovered hay truck, which reminds me – I need to check the intake to the air filter to clean some of that out!

After 196 miles today (Tuesday) we ended up at our current destination: Westley CA, home of my brother Ronald and his wife Terry. Here’s a few pics of the route into their little town – don’t blink, you’ll miss it if you go too fast 🙂

Preview of the evening’s agenda.

Stay tuned…

California

Trees of Mystery & More… (Klamath, CA)

2014/09/22 davidhobden@mac.com

It was 2 PM on Sunday before we got away from the park today. We changed sites 3 more times before we solved our power problem that I described in yesterday’s post.

The camp host was very accommodating and moved me to another site, but it was just another 30 amp pedestal and I had the same problem as before. The Surge-Guard display toggled between “No Ground” and “Check Wiring” and wouldn’t stay connected to shore power. So the camp host found me another site but I had to wait for the current occupant to leave. It was also a 30 amp site and once I was able to pull in and plug in, I still had the same problem. At least this time, I didn’t put the jacks down or the slides out before I plugged in.

The camp host kept checking on me throughout the morning, as did several other overly-enthusiastic camp occupants… Nice folks here. I had just resigned myself to “boondocking it” for the rest of today and tonight (I even warned my neighbor about running my generator) when finally – a 50 amp site opened up unexpectedly, and the camp host moved me in. Everything worked fine on the 50 amp in site #1 🙂 I was really starting to worry that my problem was with the Coach and not the park power. Although, I’ve never had problems on 30 amp power before, that is – other than tripping the breaker because we forgot to turn off the coffee pot while we still had an AC running or the microwave.

It turns out that most of the tenants here at the Chinook RV Resort are long-term residents that stay for the entire summer fishing season or longer, and most have travel trailers or 5th wheels that are fine on 30 amp power. All the other big rigs (Motorhomes) here are parked at the limited number of 50 amp spaces. Of course, I won’t know for sure until I get to the next campground and I plug into 30 amp again, but I’m going to assume for now that my Surge-Guard was simply doing it’s job, and the park’s 30 amp wiring here needs an upgrade. All the pedestals and boxes here are pretty old and deteriorated. The first one I plugged into almost fell over, the wooden pole was so rotten.

With the power problem solved for now, Stilla put some more clothes in the washer/dryer combo while I got tips from the camp host and others on local sites to see. We left at 2 PM with a list of things to go see and do today, so follow along and enjoy the pics.

Our first tip was the Klamath River Overlook on Requa Road which is a loop that climbs the mountain, (hill), that overlooks the mouth of the Klamath River at 600 feet. It was only 1/2 mile from our campground. Here are the views.

We still didn’t see any whales 🙁

Our next tip, which is a place we had passed on the way into town the day before – and knew of already, was the Trees of Mystery and Sky Trail (Gondola) Ride. This was one cool place that has a lot of history. It was founded in the early ’30s right off Hwy 101 and is only 3.5 miles North of our campground. Many of the trees here have been seen in Ripleys Believe It or Not. I’m sure this is one of the most visited and photographed sites in Northern California.

Here’s a link to their website if you would like more information. http://www.treesofmystery.net Enjoy the pics… although, as usual – the pictures don’t do the place justice.

The entrance fee was $15 per person. Now this was definitely high on my personal value-meter. Well worth it!

We passed some folks on one of the trails that were fascinated with something on the ground and were taking pictures… it turns out this is a rarely seen banana slug that was crossing the trail. So, I followed suit and took a picture also. So enjoy.

Once again, I don’t know how Stilla does it, but she found some more Germans. There was a film crew from Germany climbing one of the trees. They were doing a documentary on the Redwoods. We watched them for a while, at one point they even put a camera drone up in the air to film the climbers.

We continued on with our tour after the climbers were out of sight.

A highlight of this Place of Wonder is the Sky Trail (Gondola). It was included in the entrance fee. We had a six-passenger gondola all to ourselves. It takes 8 – 10 minutes to make the 1570 ft trip up the mountain.

Here is the entrance at the bottom.

Going up…

and up…

Our obligatory selfie:

Here we are at the top.

Here you can see the Pacific Ocean in the background.

After our fantastic trip above the trees, we drove back to the Coach to get little Coach so we could go through a tree. Unfortunately, we had left him in the Coach because we assumed the Trees of Mystery park wouldn’t be dog-friendly – the opposite was true, they allow dogs on leashes everywhere in the park, even the gondolas! But it was too late for little Coach to make his mark on any of the greater than 2,000 year old trees. So anyway, we picked him up and continued 1.5 miles the other direction (South) from our RV site to the next tip we got from folks at the campground – The Tour-Thru Tree!

I had to pull the mirrors in, but we fit. Here’s a picture I took in the mirror after we passed through and I pushed the drivers-side mirror back out.

When I said we fit – it was with one caveat.. I had to loosen one of the bicycles on the rack because the tire was starting to rub on one side. But hey, we fit 🙂

That was worth the $5 entrance fee. The tree is approximately 785 years old and the opening is 7’4″ (2.23 m) wide and 9’6″ (2.90 m) high.

The next tip we got from the camp host was to take the Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway which is a road that parallels Hwy 101 and goes through some more of the fantastically huge Coastal Redwoods.

But first we had to cross the Klamath River bridge.

This is the Klamath River.

After driving through some more of the scenic forest along the Newton B. Drury Parkway (which used to be part of the original Redwood Highway) to the Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park we arrived at Elk Prairie and the Ranger Station. It closed at 5 PM and it was now 5:30, so we just toured the outside of the building, took pictures of Elk in and around the meadow there, and took a short walk in the woods to close out our evening.

This picture of the map on the ranger station wall shows our location. Sorry about the quality, but as always, if you click on any of the pictures you get an enlarged view.

We took the long way back along a rarely used coastal road.

For those interested in WWII trivia; we came upon a “farmhouse” that was really a radar station in disguise. It has been preserved here on the coast just south of the town of Klamath. The placard below provides some interesting information.

Here’s the roof of one of the disguised radar stations from WWII.

We finally got back to our campground just after dusk. Shore power was still working fine and we even have satellite TV through the rooftop dish at our latest spot. I worked on this blog post while we watched some TV. We’ll head on a little farther South tomorrow (Monday) before we start moving back East towards Colorado… at least that’s the plan for now 🙂

Site #1 at the Chinook RV Resort, Klamath, CA.

Urban Escape Vehicle .com

Overnight Trip (Royal Gorge, CO)

Uncle Alan’s (Floride, CO)

Yay! Willi’s Here (Colorado Springs, CO)

FCRV Rolling Springs (Colorado City KOA)

Reunion with old Co-workers (Colorado Springs, CO)

6000 miles later – Back at the House (Colorado Springs, CO)

Ma Time (Las Vegas, NV)

Bro Time (Westley, CA)

Avenue of Giants & Moving Day (Westley, CA)

Trees of Mystery & More… (Klamath, CA)

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