April 1
Nate's entry calls this "A Fool's Departure." Well, the truth is, these fools didn't even make it out the door. It's incredible how much work it is to move back into an RV, even from a tiny little cabin you've only been in for five months!
April 2
After leaving South Fork in the dust (literally: see below), while on the trek to Denver through a town called Castle Rock, we were cautioned by a resident (as we were filling our fresh water tank) that the water there was probably...
RADIOACTIVE! Good grief! One more reason we were happy to be leaving Colorado: the whole state is one big"After School Special" (remember those?) about the dangers of mining and fracking: "C'mon, Colorado: if you loved me enough, you would let me frack you." Here is the EPA radon hazard map for Colorado. Thank goodness we picked a winter hangout that was in the orange (Rio Grande county, near the bottom).
April 3
Woke up this morning in a Walmart parking lot south of Denver. You think that's the exciting bit? Oh, no, dear reader. Here is the exciting bit:
(You've got to love a guy who can keep smiling here, despite the incredible awfulness of the whole scene: we're stuck at Walmart because none of the campgrounds were open yet, and we're in a surprise snowstorm that dropped about six inches overnight, keeping us parked until the lot was plowed. To Walmart's credit, the plows were out bright and early!)
Here is how the kitties dealt with the snow:
"What snow?"
That's their new sleeping shelf, built by Nate, to keep them with us but *importantly* not on us at night… and those curtains are black-out thermals. Thanks again to Ace & Kathie for giving us their whole set of cream curtains: they kept us much warmer than we would have been on this cold and crazy road trip. :)
We spent the night at a great campsite with hookups:
(Chatfield State Park in Littleton), but it was too pricey to do again, so we headed north to Fort Collins.
April 4 : $24 saves our lives!
Between Denver and Fort Collins, again no campsites to be had, we found a truck stop to park in overnight (bleh). As we sat at the kitchen table, enjoying the ambience of vibration and noise the generator provided, we got grumpier and grumpier as we looked at the weather forecast and the map: more cold and windy weather ahead. Seems we had left a bit too early in the season for this northern route we'd chosen (instead of the southern route we had already done part of, back in our Arizona adventure days in October), but we were having trouble thinking through any kind of solution. :( Suddenly, the overhead cabinet next to the front door started blaring a terrible, high-pitched tone. It took us a minute to figure out what was going on: it was the carbon monoxide detector, packed away in the cabinet!
We realized the generator exhaust was getting inside Baba G, since the wind was blowing from aft to fore and we were sandwiched in between two big semi trucks. Nate walked up front, and pushed the button that killed the generator… before it killed us! Our little $24 CO monitor (Kidde brand) had saved our lives. If you don't already own one, and you have anything that burns fuel in your home, go buy one now! And get the kind that constantly records the actual concentrations of CO in the air and keeps the peak value recorded (when the alarm went off, we were at 80ppm). The scariest thing about this whole episode for us was that we hadn't even thought about needing a CO monitor in the RV: we bought it-- and a smoke detector-- because our South Fork cabin was heated entirely by wood stove! Now, they are both mounted right up over our bed in Baba G.
April 15
After just one day of glamour camping, our freshly scrubbed selves decided to move on. And boy were we glad we did: we found the most gorgeous free camping of our entire adventure. Feast your eyes on our campsite in Wallowa Whitman National Forest:
April 5-6
An open campground, at last! We camped for two nights, practically on the Fort Collins city limits, which gave us time to explore just a bit...
… and by that, of course, I mean explore local breweries. ;) Here are our fabulous bartenders and Nate all mugging for the camera at the aptly-named Fort Collins Brewery. The flight of beers was a bit much for us… especially for me, with my super-dark-motor-oily Russian Imperial Stout (on the left).
April 7
Long day of driving, through crazy crosswinds and headwinds, snow flurries, and a brief whiteout (not nice) from Fort Collins, CO to Saratoga, WY. But, once we got to Saratoga, what a fabulous find: $10 per night camping on a reservoir with electric hookup and bathrooms… and a FREE public hot spring downtown with hot showers! =:-O
April 8-9
Soaking up the hot spring, doing laundry, and just taking it easy in Saratoga, WY.
Happy Dashboard Kitties
Happy Soaking Husband
April 10
Another driving day, from Saratoga to Cokeville, WY, where we searched in vain for a mythical BLM (Bureau of Land Management) dispersed camping area, and then gave up and just parked in a gorgeous little nook next to a river, just across the street from a little waterfall. Yeah, pretty ridiculous. ;)
Tigger does not like noisy water!
April 11
Drove across the rest of Wyoming and crossed into Idaho. Oh, unhappy Idaho, where almost everyone we met was grumpy. Maybe they're happier after the snow melts for good… Anyway, we made a quick touristy lunch stop in Soda Springs, ID, which ended up being one of the highlights of our whole road trip because of this fabulous surprise:
The Soda Springs Geyser, which spews forth every hour on the hour, as it's controlled by a valve. And why does it need a valve in the first place? Because, without one, its gushing throws Old Faithful off schedule! No kidding!
Yes, Baba G got a bit of a mineral bath at the geyser. ;) Oops!
We continued driving through to Idaho Falls, where we found another great free campsite (with paved pad, grill and picnic table, though the bathrooms were locked overnight: boo), in a little park right on the water.
And we got there in time for a gorgeous sunset (no that's not the moon… just a drop of condensation on the camera lens: it would be more than a bit alarming if the moon was under the clouds, right?):
April 12
Decided to stop at Craters of the Moon National Monument (read all about it here) and stretch our legs on the lava fields and in the caves, and then had our first "road fire" that night at yet another free campsite: Stanton's Crossing.
Iridescent Lava
Nate loves crawling around in caves!
Roadside camping, Baba G style.
April 13
For my birthday, we woke up to our lovely campground (that we had all to ourselves), caffeinated ourselves, and decided to celebrate with a crazy mission of driving until we got to the Oregon border. Fun! OK, not so much.
Such a great spot!
A wee bouquet of birthday wildflowers
Birthday lunch: too expensive Thai. :{
This is what happens when you find yourself starving in the middle of Nowhere, Idaho.
We ended up making it to another free campground along the bank of the Snake River, north of Vale, OR. It would have been an incredibly cool spot, if we were there alone and if we hadn't driven an extra 30 miles just to have a "free" place to spend the night. (For Baba G, who gets 2 miles per dollar, free spots that are out of the way are never really free.) As it turned out, there were LOTS of other campers and they seemed very odd and close-knit, so we didn't give the kitties much time to explore, closed our curtains, and packed it in just after dark. Hence, no pics.
April 14
Recovery day: short driving day, starting with a jog south through Vale (with a quick breakfast stop at a diner that was supposed to be a belated birthday breakfast but was pretty, well, meh) to Unity, Oregon. We decided to cough up some cash and stay at the state park, which was practically empty and right on the Unity Reservoir. Sadly for the cats, all the Oregon State Parks require pets to be on leashes at all times and there were park hosts on site, so the cats were leashed and hating life. OK, for most of the time they were outside the RV.
It was absolutely incredible to take long, hot showers and use flush toilets at any hour. Totally worth the price tag… of just $22.
Our spot at Unity Reservoir S.P.-- you'll note that the Beast is now just the Best.
No neighbors, except the out-of-view park hosts. Poor kitties!
After just one day of glamour camping, our freshly scrubbed selves decided to move on. And boy were we glad we did: we found the most gorgeous free camping of our entire adventure. Feast your eyes on our campsite in Wallowa Whitman National Forest:
We literally had the whole place to ourselves and there was firewood everywhere!
There were three NF campgrounds in a row along the road, so we parked Baba G and locked her up at the first and took a quick recon trip in the Civic. After seeing all three (all completely empty), we ended up at Wetmore Campground and hoped the name was not a bad omen.
Dinner wasn't too shabby either: Clam Linguine with a Pink Sauce,
served with garlic bread and some microbrew or another.
Fabulous campfire that Nate built while I played with three ecstatic kitties.
After almost a fortnight on the road, Nate and the cats and I had gotten into a pretty fabulous groove and moving along almost each morning no longer seemed like a chore. Baba G was in fine fettle, and we were gradually headed downward in elevation, so it seemed we were literally "over the hump" of driving… right up until April 16th.
Up Next: From Desert to Seashore, in Just 30 Days-- PART II
