Roadtrekingmike

The people who live in southwest Colorado have big smiles on their faces these days. Us, camped for our last day in the knock-your-socks-off beautiful Mesa Verde National Forest before moving on to Telluride and a few more spots, not so much. t The locals are grinning because the risk of wildfires - which devastated the region last year – is way down now. We’re not quite as appreciative because our plans were altered by a day of mountain monsoons. We had planned to do some video and still beauty photos of our Roadtrek eTrek navigating the winding mountain roads overlooking spectacular valley and canyon vistas. Before setting out, I had to move the travel trailer my daughter and her family is using from their full hookup site to a dry camping spot across the road. That went fairly easy as I hooked it up to the Roadtrek and then backed it into a new spot. Im getting used to backing the trailer now. Not good, but used to it. Close enough to at least get the job done. Then my son moved his borrowed Roadtrek SS Ideal across the street, too. A balky sofa bed motor that has given us trouble since we left Michigan a week ago completely stopped working and we spent two hours playing RV mechanic until we got the bed to once again go down. Then, the bright blue skies suddenly rolled up and the dark grey cloud rolled in… and emptied. First the rain came from the west. Then it circled round and came from the east. It slammed into us in wind-driven sheets. The temperature dropped from the mid seventies to 49 degrees. This at 4PM, and in a matter of 30 minutes or so. So we have spent the last few hours watching the storms move over the mountains. Pretty awesome, really. The lightning strikes are longer and brighter the thunder more booming as it reverberated through the canyon. So we have made the best of it. A delight of this place are the deer which are everywhere and pretty much oblivious of people. They don’t even seem very concerned about our dogs, who are now so used to seeing them they don’t even bark. Hua Hua and Rachel drew pictures of them and we have them taped to a cabinet in the Roadtrek until we get home and transfer them to the refrigerator. Last night, my daughter-in-law Amy spotted Brown Sugar, a little two-year-old black bear cub abandoned with her brother, Mohawk, by their mother. By the time the rest of us got to the spot, the bear had moved on. For awhile this afternoon during the rains, I hung with my two grandaughters in the back of the Roadtrek. I wanted to teach them “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” but Jennifer insisted we change it to “99 Bottles of Pop on the Wall.” It isn’t the same thing. They got bored with that by the time we were in the sixties. So we surfed the net for a while on the park’s excellent WiFi system. Then they went back to their trailer. For me, it was a great excuse for a nap. The monsoons seem to be lifting and the temperature is starting to rise again. One thing about the mountains. The weather changes like a snap of a finger. And frowns can turn to smiles just as fast. That’s the great thing about RV vacations. It’s all good, isn’t it? Check out the rainbow.

The Morefield Campground at Mesa Verde National Park is nestled into a scenic canyon some four and a half miles off US 160 from the park entrance. With 267 sites, it seldom fills up. That’s because all but 15 are for dry camping only and of the 15 with full hookups, none accomodate RVs over 45 feet in length. The Class A congestion that turns so many other campgrounds into “tinominium “complexes is refreshingly absent here. Each site has lots of space between its neighbors and native Gambel oaks, tall prairie grasses and wild flowers and make for a spectacular wooded canyon that abounds with wildlife. At least two young black bears, two year olds recently kicked out on their own by their mother, are frequently seen. One, cinnamon colored, is called Brown Sugar by park rangers. The other is dubbed Mohalk for the band of light fur along his back. Campers are told at check in to be sure and put everything away at night, especially and including the white water hoses those in the full hookup sites use. “Their mother taught them if they bite into one of those little hoses, they get a nice drink of water,” said Janet, one of several women who staff the registration desk. “We had one camper who didn’t follow our suggestion and awoke the next morning to find that his water hookup was now a sprinkler hose.” There’s also lots of deer in the park who wander freely amidst the campsites. I set up the travel trailer for my daughter and my son’s borrowed Roadtrek SS in full hookup sites. In our eTrek, Jennifer and I set up across the street, dry camping. The key attraction here at Mesa Verde are the amazing archeological cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Pueblo people who lived here between 600 to 1300 in structures built within caves and under outcroppings in cliffs. The ruins are the largest archaeological preserve in the United States, scattered across 81.4 square miles. The park was created in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt and there are lots of spots to see them and even crawl through them. No one knows why the ancestral pueblo people settled here, in an arid and hot high desert. More mysteriously, no one knows why, after centuries of living here, they suddenly moved. But the sandstone dwellings are amazingly well preserved and the U.S. Forest Service does a great job explaining everything. We did the tours in shifts because of the dogs. I dozed with them in a shaded picnic area while the others toured. Then it was our turn and they watched the dogs. This is a huge park. To get to the cliff dwellings, you drive 23 miles up a winding mountain road, climbing to about 8.500 feet from the 6500 at the campground level. There are several great hiking trails, too, for all levels. Sunsets are spectacular. And sunrises are peaceful in the clear, clean mountain air. With a cup of coffee and your dog by your side, as seen in the photo of my son, Jeff, it does’t get much better…anywhere. Wear lots of sun screen up here. The air is thin and the UV rays really strong. We’re due to stay here through the weekend, heading to Telluride Sunday.

Remember that new Samsung Galaxy 4S that I wrote about two weeks ago -- RVing and My New Smartphone -- Well, that smartphone did a dumb thing: It up and died on me. It won’t charge, won’t power up and is totally dead. And I’m in the middle of a two-week RV trip in the Rockies. I tried all the reset tricks, like removing the battery. Its certifiably dead. Yesterday was the first time in two decades that I was without a cell phone and … I survived. I had my calls forwarded to Jennifer Wendland’s iPhone but if you message me, know I won’t get it. And if you’ve been following our travels on that little intetactive map over on the right sidebar, it is no longer functioning. It looks like I can’t get a replacement until I get back home to Michigan and my Verizon dealer. My iPhone never failed ... ever…the Samsung died in two weeks. Maybe I need to go back to Apple.

I have a whole new appreciation for my Roadtrek eTrek. It not only allows us to boondock, or dry camp, for days on end, it can haul us up some of the steepest mountains in Southwest Colorado… while hauling a travel trailer. Our little family caravan made our way south from Colorado Springs in some pretty dicey driving conditions. Heavy downpours, fog, slippery roads and high altitude. But it wasn’t until we hit US 160 near Wolf Creek Pass when I put the eTrek to the hauling test. Some 37 Miles of steep incline and a 8% winding decline made the ascent of Pikes Peak the day before seem like a Sunday drive. It was pouring rain the whole way. The eTrek drove firm and steady, though its’ a good thing the speed limit was 45 mph because that is about all I could get out of the Mercedes 3500 engine hauling our 21-foot AmerLite travel trailer. That’s when I remembered why Wolf Creek Pass was so familiar. It was a song made famous by Country music artist C. W. McCall’s humorous spoken-word song of the same name, in which the pass is fondly described as “37 miles o’ **** — which is up on the Great Divide.” In the song, two truckers drive an out-of-control Peterbilt down U.S. Highway 160 over the pass. I looked at Earl and his eyes was wide His lip was curled, and his leg was fried. And his hand was froze to the wheel like a tongue to a sled in the middle of a blizzard. I says, “Earl, I’m not the type to complain But the time has come for me to explain That if you don’t apply some brake real soon, they’re gonna have to pick us up with a stick and a spoon…” (“Wolf Creek Pass” written by Bill Fries and Chip Davis, sung by C.W. McCall) Here is is if you want to sing along: http://youtu.be/xC_onLPc-0E It was a real test. The highway climbs to 10,857 feet, smack dab on the Continental Divide. I used the Mercedes engine to downshift on the decline. The trailer brakes stunk mightily as they heated up and we had to take a 45-minute break to let them cool down once we reached the bottom. My son, Jeff, following in a borrowed Roadtrek SS, had no problems. My daughter Wendy, following in our Honda Pilot SUV, suffered from altitude sickness. The rain continued all the way to Mesa Verde National Park. We didn’t get in until very late and got very wet setting up. It was my first test of backing up the trailer. After Wolf Creek Pass, it was a piece of cake.