Vallecito RV Resort, Colorado

 Our retreat in the mountains for this week is the Vallecito Resort at Vallecito Lake. The area is 18 miles east of Durango at around 7500'. The park is heavily wooded and all sites are gravel. The park is well kept with most of the RVer's here for the season.

When we called there were only 3 sites available, we were lucky and got one of the site on the perimeter.

We look out over the mountains with sparse woods and meadow for a view, beats staring at other peoples rigs.

A short 50 yard walk directly in front of use reveals a beautiful mountain river.

We are enjoying our time here and just want to give you a quick glimpse of where we are staying. So now Sheryl and I are off for another adventure, so we'll see you back here before long!!!

Exploring Middle Mountain, San Juan N.F. Colorado

 We made it into Vallecito (18 miles East of Durango) on Tuesday and yesterday headed into the San Juan National Forest. Todays adventure was to explore the Middle Mountain Trail, the Forest Service Road climbs 13 miles into the mountains with some pretty good elevation gains and amazing views.

 Aspin Stand

 

 Mountains to the West

 

 High mountain meadow

 

 Wild Flowers along the trail

 

 East Mountains

 

High mountain stream

 

 

We have really been enjoying our time here in Vallecito, the weather is great (ok maybe a little cool in the mornings) we awoke to 38 degrees this morning. That being said, we'll take highs in the 70s all day long compared to the hot August days at the lower elevations!!!

That's it for todays adventure, we'll see you again soon from the Colorado Mountains!!!

Exploring The Cordova Pass, CO.

 The other day brought a trip over the Cordova Pass in the Spanish Peaks. The road is 35 miles of dirt and gravel and can be quite rough in places, and connects the town of Aguilar on the east side and CO 12 on the west side of the pass.

 The views along the 11,248' pass are amazing.

 The Apishapa Arch was built by The Civilian Conservation Corps when building the road in 1933. The road was built through a rock outcropping making the arch.

 Mountain Wild Flowers.

 Views along the East side of the Pass Rd.

 The are many old and abandoned structures along the Rd.

 These are old Coke ovens along CO 12 in Cokedale. Coke is made by removing the moisture, sulpher and phosphorous from coal and is the preferred fuel for smelting iron. In 1909, 350 of the ovens were in operation.

Mountain lake along CO 12.

Our time here in La Veta is up in the morning, and we'll be making our way to the Durango area. We have reservations at Vallecito Lake Resort RV Park, up in the mountains Southeast of Durango. We'll be staying there for at least a week (maybe more) while we explore the San Juan Mountains. We have really enjoyed La Veta, it's a great little mountain town and we highly recommend you visit if you are ever in the area. It's alittle off the beaten path, but that's what makes it a gem of a place.
That's all for now and we'll see you soon from Lake Vallecito.

Spanish Peaks Area around La Veta, Colorado

 Sheryl and I ventured out the other day to explore the Spanish Peaks area just outside La Veta, and just down from the RV Park. We spent about 2 hours out and about to get a feel for the area. Above is the view from the road up to Bear Lake.

The wall as seen from CO 12.

 

 Mountain Stream

 Meadows and Mountains

 

 Flowers by the Stream

 

The Twin Peaks or as the American Indians of the area call them "The Breasts of the Earth"

We have been enjoying this area and the Small Town of La Veta. It is your standard little mountain town with a short but lively main street. Yesterday was Farmers Market day, we took advantage of the fresh grown veggies for last nights pasta dish, it's amazing the difference in taste compared to supermarket veggies. Town is just a couple of blocks down from the RV Park and I have been enjoying so much  forget to take the camera to get shots of the town. Oh well maybe next posting.
Not much else going on, just exploring the town, area and enjoying the weather, August and the high so far has been 80. So, until next time.......................see ya then.

Entering Colorado and a Rude Awakening

 We left Guymon, OK. Monday and headed north toward and into Colorado. I wanted to stop at the welcome to Co sign for pictures but that seemed to be a popular place with a couple of semi's and wide load escort trucks. So we pushed onward to the town of Springfield. Sheryl's Great Grand Parents homesteaded this area and she wanted to do a little research plus visit the Cemetery where most were buried. After spending a couple of hours in Springfield, we left for Lamar to the north.

 We got checked into the campground on the outskirts of Lamar and took a little walk around. The last thing we expected to find (here or anywhere) was this, a VA Clinic made out of a goose neck trailer and trailer box hooked up to the campground utilities, interesting and amusing at the same time.

 We saw this on the back of the VA Trailer, who says they don't have a sense of humor....lol

 We awoke Tuesday and prepared to head out. As I was doing my check, I found this, dang it!!!

 Which lead to this...................

 Which lead to this.......................

Now, you would think calling your Roadside Assistance Carrier and Having your tire fixed would be a fairly simple and painless task.........you would be wrong or at least in our case we were....lol. First we called Good Sam, who were very helpful, but they said we had to buy a new tire and could not have the old one fixed. I was not about too buy a 400.00 tire until we had this one looked at. Next we called our insurance providers roadside Asst, but they weren't much help either. They sent out a guy in a pick up with a jack and some hand tools................that was no help as couldn't get the tire off. Long story shorter, I aired up the tire and limped the rig down to the local tire shop. They found a nail in the tire, removed it and put a good patch on it. We were good to go after that and of course several wasted hours.

We finally made it on the road headed west this time and our first view of the Southern Colorado Mountains, our destination for the next few weeks. Ahhhhh cooler temps and beautiful scenery all around us!!! Above is the view from County Rd 10 west out of La Junta. We made to our destination for the next week, La Veta, CO. and the I Love Lucy's Place RV Park, but more on that later. So until then..............................

Corral "Drive-in" RV Park, Guymon, OK.

 As I said in our last post, we stayed a very unique RV Park here in Guymon Oklahoma. What's unique about it you say??? Well it has a working Drive-In Theater, with-in the park and from most sites you can actually watch the movie. They show movies Friday-Sundays and broadcast the sound via your FM Radio.

 They also have several old car placed through out the park and theater to bring home the old time ambiance. The RV sites are quite spacious and level, this is a well kept park.

Tonight's Feature: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and I enjoyed it from my comfy driver seat. All movies shown are family friendly with a rating no higher that PG-13. As I said, it is a pretty unique park and I just had to share it with you. So if your ever passing through Guymon in the Oklahoma Panhandle and need a nice clean park, this is for you.
Tomorrow we leave for Colorado, we'll be stopping in Springfield and Lamar as Sheryl wants to research a little family history from that area. Thanks for stopping bye and we'll see you back here soon.

Dumas TX Rodeo

 Yesterday was our last day in Dumas TX. but before leaving Sheryl's sister had a surprise for us. She remembered, she had gotten free tickets to the local rodeo, which just happened to be last night. She asked us if we were interested in going and we of course said Heck Yea!!!. Now Sheryl is an old rodeo girl from way back when her brother used to compete, me, I've never been to one in person, but I knew it would be fun. Here are a few of the shots I was able to get.

We had a great time but only stayed for a couple of hours, out of the 2 day event, but still managed to see quite a bit. Of course having a couple of experts along (Sheryl and Carol) to answer my dumb questions sure helped in understanding just what was happening.
We said our good byes and left Dumas this morning and headed north to Guymon OK. We will be here for a couple of days, which will give us a chance to visit with Sheryl's brother and also stop by the Family Farm up in Kansas. We did manage to find an interesting RV Park here in the Oklahoma Panhandle, but I'll leave that for the next post. So until then............................

Texas Moochdocking

 Sheryl got to feeling a little better, so we were off and running again. This time to Dumas, TX, to see Sheryl's sister Carol. We had reservations at a local RV Park for two days, so we stayed there. We did get in a couple of good visits with Carol and her husband, but we were due to head out toward Colorado on Thursday. Sheryl and Carol were having such a good visit and didn't want us to leave so soon, so they invited us to bring the RV over to their place and stay for a couple more days. They also hooked us up with 30amp elec and water, heck can't beat that!!!

Here are Sheryl and Carol, hard to believe they are actually twins. It's been good for them to catch up as they don't get to spend too much time together just one on one.
We are staying again tonight and enjoying their hospitality before heading out in the morning. So until next time.......................

Foss Lake State Park, Oklahoma

 We picked up the motorhome on Friday ($1887.00 lighter in our account) but well worth the peace of mind knowing everything is up to snuff, and promptly headed west. Our journey didn't take us too far as we planned on stopping at Foss Lake State Park in Western Oklahoma for a few days. The park is pretty much centered around a large lake mainly used for fishing and general recreation. The lake is down pretty far as most all seem to be due to the ongoing drought, but is still pretty. The park has several campgrounds open to RVers, 110 sites with elec and water, but only 10 with full hook ups.

 We chose one of the full hook up sites as we were going to be here for a few days. The full hook up sites are very close together, but most of the partial hook up site have much more room. I think next time we stay here it'll be in one of those. The sites are pretty level and either grass or gravel.



 

Sunsets at the lake can be pretty amazing.

 



One of the more interesting and unusual attractions at the park is the large herd of Buffalo they have on a 460 acre preserve surrounding the visitors center. The Buffalo normally stay down in a back draw or over one of the hills out of sight. However on Saturday Mornings, the brunch bell is rung and the rangers lead a stampede of the big fellows right up to a viewing area behind the visitors center. There is a small deck you can watch from, or like me, get right down by the fence and get face to face with them.

 It's quite a sight to see and once the hay is gone, like most of us after a hearty meal, they settle in for some down time. This day they spent most of the day around the water hole at the viewing area. These Buffalo are not domesticated in any way, they are just as wild as any of the herds roaming the larger preserves.
Our time here at Foss Lake will be up in the morning and we have plans to head on over to Dumas, TX. (just north of Amarillo) to visit Sheryl's sister for a couple of days, before continuing our adventure west.
That's it for now and we'll see your from the Great State of Texas in our next posting, so until then....................