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....................

Sticker Shock

Well after not hearing anything from the shop yesterday, I called this morning to find out the status of the motorhome. The service lady tells me, oh they haven't even got to it yet, maybe this afternoon or Thursday morning. Hmmmm, as I try and keep my composure, you've had my house for 3 days and haven't even looked at it yet, grrrrrrrr. Ok, not much I can do about it, as it seems they are about the only place in town who do chassis work. They also asked if I could bring down our extended warranty information incase the ABS system needs work (light came on).  So, Sheryl and I hopped in the Jeep and headed down there (other side of town of course.) Good thing was, when we arrived the mechanic that would be working on the rig was at the front desk picking up the keys to get started on it. We had a chance to talk, so he knew just what I wanted done and said he should be able to have it done by Thursday afternoon. Now for the Sticker Shock, I was thinking around $1000.00 for all the parts and labor, ouch, but nope, try $2000.00, dang, really, *&^%$, @#$%^, )$%#*&. Ok, well I guess that's the cost of owning a motorhome and the associated maintenance, we did have several things done at once that would normally be spread out over time. So it has sunk in now and were over the cost (not really but.....) at least we will feel much better and safer going down the road and at least we had our daughter house to stay at while the work was being done. We decided, even if the rig is done Thursday afternoon, we'll pick it up Friday morning so we can just head out on our travels from there.
Ok, that's the painful update, so until next time....................see ya then!!!  

Motorhome Service and an Cool Old Jeep

 Today we dropped off our motorhome to have some routine maintenance done, brakes, trans, and wheel bearings. This is the first time we ever had to leave our home in someone else's hands, especially strangers. This is the only certified Ford large/medium truck shop in OKC, they don't take appointments, so you just drop it off and they call you when it's done (or with any unforeseen problems). Luckily, we have our daughters house to stay at, since it looks like they'll be keeping it for a couple days. Well, with any luck, it won't be too long or cost us and arm and a leg (we're expecting at least and arm....lol) After we get her back, we'll be on the road again and headed west.

Before leaving today, a gentleman came into the RV Park, towing this old Jeep CJ-5, and what caught my eye was the paint and graphics. As you may know I'm a Jeep guy, so after he got all set up I just had to go over and talk to him. Seems he just bought it not to long ago and had a little work done to make it drivable. Of course the main thing he had to do was remove the USMC lettering it came with and replace it with the more fashionable USAF (being a retired Air Force guy, you can see why). We chatted for a bit and he let me get some shots of it in return for a copy of the pictures I took, not a bad trade off.
As we pulled out today, I had a bit of a learning curve with the new tow bar, but after few hitches and unhitches I'll get the hang of it. I really like the stone shield, just gives that little peace of mind that your towed vehicle wont be damaged by flying rocks and such.
That's it for now, we hope to be on the road tomorrow, but it will all depend on the shop. So until next time.................................