bobanddenisewanderlust

Saturday- We were only driving 103 miles, since we had non-refundable reservations at the NRA Whittington Center , seven miles south of Raton. We left around 10 AM, stopping for lunch at a rest area, then continuing to the NRA Whittington Center. NRA being National Rifle Association, yeah, that NRA.

We have stayed at a different campground, at the top of the mountain, in the past but Bob did not like it there, so we decided to try this campground. It was a nice place, 4 easy miles off I-25.

We arrived around 12:30, set up and went to Raton. We drove by the fuel stations, checking out where we wanted to purchase diesel in the morning. From there we went to check out Sugarite Canyon State Park for a possible stopping point in the future. Nope, it was like described on RV Park Reviews. com, not a place to take a large motor home.

We went north to Trinidad to the Walmart, then returned to cook dinner, watch TV, and read our books. There were a lot of people in the park at the shooting ranges, but they stopped shooting at 5 PM and cleared out. The campground was nice, FHU, 30 amp, and we would stay there again in the future.

Since we do not know what type of site we will be getting in Westminster, and since the weather is cold, we are not sure they have opened the 30 amp sites for the summer yet, we decided to do laundry as we had sewer. First, I went to use water, and there was no water in the tank. Huh? We had filled up. So Bob connected us and we had water. Just the opposite of what we had yesterday.  I did laundry and because it was going to be below freezing, Bob unhooked the water and ran the pump for use overnight.

Sunday- We woke up to no water in the tank again. So Bob went out and filled up the tank. We left the campground at 9:25, heading north again on I-25. We stopped at a rest area. Bob went to check again and rushed back telling me to turn off the pump. With the pump running, we were losing water. So no water on the rest of the drive

Our plan had been to stop and have dinner with friends Marian and Marvin Grier in Colorado Springs. Now we had no idea what we were going to do.

While driving, I kept calling the Camping World in Colorado Springs( actually in the town of Fountain just south of Colorado Springs) and the one in Golden. Our problem is that it is freezing at night, so to keep our Hydro-hot from freezing, if we do not have 50 amp to run it, we have to run it on diesel.  This is not a problem for us, but if we are too close to another RV, we could cause problems for them. We don’t want to asphyxiate anyone!  Plus with it being so cold, we want at least 30 amp service for the furnace. Otherwise we have to run the generator all night.

So we decided to stop at the Camping World in Colorado Springs. The one in Golden stated that they did not have any hook-ups. By this time I was driving, so I turned off and we went to the Camping World.

Camping World was booked until late May for service. It did not matter to them that this was an emergency issue.  They do not  have hook-ups either! They gave us two business cards of mobile RV tech’s. The one we use in Westminster had not called us back yet, and he had been on vacation last year at this time. So we decided to go to the KOA($40) just down the road and hope that we can get one of the mobile RV techs to come fix the leak. We can hook up to water and be okay, we just cannot run the pump.

Meanwhile, Bob started researching the issue. He thinks it is a check valve. It is not something that he wants to fix himself. Getting to it and finding the right part might  be the hard part. We have only one day, Monday, as Bob’s cardiology appt. is Wednesday and we still have to get to Westminster.

Once we were settled, we called Marian and Marvin. They had used a mobile tech and a repair service, so Bob called that tech also. We might call the repair service tomorrow, as they are not open today.

At 4:40, we left the KOA and drove up to Colorado Springs to the Gier’s house for drinks prior to going to dinner at Edelweiss, our favorite German Restaurant.  The Griers like another German restaurant better, but it is closed on Sunday and Monday. Too bad, we would have liked to have gone there!

We had a great time at dinner, talking for hours! We finally left the restaurant just before 9 PM, and would have stayed longer but we were the only ones left and the staff wanted to go home….

Monday-  We woke up, and Bob had the A-fib again. We took showers and found that the milk was sour. No cereal today! So we went to IHOP for breakfast. After we ate, we bought gas for the car $3.42/gal. We decided to drive up to the ELKS lodge to see if there were any sites available. The temp is going to be higher today, so we can stay on the 30 amp and not have to worry about freezing the Hydro-hot.

There were three sites available, so we returned to the motor home, packed up and drove the 11 miles to the ELKS, arriving at about 10:30. We settled in to wait for the repair guy, Dennis Marconi, from Quality Mobile RV Service. We found out he is an ELK and did not mind changing places to do the repair.

I called Marian and we are going to dinner with them again.  Dennis arrived at a little before 1  and set about fixing our issue. Bob was right, it was and check valve, so Dennis replaced. He was relatively cheap, $101! Guess we rec’d the Elk discount. 

We spent the afternoon working on our trip to Alaska, figuring out how long it was going to take us round trip.

Marvin, Marian, and their daughter Maureen picked up up at six to go to dinner at the Navaho Hogan Roadhouse. The restaurant building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and is only about a block from the Elks Lodge.  It was a nice little place with excellent chicken, which all of us ordered.  I had a salad also with Thousand Island dressing. It was home made and surprisingly had some jalapeno in it! What a surprise! I gave half to Bob. 

Isn’t this ceiling interesting!

We sat talking again until almost 9 PM!  Then returned home to go to bed.

Tuesday-  Bad news, my salad dressing must have had bell pepper in it also, as Bob was up most of the night with severe indigestion.  He was pretty miserable.  Good thing he did not eat too much of it!  Of course, he still has the A-fib also.

We left the Elks at about 9:45 with me driving, as Bob is not 100% when he has the A-fib. So I drove to the Elks Lodge in Westminster. The temp has increased to above 40 overnight,  and the Elks had opened the 30 amp sites. All of the 50 amp’s were taken. So we pulled into one of the 30 amp. We are not really thrilled with the site, but we had to take what they had. All of the sites are close together in the 30 amp section, but at least we have sewer and water, so we can do laundry.

The temp was warm enough at 4 PM to go to happy hour, much to the dog’s delight, as we are able to let them off the lease and they can run and play with the other dogs.

Ernie and Ralene had arrived on Friday and Maryann and Fred had arrived on Thursday. Ernie is the camp host again this year.

We ate dinner in, watched TV and went to bed. Our mail had arrived today, so we went through all of that!

Wednesday-  We worked on cleaning out the pantry and drawers. Bob’s cardiology appt. was at 12:00 , so we ate a quick lunch, and ran to his appointment. The cardiologist added a new medication and sent it in to Walmart.

Bob’s computer, actually, my old computer, is dying a slow death, so we went to Best Buy to look at new ones. Bob had done some research, so he knew what he was looking for… I picked up a new battery for my new Nikon camera. I had purchased a Nikon Coolpix, 510 a few weeks ago. I wanted something with a more powerful lens than the little point and shoot. The point and shoot has 10x and the new one has 42x.

From there we went to Walmart to grocery shop and pick up his prescriptions.  We checked out the computers there and needed to go home and measure to make sure that it fits in Bob’s drawer.  It started to rain, and is going to rain for at least tomorrow. When we arrived back at the motor home, someone with another large motor home had moved in next to us, so we are pretty squashed in between a large 5th wheel and a large motor home.

It was still raining at 5:30, but we walked down to the Lodge for dinner. No one else did… Dinner was good, as usual. $8 for each meal. I had the fried shrimp with succotash and rice pilaf. Bob had the steak sandwich, which was a New York strip on a 1/2 a bun, with french fries.

It had stopped raining when we walked up the hill.  We watched TV, listened to the rain, and went to bed.

Thursday-   We did more work around the motor home. While cleaning out the back cabinet over the bed, we found some of the black rubber shelf liner. I wanted to replace the liner under the kitchen sink, so we stopped doing the cabinet, and went to do under the sink. We had a leak! The sprayer on the sink was leaking water, so we stopped, cleaned that up, and Bob went to Ace Hardware and picked up a new one. He replaced it, then we continued cleaning out the back cabinet, returning the leftover black shelf liner to the cabinet.

I had a hair appointment to have my hair cut and styled, with Lorraine, the gal who cut it short for me last October. Bob dropped me off, then went to Dr. Tong, the Endocrinologist to pick up a lab slip. He returned and picked me up and we went to Walmart to purchase a new laptop for him. We also picked up enough toilet paper and paper towels to make it through our trip. We now have enough room to store these items. We are taking non-perishable items with us, as they are more expensive in Canada and Alaska.

We returned to the motor home, just as it started raining, again. It has been raining, off and on all day. There was even hail for a sort period of time. We are planning to stay in for dinner tonight. I microwave cooked a turkey/pork meatloaf and ginger orange carrots.

Friday- Off to our primary doctor this morning for our bi-yearly appointments. I rec’d a lab slip and Bob had ear wax build up. From there we went to Joanne’s for some more fabric and other items for me. I had some left over Route 66 fabric and wanted more to make some placemats. So I picked up the matching material. We also stopped at Honey Baked Ham for ham salad sandwiches. We returned home and ate half the sandwiches.

Bob went over at 2 PM to Marianna’s rig and she cut his hair. I went to my Chiropractor appt.  Dinner was the Prime Rib at the Elks with the folks from the RV Park. I am a little upset. It seems that they have done away with the book exchange. No one seems to know why. Too bad, I have books to exchange.

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