Boondocking, a rodeo, a concert and a trip over The Rockies
Technically, we were in Colorado all week minus our trip to Cheyenne Frontier Days.
We arrived on Monday to Livermore, Colorado. The first two pictures are of us boondocking (not hooked up to water, electric or sewer) at a farm in northern Colorado. This stay was boopked through Harvest Hosts. The couple had several acres and are fellow RVers. They wanted to provide other campers a safe place to stay. While the ground wasn't super level, we found a spot that worked for us. This was our first attempt at using our solar power and lithium batteries. I stuck to grilling and minimizing the use of power in the RV. I booked this location because it was FREE. Yep, five days of quiet nights and starry skies! The best part was the couple had a few dogs so Mello made some new friends and could be off leash the whole time! The road was a bit bumpy but it was about 11 miles off Route 80 so very convenient for us to stay.
We didn't know about Cheyenne Frontier Days until someone in Harrisburg asked if we were going. Upon doing some research, we found out there were daily rodeos and concerts so we opted for a full day of fun! We arrived in time for the 1pm rodeo. What a cool experience!! Things happen in a flash at rodeos! There was a lot of activity between the different events, the girls on horseback doing tricks and stunts and the advertising. We were far from bored at a rodeo! Between the rodeo and concert, we indulged in some fair food, a trip to Planet Fitness for a shower and viewed some of their displays. Mello camped at the Red Ruff Inn overnight so she had a full day of fun as well! Tim McGraw was fantastic in concert! He played several new songs and lots of Tim McGraw classics. We logged over 12,000 steps that day so needless to say, we were beat!
Our second stop in Colorado is Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch in Gunnison, Colorado. Gunnison was about a 5.5 hour drive from Livermore. When booking our trips, I try not to schedule more than 6 hours of driving in a day. No problem, right?
Wrong, very wrong!! Let's begin with crossing The Rockies. Never in my life have I been as stressed or panicked coming over those mountains. (Ok, maybe one time when I was thrown out of a white water raft, twice in one day.) The twists, turns, and uphill and downhill roads were a lot for me! There were limited areas to turn off. Once we made it through the roughest slopes, I thought we were in the clear. False alarm. On the final descent (think airplanes right now), we followed a slow moving truck for a good 20 miles at about 30 miles an hour with Vern's foot on the brakes the whole time. Towards the end of the downhill path, he said to me 'I don't think our brakes are working anymore'. Uh oh. We had a similar experience in our first RV so we knew to find a spot to pull over ASAP. Thankfully we found a gravel spot to turn into.
Our next step was to call our insurance company for roadside assistance. No cell phone reception. We got our Starlink satellite dish out and learned how to make wifi calling. We were able to find our longitude and latitude using Google Maps to give the operator our location. However, they didn't have any available trucks that could haul both the RV and the truck. Vern called a local tow service and they told us they could come but suggested we let the truck cool down for about an hour and that usually fixes the brake issues. The really nice guy said that he sees this all the time. Sure enough, an hour later of waiting, our brakes worked.
Monday we have a scheduled appointment at the garage here in Gunnison to check out everything on the truck so we're staying in this weekend.
Check out the great pictures of Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch! This is a newer Thousand Trails Campground. We'll be here for two weeks. The campground is beautiful with lots of great amenities including horseback riding lessons and trips. We are right across from the Blue Mesa Reservoir which is Colorado's largest body of water.
We are looking forward to the following:
1) Getting the truck looked at
2) Checking out the sites
3) More quiet nights
