Day 8 – 2135 miles … Altitude, vistas, weather and camping

The weather in the mountains seems to be almost perfect for camping. We start each morning in the low 70s, air is dry and the sun, while out is not blistering… all of this is very conducive to waking up and going for a little stroll. The state park we are in has a great overlook of the lake and the place seems to be overrun by “bunnies”. Yep, lots and lots of rabbits everywhere. While the girls go out on a bunny safari, armed with a camera, I decide to tackle some maintenance on our RV.

Our motor home is equipped with 2 engines, the main one for the truck and a very small one for the generator. We need the generator running for any electrical device. So, our generator runs a great deal, usually non-stop, unless we are parked where we can plug in. Our truck engine requires an oil change every 3000 miles (we will have to do one shortly) and our generator every 100 hrs of use. I decided a couple of days ago, that I would tackle the generator oil  change myself. Several trips to Wal-Mart (we visit these a lot) and I have gathered the parts and tools needed for the endeavor.

I call Abuelo, to make sure there is no secret trick to doing this (he claims there isn’t), seems straight forward enough: 1. Remove oil drain plug, 2. Drain oil into something, 3. Replace plug, 4. Fill with oil, 5. Tada!. I get everything ready, all the tools at my side, 2 rolls of paper towels, a milk container for the old oil and 3 funnels (of different sizes). The first challenge comes when the milk bottle with the funnel doesn’t fit underneath the motorhome  … hmmm … 2 choices, raise the motorhome or cut the container. I use my trusty (an now always at my side) leatherman (with the 2.5” locking blade) and cut the milk container in half. Perfect!

I balance the container with the funnel underneath where the drain plug is, but the funnel is making this setup top heavy … so I prop some rocks around it to hold it in place. I put a bunch of paper towels around, just in case. As I start removing the drain plug, I realize that the oil isn’t draining directly underneath the plug, but flowing a little to the side … now , I’m about to have an Exxon Valdez moment … fearing reprisal from the “green movement”, I quickly put the plug back in, and reposition my collection unit. In the end, I use up the entire 2 rolls of paper towels, capture about half the oil in the container and the other half in the towels … success! Well, I’ll chalk it up to success.

Our first stop is a stroll through Trinidad and some shopping there. Pretty town … the girls play at a park, while we do some shopping at Safeway. By about 1P, we are all packed up, again, and fully stocked. We have enough room for about 2 days of food, since the fridge is a little small (think bar size fridge) and there is little cupboard space.

We carry many books for this trip (I think Michelle has brought over 12 of them). We have one book called “The Most Scenic Drives in America” (great book), It shows you the scenic drives and then provides all the history and important information about it. Scenic drive #44, is called “Highway of Legends”. It is an 80 mile “loop”, that follows the Purgatoire River into the Culebra Range, over Cucharas Pass and back down following the Cucharas River. This is our first real experience in the mountains … and I can tell you, it is no disappointment. The scenery and vista are magnificent, words and even the pictures I have taken do it no justice. I’ve made a mental note, to learn to take better photos, so that I can hope to come close to capture what we saw.

This part of the trip, was also our first experience with driving in the mountains … our average speed through the 80 miles, was about 30 mph, and these where all good roads. We climb from about 7000ft to the pass at 9,941ft. We encounter some grades of 8%+, which has our home dropping into first gear just to keep going and speed below 20mph (no matter what I did with the gas pedal). I watch the gauges on my dash do 2 things, fuel and speed get lower and lower, while temperature and pressure get higher. Our water temp got almost into the red in our big climb.

Our “Highway of Legends”, drops us onto another very scenic road, highway 160. This drive west affords more spectacular views. Throughout the day, which has been overcast, we can see lighting storms in the distance and have gotten some rain. As we enter the San Luis valley, we see some very dark clouds ahead and know that we will be rained on … wow … what an understatement.

I think I’m ready for this … I do live in Florida, and we have some great torrential rainstorms … The rain comes, it is fierce, as are the winds. It gets to the point we can see about 15ft in front of us, so we pull over to the side. Then it gets loud in the RV, and I mean loud. It wakes Jack who is sleeping, and we need to yell just to communicate. Everyone is off the road now … the reason it got loud and was getting louder, had to do with the hail that was falling … I now know what the inside of a snare drum must be like. The storm passed us in about 10 minutes (it felt like an hour), and it had dropped a great deal of hail. The entire valley looked like it was covered in snow. 

I grabbed a bowl to gather some hail for the girls, I opened the door to step out and was greeted by a blast of sub-arctic air. I screamed like a little girl as I ran to the side and scooped up some of this cold stuff. Back inside, the kids had a great laugh and played with the hail for the next 20 minutes. We continued on our drive, only to learn what happens in arid locations when it rains heavily …  mud slides and wash outs.  We drove through and had to avoid a couple of these on the road. I felt sorry for the many motorcycle riders we passed.

We continue down Highway 160 until just past South Fork, CO for a stop at the Fun Valley RV Campground. According to the books we have, and the research on the internet … this place had 800+ sites and rave reviews from people that would spend weeks here for many recurring years … Fun Valley, is in a valley that has the Rio Grande running through it … this is the upper part of the river, so here, it’s not so “grande”. The site layout is a little “adhoc” … our instructions … drive around and find a place to pull into. So we did.

Our first drive in the mountains can only be summarized by wow!