Our Time off

Tuesday morning we turned over the Camp Hosting to Larry and Sue and headed into town.  We stopped at a store or two, then headed to a little deli for lunch.   Not bad, after that we did our grocery shopping and headed home. During lunch Larry called the guys turned on the water  to fill our tanks and we weren't home.  This no water is getting old mighty fast but we are dealing with it.    It has drizzled on and off all day and the temps have been pretty cool.....as usual.  Not a bad day though, sausages on the grill and hoping to do some sight seeing tomorrow. 

 

Wednesday we had breakfast at the Moho, then headed out to check out the other CG.  We always

Day Use Area at
Flatiron Reservoir

here calls for the CG's on the radio, but have no idea where they are or what they are like, so off we go.  Our first stop is at Flatiron, 27 electric sites and 3 tipi's....the sites are nice and large compared to ours, and half of them are on the water of Flatiron Reservoir.  We talked with the CG host and he really enjoys it there, this is their 3 year here and they plan on coming back....as long as the rain quits.  After that 3 more miles....straight up to Pinewood Reservoir.  They only have about 20 sites, but at almost 6500 feet, the view is beautiful.  The CG is not open for reservation, but if you show up with a tent, they won't turn you away.  There were a lot of people fishing when we got there, we talked with the host for a little (a widow), who has worked for Larimer County for 9 years now....I guess she likes it here.  We then stopped for lunch at the Windjammer Roadhouse Bar and Grill, and again the food was very good.  From there onto Eagle CG, the Carter Lake Marina...and the ROC (Rangers on Carter) office, Big Thompson CG (tents only), Carter Knolls CG, then onto South Shore CG.  We talked to the hosts at Eagle and South Shore and both seemed to enjoy their CG...just like us though, tired of the rain.  The other CG didn't have hosts, but they all were pretty nice and on the water.  We still have a couple of CG's to check out, but

Pull off on our way
down the mountain from
Pinewood Reservoir

they are on the way to Estes Park, and we headed the opposite way to check out the CG's we did.  We had Rudy with us for the day and he did great...until we were about 3 miles from home, then he got sick.  The poor thing, I think being stuck in his house for hours might be better than getting car sick.  Back home, a talk with Lynne, chicken on the grill with a veggie, a pretty nice day, cool and a few drizzles, but at least it wasn't a total wash out. 

 

Today we couldn't decide what to do, the weather isn't the greatest, but I wasn't in the mood to do laundry....so off we go.  We headed to Frederick, CO looking for an RV dealer that had a Nexus RV we wanted to look at....just our luck, they sold it yesterday.  While we were there we looked at a few other RV's a couple of Newmar's and a few Winnebago's....I like them both, but we headed out and stopped down the road at another dealer.  I did get to talk with Mel for a few minutes....but between the kids and me walking around a show room, we didn't talk long.....I miss her and the family, but I do appreciate the chances to talk when she can squeeze them in between the kids.  We actually were gone most of the day, arriving home about 4:30, a quick walk for Rudy, a glass of wine and it's time to start dinner....just burgers on the grill, but it ended up being about 7:00 until we ate.  It's amazing, nothing is really far away, but it takes forever to get there and get home.  Oh well, we both seem to be used to that and don't mind the drive.  We had a few thunder storms blow through but mostly a dry day.  The maintenance guy was in today and they found the water leak and if all goes well we should have water again by Friday or Saturday at the latest, we hope.

Diane and Brad

Rain, Rain, go away, California needs you!!!

Friday   As you can imagine we were full up all 54 sites rented.  We had 45 site marker to put out in between rain showers and nine sites were already checked in.  It did not rain all day but the rain clouds and the cold made for another miserable day.  As we returned from our afternoon trip around

Duck watching in
the rain!!

the park the skies just opened up and rained hard and steady.  Diane went in and went to do up the dishes and we have no water.   The maintenance guys show up and also agree we have no water.  By now it has been raining hard for over an hour and they are going to look for a water line break.   Five minutes later they decide to quit and come back when it dries out.   Now not every one was down and out.  One group of campers anticipated the weather so they rented a hot tub put a canopy over it and had some fun.

Saturday     We once again awoke to the pitter patter of rain on our roof.   Rudy didn't even get out of bed until it stopped.  It quit around 8am we took Rudy out and made our first trip around the park.  We had probably 5 no shows and one group of tenter's were packing up to leave.  The thunderstorms rolled back through around 5 or 6 and lasted a couple of hours.  It is so wet many sites have water running through them.  The kids did not mind as much as the adults,  many of them riding bikes, scooters and just running in the water.

Sunshine on
Horsetooth Mountain!!!

Sunday    Wait, wait, wait for it.  Sunny when we woke up.  Bright clear sunny blue skies.  My how the attitudes change with the weather everyone was out cooking, fishing and visiting friends just having a good time.  It was nice all day so we decided to have steaks on the grill for diner.  We finished our final rounds of the day, poured a glass of wine and I just started the grill as the skies turned dark and the thunderstorms rolled over Horsetooth  Mountain and descended upon us, we ended up with leftover beef potpie.  Today is the 24th of May and we have had 22 days with some kind of precipitation.

Outside enjoying
 our Sunshine!!

Monday     Happy Memorial Day to all.  No rain this morning and we even had breaks of sun shine.  This is the end of the holiday weekend and we have 40 of 51 campers checking out today.  With 5 no shows and several who left early there wasn't much to do.  After completing our rounds we once again planned to have steaks on the grill and as usual the clouds rolled in and it has been raining now for over a hour.  The only good news Diane has been cooking up a storm trying to fight boredom.   But he who eats well and can't exercise  will have to pay the price when the weather clears.  I finally cooked the steaks in between thunderstorms.  Nothing like Memorial Day cook out, 45 degrees thunderstorms and wind.  Despite the weather it was really a good weekend everyone had a good time and we meet some nice people making the best of the holiday weekend.

 

 

Diane, Brad and Rudy

Rain, Rain and cold rain

Sunday we finished our last day for the week.  We did pretty much the whole gamut of transactions, Cash, CC, transferred a camper from one CG to our CG, extended the stay of a camper....I'm sure we missed a couple of things that can happen, but for our first time at it, that was more that enough.  Now we get to work Memorial Weekend for another full house.....yeah. 

 

Monday  Well, the first shift is over and not to much to report.  Our shift ended  today without  incident.  Although there were two emergencies in the park, one was a hiker who fell off of an overlook and a missing hiker.  Both turned out OK the hiker who fell did have to be taken out via 4-wheeler and jeep.  The big news is the weather.  It has been rainy and cold and miserable.  We went to town shopping more or less to kill some time.  We found a bait and tackle shop, stopped and got a price for coach batteries, stopped for some groceries and headed  home.  We headed off to bed just as the rain started to pick up.

 

Tuesday  We woke up to a steady rain 36 degrees and it continued all day.  We didn't leave the camper at all except to walk Rudy.  It rained over two inches and caused mud slides and several road closures.  Diane made brownies and macaroni and cheese just to have something to do.  After supper and walking Rudy  I leaned over to pick some mud off of Rudy and I felt something pull in my back and in a few minutes I was down and out on my chair. I loaded up on pain killer and we headed off to bed.  We have what I call, the ugly ducks running around here and Tuesday he was chasing the geese and the little ones all over the place.....that was our excitement for the day. 

Argument between the Duck and Geese    

 


Wednesday  Temperature warmed up to 43 but the fog was so thick there was a heavy  mist in the air that lasted until noon.  I hobbled around and moaned until Diane couldn't take it any more and went to town.   She went through two work zones as they are clearing debris off the roads from the heavy rain.  She found a Rite Aid store and felt the need to make donation.  We had left over mac and cheese for diner I had some more pain pills and went to bed. 

(Brad did forget to mention that I noticed a boat that was just about under water.  About 15 min. later the marina had the barge/lift out towing it in....I was impressed with their response.) 

They used to be behind
the water line...not any more

 Thursday  Today the temp actually made to 60 degrees and we only had a little drizzle this morning.  Diane once again headed to town, she claims there are a few more things we need.  If I didn't know better I would say she is trying to get away from me.  We are soooo tired of cold and rain.  And it is to continue for another week at least.   This is are last day off as we go back on duty for the Memorial Day weekend.  At least the cold and rain "should keep the crazies" at bay for the weekend.

Brad, Diane and Rudy

Our first week of Work (ha ha)

Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Larry and Sue had Host duty, so we got to run around and check things out.  We found a few more stores for shopping, with the Ace Hardware being Brad's favorite.  Monday was a nice day, but the rest of the week we had rain, rain and more rain.  We have been watching the reservoir and every day the water level continues to rise.  South Bay (the other CG here) has a site or two that are flooded, but we only have one where the water is getting close to the fire pit....not bad.  The ducks and geese eggs are hatching, but the little ones don't seem to survive all that well, we understand there are a lot of foxes around that tend to get them.  We do have 2 geese families that have been hanging around all week, but the ducks seemed to have disappeared.  It is still too cool, damp and wet to do much exploring.  Actually a lot of the hiking and biking trails were closed all week due to the rainy weather, too muddy to be safe for hiking, so we have been hiding out inside or at the stores. 

 

Thursday morning Larry was over at 7:00, dropping of the work computer/CC machine and radio, we are now on duty.  Thursday is a pretty slow day, not many people scheduled to show up, but we did have two walk-ins (just stop in looking for a site) and I managed to do the computer work and run the CC with no problems.  We also had a lot of people stopping in with questions....surprisingly we were able to answer them.  We have a golf cart so we spent the day picking up trash and checking all the sites, getting ready for the mad rush on Friday. 

 

Friday morning the Rangers dropped off our post tags, of  the 54 site we have here, we had 48 tags to put out, and that took almost an hour.  After that, back home, have lunch and wait for the crowds to show up.  It is asked that we do at least 3 trips around the CG a day and as people check in, flip their tags showing they have arrived, not a tough one, at least until the tags get wet.  You are allowed to have 2 campers per site for an additional $10.00 a night, we had just one of those to check in, the rest were just simple tag flipping and meeting the campers.  We had rain early in the day, but about 4:30

Goose Family

the rain cleared out and the campers had a great night.  Brad did the last round while I cleaned up after dinner.  We settled in for a quiet evening, but 2 or 3 knocks at the door we were fearing a busy night, but at 10:30, lights out and a peaceful night for all. 

 

This morning Brad and Rudy did a walk around the CG while I slowly rousted myself out of bed.  Not bad, it actually was a beautiful, sunny morning and no rain to be seen.   Brad made breakfast on the grill and about 10:30 we headed out with the new post tags (only 3 today).  We talked with a couple of the campers and noticed 1 that was supposed to leave hadn't even started packing up yet....we'll have to stop back.  Back to the Moho, then about 11:30, back to see if they left...oops they were just getting back from breakfast and would be out by noon......ok.  We had a quick lunch, but did our next round about 2:00, but not until Brad had to fuss at someone for not keeping their dog on a leash.  It wouldn't have been so bad, but she was walking through our campsite with him.  After that we headed for our second round of the day, then home again and we went for a nice long walk with Rudy.  This time we got back to the Moho just in time for the rain to blow in.  Rudy and I hid inside, but Brad got to field a question or two, and by then the rain had quit, but the temp dropped.  It's now a little below 60 degrees and the dampness just goes through you....I guess we'll survive.  Tomorrow is our last day for this stint, so I'll keep you posted....hopefully no troubles. 

Brad and Diane

We were busy even with all the rain and snow!!

Wednesday was training 9 to 3 at the Park's Administration office kind of a over view of the parks dept. and Larimer county in general.  Of course it rained on and off all day.

 

Sooo much rain, even
the ducks looked for the high ground!

Thursday we had another day of training at the Larimer County office in downtown Fort Collins.  We learned how to use the reservation system and how to handle the monies collected. It was a long day 9 to 4 and Rudy was none to happy about being in his kennel for 9 hours. And it rained on and off all day. 

 



Friday was the last day of training again using the reservation system at the downtown office. Since training was from 9 to 12  we had time for lunch and a few shopping stops on our way home.

Diane made chili for dinner and Rudy was happy to have us home early. And of course it rained on and off all day.

At least the ducks
could us the flooded patio



 

Saturday no training  woo-hoo but it was cold and cloudy.  We sat around looking outside doing computer stuff(games mostly) wondering if it will ever dry out and half wishing we had training just to get out of the house.  This camper can get mighty small for two people when you can't go outside. We had another short training session from 4 to 5, meet the park rangers, picked up our

equipment (radio, laptop, credit card machine etc.) Back to the camper soup and grilled cheese for dinner.  And today it just rained all day long.

 

 

Sunday we took a ride to the
other side of the
reservoir.

Sunday woke up to sound of no rain woo-hoo-hoo-hoo then I realized the rain had turned to snow.  We have 2-3 inches of snow and it is still coming down.  The snow quit and we headed to town for mother's day breakfast.  We found a nice little place called Lilly's had a wonderful breakfast, drove around town awhile then headed back.  I  worked on tearing out half of the sofa what a difference that made.  Although it was cloudy, cold and snowed it did NOT rain today. And we did sausages on the grill. Tomorrow the forecast is for sun.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Picture of the missing sofa half and then of Rudy checking out his new digs!!

 

Diane, Brad and Rudy

Our First Week in 'Beautiful Colorado'!!

Sunny Arrival at Inlet Bay
Saturday May 2nd
 

Saturday night
rain clouds blowing in!

Flooded Patio, the ducks are happy!!

 

Another gray day!!

 Saturday night, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.....they all looked the same, gray Rainy Days...I'm not even sure what days the pics were taken, they all looked the same.

                                                              
And then it got better, Sunday morning!!

 

 

Need we say more, welcome to 'Beautiful Colorado' !!

 

 
Diane and Brad

 



We made it to Colorado!!

Friday we didn't get moving real fast, but headed out about 11:00 to check out town a place for lunch

Story Skies in Wyoming

and ended up at an Olive Garden....ugh, but there was a very small RV show in the parking lot, so we got to walk off part of lunch.  After that we headed back to the AFB heading to the museum.  It was very small, parts of it were interesting, but others were rather disappointing and the placards didn't go with the displays, but it killed about an hour.  We did a bit of a tour of the base, then headed to the exchange/commissary.  I think they were one of the smallest we have ever seen, even the Carlisle commissary and exchange were bigger than those.  We did some shopping, not finding much of what we needed, checked out and then a little more of a drive around the base, finally back to the CG.  We walked Rudy a couple of time, watching the next round of RVer's pulling in for the night, kind of anxious about tomorrow and not really doing much.  Brad wasn't feeling real well, so it was a light meal inside, listening to the rain showers come and go......hoping tomorrow brings a nicer day.

Saturday we got ready and headed out about 10:00, stopped for gas about 5 miles up the road which ended up taking about 45 min, the RV lanes were full, and the people were moving very slow.  We

Prong Horn coming in
to see us off.  :-)

only have about 1.5 drive, but so far, we aren't moving very fast.  We hit Colorado and about 5 miles before our exit is the visitors center, so we stop, get a map and some information on the area.  We were there about an hour checking out the little walking areas and just killing some time.  Back on the road and we still managed to get to Inlet Bay CG, our summer destination, and were parked in our spot by 12:45...what a drive.  Kathleen, our supervisor came over to introduce herself and welcome us...nice lady,  So we started setting up when Larry and Sue, the other CG hosts come over to say hello and we ended up talking for about 30 min.  They are nice enough and Dakota, their dog, and Rudy seemed to get along well.

 

Sunday we headed out to find the Admin. Office, since we had training there on Wednesday, we thought it might be nice to know where it is located.  We then drove up to Carter Lake and did a drive through there before heading out, stopping at the Windjammer Roadhouse for lunch.  The had a smoked chicken or pork quesadilla, with coleslaw in it.  I had the chicken and Brad had the pork and both were delicious. After that we headed down Route 34, heading into Loveland, first stop was Old Navy where I exchanged the jeans I bought in PA...gotta love that, then we found a Starbucks, grocery story and stopped at one of the many liquor stores, all within 5 blocks of one another.  After that we headed home, walked Rudy and just had some cheese and crackers for dinner, both of us still being full from lunch. 

 

View for the summer

Monday we headed back into town, our first stop being camping world for a new rug.  We then took a side road into this little town and found a place for lunch.  We lucked out again with great food, a burger for me and steak sandwich for Brad, made with real steak pieces.  After that a trip to Wal-Mart, which is always sooooooo much fun when Brad is along, then off to the grocery store to do some real shopping.  We did make a little side stop at the 'Sprouts' store, which is an all natural store, that was an interesting store and we even made a purchase.  From there we went to Albertson's, which looked like it would have been their first store, very old and small.  After that we headed home to rescue Rudy, having left overs for dinner and hid inside from the rain.  We are having a lot of rain, which they say is unusual for this time of year.....yea. 

More stormy skies in
Colorado!

Tuesday was a busy day, I headed into town to the Laundromat while Brad moved the Moho from site 1 to site 2.  Yes we had to move one site, but now we are settled in for the summer.  When I got home, Brad was on the phone, so I headed in to finish setting up the RV again, making the bed and getting out the new bed spread.  We did some walking with Rudy, talking with the neighbors then we had sun dried tomato sausages for dinner and were settled in by 7:00 for NCIS....the time difference is still something we need to get used to.  One thing is nice, we have the satellite set up, but still manage to get the local, network channels on the antenna, yeah.  We do have lots of animals here, ducks, geese and mule deer, so it is nothing to look out any window and see some kind of wild life, it could even be a carp jumping out of the water.


Mule Deer right outside the Moho.

Diane, Brad and Rudy