I left Leadville last Monday. To back up for a minute, when I left home, there was a road detour less than 25 miles from home. They were working on the detour road as well, and they had sprayed water on the road. It splashed mud up onto the front of the camper, and that mud hardened like cement! I was so happy when we had the rain on Sunday that softened it. I went out and got it all nice and clean again on Sunday afternoon.

They were also working on the dirt road as I was leaving the Leadville campsite, and I had to run though water again!! Just one lousy day after I’d gotten it all clean. Well I found out later, they’d sprayed the road with oil, not water! Oh my, what a mess. The whole car and camper are covered with oil, which has turned to mud/oil after driving on the dusty dirt roads. I haven’t seen a carwash yet, either.

I moved to a free campsite at Pioneer Park right in the town of Hot Sulphur Springs. Finally I had a site with a good wifi signal! I thought I might stay there several days to get my fill of the internet but I wasn’t particularly impressed with the campsite. It was across the campground road from the Colorado River but most of the sites were very narrow and close together, like neighbors less than 10’ away! You know that’s just not my kinda place. But….a good wifi signal!!!  Also I was hoping to get a good night’s sleep at that lower elevation. I didn’t sleep worth a darn at the 11000’ campsite; I’d walk up feeling breathless and not be able to go back to sleep.

My campsite was the closest one to the railroad…..only about 50’ from the tracks, and about 100’ from a crossing that did not have a lighted signal when a train was coming. At 3:30 in the morning, a train came through, blaring the horn (whistle?) for about 15 seconds straight. I was just about to get back to sleep when another train came through at 4:20. I wasn’t able to get back to sleep after that.

This VW Westfalia was next door….I wonder how much that roof weighed, with all that stuff on it?! They had a West Highland White terrier…the guy said they HAD to have a Westy, to go with the car!

So I left there and headed to Grand Lake, which is on the “back side” of Rocky Mountain National Park, near the West Gate. I found the free national forest dispersed area and had made up my mind to stop at the first open campsite because I thought maybe I could get a wifi signal, but the first 4 or 5 were already taken. I was starting to worry but found one a little ways up that’s decent. It doesn’t have any shade but the highs are supposed to be between 68-72 every day so it should be okay.  I could legally stay here for 28 days if I wanted! I don’t know yet if I’ll want to stay or move on. It depends on temperatures, bug populations, “hitch-itch”, etc.

Check out this awesome campfire ring I’ve got! Of course I don’t ever have campfires, but if anything tempted me, this one sure would.

This is a very popular ATV area and the staging area is only about 100’ away through the woods, so there’s quite a bit of traffic and noise during the day but it dies down at night.  I kind of like watching all the ATV’s go by. It’s about 8 miles from town, and only 1 mile from a paved road.

I went into Grand Lake….really cute little town, very upscale, with lots of nice mini-mansions all around the lake.

Here are some of the pretty wildflowers near my campsite. I don’t know what they all are, do you?

Well I’m pretty horrified. This morning I got a container of really hot water, lots of Dawn dishwashing detergent and a scrubbie/sponge and tried to clean the nasty oil off the front of the camper. It didn’t work!!! I was able to get it off the plastic and aluminum parts but on the painted aluminum, it just smeared it around! So I’m guessing a carwash wouldn’t help either. What to do???

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