Author: Steve

Saturday. That took a lot of leaving. We did the Breakfast in a Bag thing. Raw
scrambled eggs, cheese, bacon bits, mushrooms, olives, ham, anything you
want in an omelet spread out on the table, in containers. Write your name
on the outside of a Ziploc bag. Pick the stuff you want. Dump it into the
Ziploc. Squeeze all the air out and seal it. Drop it into the boiling
water for ten minutes. Dump it onto a plate. It’s an omelet. Thirty-five people in the group, plus us. It took a lot of conversation to
get through breakfast. Then several people wanted to come over and meet
Rags the cat. Then there were several RV tours exchanged as everybody
checked out each other’s rig. Finally, we escaped. Rags didn’t make it very far. He started drooling. Just can’t handle that
occasional motion. We stopped and drugged him, and he rode quietly after
that. We had lunch at the Durango RV Park we stayed in before. We picked
up a WiFi terminal for high speed internet and did an email dump. From there, north on highway 550 to Silverton. A person might be
disinclined to bring a motorhome up this steep winding road. It is
definitely slower in a motorhome than in a car. But slower means a better
look at the scenery, and in a motorhome means you get that look from a
higher perch. Not much traffic. Plenty of room to let the people by that
do catch up to us. Plenty of high county scenery. Arrived at the motorhome park in Silverton. There are ten units here
already. We parked at the other end of the row from the one that has
www.rightwingbooks.com <http://www.rightwingbooks.com> stenciled on its
forehead. Leveling logic. Four point hydraulic levelers. The front two work
together, off one button. The back two work together off one button, or
individually, off separate buttons. All side to side leveling has to be
done with the rear levelers. When leveling, you start by letting the air of
the suspension so the whole coach settles down. Then you want to level it
with the least amount of lift, so that last step going in and out isn’t too
high. Besides, if you lift it too high, it might look like you don’t know
what you’re doing. I read the directions for leveling. I followed them. If you follow the
directions, sometimes it ends up looking like you don’t know what you’re
doing. The directions say to put both the front jacks down until they touch
the ground. Then put the rear jacks down and level it side to side. Then
raise the front jacks some more if you need to. The problem is, it changes
the side to side leveling when you raise the front jacks, so then you have
to level it again with one of the rear jacks which raises the whole rear end
a little more, so you have to raise the front a little more…. You get the
picture. The hydraulic jacks will extend far enough to raise the wheels
clear off the ground. It looks silly if you’re on fairly level ground to
begin with, and your motorhome is that far up on its tiptoes to get level.
Theoretically, one corner of the motorhome should never have to be lifted at
all. Here is what I discovered. Don’t go at it from just one direction. You get
to watch a leveling bubble while you’re pushing the leveling buttons. Don’t
level it all at once, front to back, or side to side. Bring it a little
closer each way, alternating as you go. Sneak up on it.
Silverton Colorado. 9,300 feet above sea level in a mountain valley. It’s
all up from here. It’s a rough mountain town. They haven’t paved the
alleys here yet. They’re all dirt and gravel. They haven’t paved the
streets yet either. They’re all dirt and gravel too. There is only one
paved road in town, the one that runs right down the center. It’s a
dirt-road main street kind of place….. except that the main street is
paved. It was sad when we left Riverside. I picked up the feeders and packed them
in an outside bin. As soon as I did, a house finch hopped up on the grill
stand where the seed feeder had been, and hopped all over it looking for the
feeder. At the same time, and hummingbird was buzzing all over where the
other feeder had been. They’ll have to adjust to life without us now. It
took the hummingbirds two days to find our feeder at Riverside. It took
them ten minutes to find it here. All broadtails. Different altitude. Tomorrow. Check out Ouray and Box Canyon Falls.

_____________________________________________
From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Monday, May 24, 2004 10:10 PM
To: Bill Taylor (E-mail); David Taylor (E-mail); Tom Taylor (E-mail)
Subject: trip32 Sunday. New ground. I’ve written trip reports for a month before, but never for
more. He we go on our second month. I wish it were a whole second month,
but alas, no. Just a few more short jobs to do, and it’s back to Denver.
This is too cool. We’re not ready to go back to Denver. Finally, the time has come. We get to pop over to Ouray and pick up the
slam-dunk, can’t-miss brand new bird: the black swift. Twenty-four miles
to Ouray. An hour’s drive. Now we have a problem. If we have a job in
Silverton or Durango, then get a job in Ouray; I don’t know how we’ll get
there. The only way to get to one from the other is to drive over Red
Mountain Pass. Judy says she doesn’t ever want to drive over Red Mountain
Pass in the motorhome. It’s that good. It didn’t help, following a large
gas motorhome down the other side, his brakes smoking and stinking. Not the
kind of place you’d want to wander off the road. Box Canyon Falls. Right outside Ouray. Black Swifts. The Box Canyon Falls
Black Swifts only have one job. That’s to migrate back to Box Canyon Falls
by May 20th. This is May 23d. They didn’t do their job. No black swifts.
How bad does this suck? Now we’ll have to come all the way back here some
other time. Drove out to Ridgway. Had lunch at the state park. Birded the forest.
Annie swam in the Uncompaghre. Explored the town. Passed the Orvis Hot
Springs Bill wants to check out. We know where it is now. Drove back
through Ouray. Made the drive back over Red Mountain Pass. Judy
reiterated. Not in the motorhome. Took a detour just before we got back to
Silverton. Ophir Pass. Four wheel drive road. Still ten foot drifts at
the top. For a person who doesn’t want to drive over Red Mountain in the
motorhome, Judy is good at driving these four-wheel-drive roads. Back safe and sound. Ready for work tomorrow. Mountain Studies Institute.
Good place for it. Silverton. We’ll go see what they’re studying.

Rags of the River.

More views of the hot springs. The lowest pool is close enough to the river
you can reach out and touch it.

Friday I changed my diet to avoid starchy food because I found out I feel better
when I don’t eat it. When I did that, some weight fell off as well. My
weight stabilized in the low 160s. In the last few weeks, however, it has
popped back up five pounds. Now I’m in the upper 160s. I’m the same
person, doing the same things, and eating the same food. What happened? What happened? Ting happened. That’s right. It’s Ting’s fault. My back and shoulder were hurting so I
thought I’d give Ting the acupuncturist a shot at it. He’s good at pain
relief. He did a pretty good job on the shoulder. He did a medium job on
the back. Problem is, every time he fixes something, I go out and play
racquetball on it the next night and make it hurt again. The other problem
is that when you go see Ting, he doesn’t just fix the body part you brought
for him to fix, he messes with other stuff. Other stuff I don’t understand.
He talks about energy paths, and meridians, and other stuff I can’t
remember. I think he messed with my metabolism. It’s Ting’s fault. I dropped Judy off at the adult day-care center on my way to work this
morning. She has that pass. Seventeen pools terraced into the hillside
overlooking the San Juan River, all fed by the hot springs, all ultimately
emptying into the river. They’ll occupy her until lunch. The people on both sides of us left. The first to go was the guy from Del
Rio Texas, in a fifth wheel that looked suspiciously like a converted stock
trailer, up here with his son for a week. He was fun to talk to. Anybody
catch Survivor, with the guy called Big Tom from somewhere in the south? He
would get to talking, and everyone would just look at each other, stumped.
If he got excited about something and started talking fast, you couldn’t
figure out what he was talking about. The guy from Del Rio was like that.
What??? But the people that took his place were bad. They had two rotten dogs that
barked and growled at our Annie. The guy on the other side was from
Beaumont Texas. We liked him, but he left too. The bad people on the left
left. The guy with the chows pulled in on the right side. He takes good
care of them though. He’s a better neighbor. Then the Samboree happened.
A bunch of “group” people. All from Los Alamos New Mexico. All Good Sam
members. They’re all together. There are a lot of them. I think we’ve met
them all…. What a great bunch of people. Lots of people. Lots of pets.
All the pets are well behaved, or at least well managed. These people “get
it”. They are wonderful neighbors. They even invited us to their
“Breakfast in a Bag” get together tomorrow morning. Maybe we’ll check that
out. Interesting array of tow cars. Five Jeeps in a row: two Wranglers, two
Cherokees, another Wrangler. Every day I get to come home for lunch. Sitting by the river in the lawn
chair today, eating lunch, watching the metallic iridescent blue flash off
the backs of tree swallows swooping over the stream in the sun. It’s a nice
way to spend lunch. Finished up at work today. Got it completely wrapped, and the report
completely written. We didn’t have the right people in town to have the
exit conference, but I’ll be in the neighborhood next week, so I’ll come
back here on Wednesday for the exit conference. I think Judy managed to sample every pool at the hot springs. They all have
names. The Waterfall. The Cliffs. Clouds in my Coffee. She even ventured
into the one called the Lobster Pot. Briefly. I’m going to miss the birding here. But then we’re still stuck at 294 on
the bird count. Guess it’s time to move on. At least get us to Ouray so we
can pick up the black swifts. Then we need to find our way down to the
Grand Canyon neighborhood to pick up the condors. I thought we might get
there from here, southwestern Colorado, but it doesn’t look like we’re going
to do any long weekend excursions. The condors might have to wait until our
June trip to Arizona. It turns out there was no need for my lunchtime run today. I went off this
afternoon to snap a picture of Treasure Falls and I found myself on the
trailhead. I thought of Stephanie, the trail runner, my inspiration, on the
way up, and ran the entire thing. It was switchbacks. Steep. But it felt
good. I marveled at the falls. I ran back down. I feel unreasonably
strong. Strong. I need to go play a racquetball tournament, or hike the
Grand Canyon, or something. That’s it! I’m going to go run the Grand
Canyon. Well, maybe I’ll run down, and walk back out. They have thirty-five acre riverside lots for sale here. That wouldn’t be
bad. Thirty-five acres on this river. Tomorrow. Off to Silverton. We haven’t driven there on the road yet this
trip; just rode the train there. The campground manager came by our site tonight. She said they liked us so
much they just wanted to give us a present. And did! That’s never happened
before. That’s it. I don’t want to leave. I’m anxious to move on to the
next job, and the next adventure, but I like it here too much. I don’t want
to go.
Friday I changed my diet to avoid starchy food because I found out I feel better
when I don’t eat it. When I did that, some weight fell off as well. My
weight stabilized in the low 160s. In the last few weeks, however, it has
popped back up five pounds. Now I’m in the upper 160s. I’m the same
person, doing the same things, and eating the same food. What happened? What happened? Ting happened. That’s right. It’s Ting’s fault. My back and shoulder were hurting so I
thought I’d give Ting the acupuncturist a shot at it. He’s good at pain
relief. He did a pretty good job on the shoulder. He did a medium job on
the back. Problem is, every time he fixes something, I go out and play
racquetball on it the next night and make it hurt again. The other problem
is that when you go see Ting, he doesn’t just fix the body part you brought
for him to fix, he messes with other stuff. Other stuff I don’t understand.
He talks about energy paths, and meridians, and other stuff I can’t
remember. I think he messed with my metabolism. It’s Ting’s fault. I dropped Judy off at the adult day-care center on my way to work this
morning. She has that pass. Seventeen pools terraced into the hillside
overlooking the San Juan River, all fed by the hot springs, all ultimately
emptying into the river. They’ll occupy her until lunch. The people on both sides of us left. The first to go was the guy from Del
Rio Texas, in a fifth wheel that looked suspiciously like a converted stock
trailer, up here with his son for a week. He was fun to talk to. Anybody
catch Survivor, with the guy called Big Tom from somewhere in the south? He
would get to talking, and everyone would just look at each other, stumped.
If he got excited about something and started talking fast, you couldn’t
figure out what he was talking about. The guy from Del Rio was like that.
What??? But the people that took his place were bad. They had two rotten dogs that
barked and growled at our Annie. The guy on the other side was from
Beaumont Texas. We liked him, but he left too. The bad people on the left
left. The guy with the chows pulled in on the right side. He takes good
care of them though. He’s a better neighbor. Then the Samboree happened.
A bunch of “group” people. All from Los Alamos New Mexico. All Good Sam
members. They’re all together. There are a lot of them. I think we’ve met
them all…. What a great bunch of people. Lots of people. Lots of pets.
All the pets are well behaved, or at least well managed. These people “get
it”. They are wonderful neighbors. They even invited us to their
“Breakfast in a Bag” get together tomorrow morning. Maybe we’ll check that
out. Interesting array of tow cars. Five Jeeps in a row: two Wranglers, two
Cherokees, another Wrangler. Every day I get to come home for lunch. Sitting by the river in the lawn
chair today, eating lunch, watching the metallic iridescent blue flash off
the backs of tree swallows swooping over the stream in the sun. It’s a nice
way to spend lunch. Finished up at work today. Got it completely wrapped, and the report
completely written. We didn’t have the right people in town to have the
exit conference, but I’ll be in the neighborhood next week, so I’ll come
back here on Wednesday for the exit conference. I think Judy managed to sample every pool at the hot springs. They all have
names. The Waterfall. The Cliffs. Clouds in my Coffee. She even ventured
into the one called the Lobster Pot. Briefly. I’m going to miss the birding here. But then we’re still stuck at 294 on
the bird count. Guess it’s time to move on. At least get us to Ouray so we
can pick up the black swifts. Then we need to find our way down to the
Grand Canyon neighborhood to pick up the condors. I thought we might get
there from here, southwestern Colorado, but it doesn’t look like we’re going
to do any long weekend excursions. The condors might have to wait until our
June trip to Arizona. It turns out there was no need for my lunchtime run today. I went off this
afternoon to snap a picture of Treasure Falls and I found myself on the
trailhead. I thought of Stephanie, the trail runner, my inspiration, on the
way up, and ran the entire thing. It was switchbacks. Steep. But it felt
good. I marveled at the falls. I ran back down. I feel unreasonably
strong. Strong. I need to go play a racquetball tournament, or hike the
Grand Canyon, or something. That’s it! I’m going to go run the Grand
Canyon. They have thirty-five acre riverside lots for sale here. That wouldn’t be
bad. Thirty-five acres on this river. Tomorrow. Off to Silverton. We haven’t driven there on the road yet this
trip; just rode the train there. The campground manager came by our site tonight. She said they liked us so
much they just wanted to give us a present. And did! That’s never happened
before. That’s it. I don’t want to leave. I’m anxious to move on to the
next job, and the next adventure, but I like it here too much. I don’t want
to go.