Author: Steve

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The WanderLodge.

Tuesday Okay. Made some serious progress on the assets and liabilities. Got
started on the income. This job might work after all. Discovered a robin’s nest in the tree right across from us, next to the
river. When we’re plugged into shore power, we can watch an electronic display of
how many amps are being used. The electric hot water heater uses a lot: 12
amps. The humidifier and air filter we use take less than 1 amp. The
television doesn’t take much. The furnace fan only takes an amp. We have
an exact count of how much electricity we’re using, when it doesn’t matter.
When we’re boondocking, running off batteries, it doesn’t trigger the meter.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were an amp meter in the system that would tell
how much electricity you were using when you had limited electricity to use. I’ve been thinking about racquetball. I miss playing with Woody, even
though it’s like being a rich kid and paying the other kids to be your
friend. If I give him money, I can play with a pro-level player, and he’ll
play just hard enough for me to feel good about my game. Living in limited space. This is a nice big motorhome, but it would be a
pretty small apartment. 300 square feet. That’s not a very big house. I
like it. We have a nice living room. The bathroom is a little small, and
the bedroom is plenty big. I was reluctant to get slides. I thought it was
just more space than we needed. I like the coziness of the smaller space.
For life on the road, however, I’m a believer. The slides go out, and the
feeling changes. It moves us from traveling mode to living mode. Judy found a big-rig-friendly motorhome park guide and bought it. It will
help us pick the sites we can fit in. This park is listed. We like our motorhome so much. We have liked every motorhome we’ve had.
That’s why it is so startling to hear people talk about how unhappy they are
with theirs. We had a neighbor with a new Holiday Rambler Endeavor. He
didn’t like it at all. He had just come over Wolf Creek Pass and had smoked
the brakes. It’s a diesel pusher, but it doesn’t have a Jake Brake like the
Bounder. It has a PAC Brake. He describes it as a potato in the tailpipe,
and ineffective. He is going to sell it and replace it as soon as he gets
home. We rolled down Wolf Creek Pass in the right lane at 35 mph without
using the wheel brakes at all. Another guy is driving a 35 foot gas Class A. He didn’t get what he wanted.
They were moving up from a Class C. He wanted a pusher, but couldn’t bring
himself to make the jump all at once. He’s had it less than a month and
it’s not what he wants. The repair guy in Durango is living in a Monaco.
He doesn’t think it’s very good. Rags escaped. His getaway was thwarted, however, when he stopped to roll in
the dirt and I walked over and picked him up.

Wednesday A good day at work. Pretty much finished up the numbers. Now I have two
days to do the federal compliance work. The hummingbirds found our feeder. Now we have hummers at the sugar water,
and grosbeaks at the seed feeder. Warblers. Orioles. Jays. Geese.
Magpies. Blackbirds. Grackles. Nuthatches. Swallows. Mergansers.
Mallards. Killdeer. Dippers. Spotted sandpipers. White-crowned sparrows.
This is a great bird place. The guy next to us last week in the WanderLodge said it was too big. It’s a
forty-five footer. Too much stuff. The weather couldn’t be any better. High seventies during the day. Thirty
degrees at night. It’s a very fast temperature swing as soon as the sun
goes down. Great sleeping weather. Our commute for the Durango job was seven miles. Pagosa is a smaller town.
Our commute here is two miles. Regularly, I am startled by the mouse. It’s a little gray mouse, and it can
show up anywhere at any time. It never wiggles or moves by itself. It’s
filled with catnip. But several times a day, Rags discovers it, terrorizes
it, throws and catches it all over the place, and leaves it somewhere new.
We’re not always there when he does this, so we never know where it will
strike next. I’m already looking forward to the drive to Silverton. We’ll get to drive
an entire hundred miles to get there. When we arrived here on Sunday, we could see the high water mark along the
river. Just like looking for the last high tide mark on the beach at the
ocean, you can tell the highest point the water has been recently by the
rubble along the edge. The river was down significantly from the high water
mark when we got here. I had imagined the spring runoff to be constant and
predictable. The snow starts melting, the water rises, the snow runs out,
the water recedes. Not so. The water was up. The water went down. Now
it’s back up again. Guess rivers have more complicated cycles than I was
imagining. Found the racquetball court at the Pagosa club. Had to drive all the way to
the other side of town, though. It’s a nice glass court right at the front
door, so I could challenge everyone who walked in and out. No takers. The
nice lady at the desk even made several calls for me to local racquetball
junkies, but couldn’t hook me up. It felt good to hit a little bit. Good coyote music tonight.

Monday Started the next job. Another scary one. Might have a large prior period
adjustment. Spent the day setting up, and working on fund balance issues.
If I got a job where I only had to look at the year I was auditing now, and
they had the current year all together, it would seem like a vacation. Back at the ranch, we have the constant background buzzing of hummingbirds,
but they haven’t found our feeder yet. We have to walk up to the feeders at
the office to get a good look at them. Black-chinned, just like everywhere
else we go in Colorado. Some broadtails. I’m hoping to see a Rufous while
we’re out this trip. That’s a good possibility, but I think they arrive a
little later. Some grosbeaks found the seed feeder we set up across the
way. That’s the best look we’ve gotten at them. The orioles are such large, graceful, colorful birds. They have a nice song
to sing, but they also make a startling squawk. It is surprising for such a
beautiful bird. When you hear a parakeet squawking off in the distance,
that means there are orioles around. Took my flyrod over to the pond to see if I could bug any fish. What I
found was a riot of swallows swooping all over the surface. Violet green,
cliff, and the occasional barn. Figured out the bird we didn’t recognize. It was a female western bluebird.
It would have been easier to recognize if a male had been around. Judy bought a week’s pass at the hot springs.

Saturday Funny thing. The furnace worked perfectly all evening, last night, and
again this morning. Yeah. Right. Hosing off the battery terminals is
going to fix the furnace. Interesting coincidence, though. Up and off early to get to the train on time. Three and a half hours up
through spectacular scenery. Two hours in Silverton to wander around.
Three and a half hours back, checking out the backside of all that gorgeous
scenery. A lot of motion. A little tired tonight, and the boat is still
rocking, but a nice way to spend the day. A ten-car train plus a boxcar.
Right at the maximum capacity of the locomotive. There are coach cars, open
cars, and a parlor car. The parlor car gets hooked onto the tail end of the
train. We got to stand outside on the back porch as much as we wanted to
get the best view. Full service inside. All the coffee and cokes and
goodies we could eat. Rugged inaccessible gorge that they somehow laid
track through, then they followed the Animas river the rest of the way to
Silverton. Most of the trip goes through land with no roads. There are
some houses and cabins in there, but the only access is by this train, or
horseback. The locomotive is a living breathing awesome beast. Standing next to it,
you can feel the life. It radiates heat, smoke, and steam. Even at rest,
it pulses and pops and creaks and squeaks. There is an interesting tradition. Every Memorial Day. The Iron Horse
Classic. It’s a bicycle race from Durango to Silverton. Fifty miles, from
Durango to Silverton, and an elevation gain of three thousand feet over two
mountain passes. They race the train. The bicycles follow the road. The
train follows the tracks. And the winner is….. The train has never won.
Carol, Michael’s wife came by to walk Annie a couple times while we were
gone all day on the train. She said Annie was good for her. The motorhome next to us is a WanderLodge. It has an interesting feature.
They have a free-standing barbecue outside, with a propane hose plugged into
a fitting on the side of the motorhome. How handy is that? You never have
to mess with propane bottles.
Tomorrow, off to Pagosa Springs.