Up at dawn, packed up, pulled out, headed for Taos. It will be a full day driving. Straight down the middle of Colorado. Glenwood Springs to Minturn, then south on Highway 24 to Leadville, through Buena Vista, Salida, into the San Luis Valley, through Alamosa, continue south following the Rio Grande into New Mexico and on to Taos. Highways, not freeways. It’s a great drive. But while we were still in the driveway of the RV Park in Glenwood Springs, the phone rang. It was Jamie at the office. The Taos client isn’t ready. Oops. So we idle. Now what? Got to do something. Hey, the Steamboat job the week after has already sent their advance stuff into the office and Jamie has it set up. Maybe they can take us a week early. It’s still only 7:30 am. It takes a while to sort out, but it is likely that we can do the Steamboat job next week, so we drive north instead of south. Glenwood Springs to Rifle, then north on Colorado 13 through Rio Blanco, past the turn-off to Rangely, through Meeker, and on to Craig. A right turn on US 40 at Craig takes us to Yampa River State Park outside Hayden. We’ll set up here to work and wait to see if we get to go on to Steamboat. We’re perfectly situated. Steamboat is only about a half hour away from here. Here in a riparian forest along the river surrounded by sageland hills. Eighty degrees, blue sky, puffy white clouds. The low is going to be about fifty. We can do this. Life on the road.
Bear damage
We thought beating up the bird feeders was the only damage the bear was going to do, but noooooooooo. We had noticed that he had knocked the dump hose loose from the receptacle while he was stumbling around the outside of our motorhome in the night. No big deal, we just put it back together properly. Well, tomorrow is a travel day, so I spent some time disconnecting and putting stuff away in preparation. In the process, I discovered the two inch gash in our brand new heavy-duty dump hose. Didn’t look like tooth marks. I don’t think he bit it. He probably stepped on it against something sharp. Good for us the cut wasn’t right in the middle, it was more toward one end. Some quick work with a knife and wire cutters, and the dump hose is as good as before, just a little shorter. Tonight, the bird feeders are stowed, the hoses are stowed, the flower pots are put away. We should get an early getaway tomorrow morning.
Night before last…
…the bird feeder got knocked over. We got up the next morning to the whole thing in a pile on the ground. Some seed had spilled, but nothing was eaten, so maybe it wasn’t an animal. There had been some teenagers messing around across the road the evening before. The bird feeder is out front of the coach so we can see it through the windshield during the day. Pretty easy to get to. The kids could have knocked it over after dark. Or it could have been the wind, but we had left the awning out overnight and nothing triggered the wind sensor. Judy thought it was probably raccoons. I figured it was a bear.We decided to reconfigure and narrow it down. We put the birdfeeder assembly all back together, but behind the motorhome this time. Less likely kids will casually get back there and mess with it. We kept the good feeders in and hung the suet back up. Next night, boom. Annie starts barking. The feeder is down. Judy goes outside with a flashlight to chase the raccoons. I don’t think its raccoons. We have a heavy metal post on a heavy metal stand, with heavy rocks piled on the base. A raccoon climbing the pole would exert a vertical force. He might trash the feeders and knock them down, but I don’t think he’s going to generate the horizontal force to knock the whole contraption down. I stayed in the house.Tonight, there were headlights in the park; not an RV coming in late, but headlights starting and stopping and turning. They had a spotlight; and the guy walking around outside of the truck had a badge; and a gun. Wildlife wardens, responding to the call of a marauding bear in the neighborhood.No more birdfeeders outside at night here. Judy spent the rest of the night watching out the window for the bear.
Glenwood springs
Happy Anniversary to us. Forty-one. Already. A good day at work. A quiet dinner at home.
Things not to do while motorhoming…
CORRECTION! It was the KOA in Junction, not the KOA in Van Horn. Van Horn good. Junction bad.
From: Steve Taylor [mailto:spt@thetaylorcompany.net]
Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 8:07 PM
To: ‘Tom Taylor’; ‘Bill Taylor (Bill Taylor)’; ‘David Taylor (David Taylor)’
Subject: RE: things not to do while motorhoming…“And good on your motorhome for being tolerant enough to survive the dirty power situation uharmed.” It notices things before we do, then takes preemptive action. It got us in trouble in a KOA in Van Horn. We plugged in, the shore power didn’t come on. We checked the screen inside and it said we had a ground fault. We were on our way to do something else, so we stopped by the office, told them we had a ground fault, and left. Lots of staff there. They would know how to take care of it, and sure enough, when we got back, the power was on. Trouble is, the next staff person that saw us told us they checked the electricity and there was nothing wrong with it. Who cares what the problem was, it works; but they got pretty pushy about telling us we reported a problem that wasn’t there. Every staff person we met after that began the conversation with, “Oh, you’re the people who said they had an electrical problem but didn’t”. Apparently we had attacked the integrity of their park and offended the whole lot of them. I blame it on the coach.
From: Tom Taylor [mailto:code-boy@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, May 06, 2007 9:08 AM
To: Steve Taylor; Bill Taylor (Bill Taylor); David Taylor (David Taylor)
Subject: Re: things not to do while motorhoming…Great troubleshooting! And good on your motorhome for being tolerant enough to survive the dirty power situation uharmed.
—– Original Message —–
From: Steve TaylorTo: Bill Taylor (Bill Taylor) ; David Taylor (David Taylor) ; Tom Taylor (Tom Taylor)
Sent: Saturday, May 05, 2007 8:09 PM
Subject: things not to do while motorhoming…
Well, it’s not like we decided to do it, we certainly didn’t want to do it, but we had to troubleshoot the furnace today. It’s not the first time we’ve had to troubleshoot a furnace. Several years ago, when we had a different motorhome with a propane furnace, it quit and we had to get it fixed. As I recall, a repair guy had to replace the furnace motherboard. Within a couple months it failed again, in a different state, and a repair guy there replaced the limit switch. That took care of it. But this is different. This is a hydro-hot furnace. It runs on diesel. It’s supposed to run on diesel anyway. It has always run on diesel before, but Judy got up at 6 and it was cold in the front room, 55 degrees, so she turned up the thermostat. Nothing. She turned up the bedroom thermostat. Nothing. She got analytical on it. It runs off the same diesel the engine does. She turned on the key and checked the fuel tank. Plenty of fuel. She turned on the hot water (the hydro-hot system serves both the furnaces and the hot water). The hot water was hot. She ran the water for a few minutes. It stayed hot, so she knew the problem wasn’t the hydro-hot burner, but some control that triggers the furnaces. She got out the manual for the hydro-hot. No help. She went outside and looked in the cabinet the hydro-hot lives in. No reset button. Still no heat. Can’t turn on the heat pumps; they don’t work at all below freezing and really don’t do much until the outside temperature warms up toward the forties. She turned on the little electric space heater in the front room and came back to bed. After she warmed up, we both got up. We flipped any breaker in the control box that looked like it might help. Nothing. It’s getting colder. It’s snowing outside. Checked out the electrical status display. It said we had an open ground on the 30 amp shore power. That shouldn’t affect the furnace; it runs on 12 volts. It shouldn’t be the electrical power; everything else in the coach is on. Of course, if the 120 volt power goes out, the inverter just takes over and runs all the 120 volt stuff off the batteries. That complicates the analysis. Checked the inverter display. It said we had high voltage on line 1. Still shouldn’t affect the furnace, but we’re starting to suspect an electrical supply problem. Let’s bypass the shore power. Turned on the generator. 50+ amps of 240 volt power. No help. One thing left to try. We’re getting error readings on the shore power; let’s disconnect it completely. Victory! That was it! Dirty electrons coming out of the campground power source! Dirty power. All systems go. Hydro-hot burner cooking. Heater fans blowing. A lot of space to warm up, but within an hour we were toasty. Life on the road.