Steve and Judy's Travels!

Sunday Spent the night in the bottom left corner of the state. Evanston Wyoming.
Good data connection on the cellphone. Checked our email. Got a note from
brother David. The baby came a month early, on Thursday, her Grandpa’s
birthday. Mom, Dad, and baby are fine. But now they have the baby, and we
have the bassinette. We’re still three days away. A cold night. Thirty
two degrees. Morning mist rising from Echo Lake as we crossed into Utah. Met Uncle Johnnie at an empty shopping mall parking lot in Salt Lake City.
Sunday morning. Lots of space to maneuver the rig in and back out again.
Had a nice visit. Judy fixed us all breakfast. Moved on to meet up with Tom and Kathy at Utah Lake State Park. We each
left our home-state Friday mid-day. We crossed paths in Utah, them headed
south, us headed west. They’re out for a month. Got a nice afternoon and
evening visit. Tom and Kathy have their giant 30′ green Lazy Days. You won’t find many of
them on the road. Except for the one we found on our evening walk. There
are two campground loops at Utah Lake. We were parked in loop A. The other
30′ green lazy Days was parked in almost exactly the same space in loop B.
A conversation with them on our way by, revealed the trouble that had caused
the people in the other Lazy Days. Tom and I both parked in pull-through
spots and left our tow cars attached. The other Lazy Days drivers had been
out driving all day in their tow car, and pulled in just about dark to head
for their camp. He was headed for loop B, but she pointed out their rig in
loop A and directed him to it. It didn’t seem quite right, but clearly,
that was their spot. Then, when they got closer, they were really offended
to see how close someone had parked right behind their rig (Tom’s tow car
Elmo). When they go close enough to see that the car parked right behind
was actually hooked up to tow, they stopped to reconsider, and figured out
that all was not what it seemed. They moved on to loop B and settled in for
dinner, until these two strangers came by to visit and enjoy their story. When you visit with Tom, you figure things out. We figured out the easy way
to make our awning retract properly. We figured out why the brake buddy had
quit working. We figured out what I would need to do to realign the backup
camera so it would work as a rearview camera like Tom’s and give me a better
view of what is happening down the road behind me, not just straight down in
front of the tow-car. Thanks Tom.

Our yard is so birdy. This time of year, the nesting work is done, birds
give up their territorial nature, and are more social as they gather into
flocks. Nobody has begun the long trip south. We wake up to a hundred
birds in our yard every morning. It is a joyful noise. But off we go to deliver the family bassinette to Jacob and Yousun. Becky
reluctantly parted with it, and put Conner to sleep in the crib. This will
be the 24th baby to sleep in the bassinette since 1937. We can take our
time. The baby is not due for another month. We started the trip Friday
afternoon with a one hundred fifty mile drive to Wheatland Wyoming. An
afternoon and evening visit with Bill and Marge. They have since escaped to
Wyoming, but they are our first Colorado friends, the first people to come
see Becky when she was born. Longtime friends. While we are there, we get
our farm fix. Warm windy Wyoming weather. Cattle pens. Chickens. A
guinea fowl. Blue sky and cumulus. We reacquaint with Shania, the farm
dog. Bill has a calf to bottle feed. The dog waits. I can’t say the dog
waits patiently. The dog is a border collie, australian shepherd cross.
Patience is not a part of this bloodline. The dog waits obediently, though,
until Bill finally relents and says “Okay Shania, go get the sheep.” The
dog is gone in a flash. One full speed swoop around to the back of the pack
of sheep in a nearby pasture, and in comes the entire flock of twenty
through the gate, down the alley, into the pen, and milling around in the
back with the dog lying dead center in the opening until Bill comes to shut
the gate. No sheep are going to leave this pen. One swoop. Twenty seconds
at most. No stragglers. After, the dog patrols the fence and a few sheep
come up to the other side to get their faces licked. They’re all just doing
their job. They haven’t had any rain. Wells have gone dry. They haven’t had any rain
all summer, so we brought some with us from Colorado. While we were
there, it started raining after dinner and rained off and on all night. The
next morning, they had six tenths by the time we left. It was still
raining. We left the rain with them, and headed west. We have a lot of ground to cover. Back to Cheyenne and Interstate 80. Past
the rocky outcroppings at Chugwater. Chugwater chili. They make it there.
We’ve never stopped to try it, but we’d like to. Railroad tracks. River
bottom. Scrub forest just starting to show some color. Fall is on the way.
Rivers of the old west. The Laramie. The North Platte. The Medicine Bow.
We crossed the southern edge of the state to Evanston. The freeway has concrete joiners. New concrete freeways can be pretty good.
Not smooth and quiet like an asphalt freeway, but pretty good. But old
concrete freeways… well, Nevermind. I’ve already ranted enough about how
rough old concrete freeways are. Old concrete freeways are bad, until they
retrofit them with those concrete joiners. Every joint gets several
joiners. But what does a joiner do, really? What can you do with giant
slabs of concrete? If they’ve warped, you can’t bend them back into shape,
can you? If they’ve shrunk and separated, you can’t pull them back together
without making an even bigger gap in the next joint. Old concrete freeways
with joiners are definitely smoother than old freeways without them. Why is
that? What do they do, really?

The lunch stop.

Judy has been visiting with our nearest neighbor. They love their Monaco.
They’ve had trailers, fifth wheels, Class Cs, Class As, gassers, diesels.
They’ve tried it all. This one is just right. Speaking of “just right”,
I’m always on the lookout for the perfect motorhome for brother David. No.
He never asked me to find the perfect motorhome for him. This is totally
unsolicited assistance. Brother David doesn’t just drive on roads. He wants to be able to go
anywhere. A year ago, we discovered the EarthRoamer Class C factory in
Broomfield. The EarthRoamer. It is a thing of beauty. It is not too big.
They call it a Class C, but it is a big shell stuck on a diesel pickup
chassis. It is made to go anywhere, but they are made one at a time, so it
is custom built, it is in a constant state of redesign, and it costs way too
much. I think the solution has to be mass produced and well established.
Something like the Bigfoot, maybe. I haven’t looked inside one, but every
now and then I see a Bigfoot camper on the back of a hefty diesel pickup. I
think that’s the solution. A big old high clearance, four wheel drive
pickup, with a Bigfoot on the back. http://www.bigfootrv.com/campers/3000.html
Finished up the job and left for home on Thursday. Found the other
high-altitude-puff. Running at our lunch stop at 11,000 feet. Speaking of
running at high altitude, I checked in with Stephanie to see if she is
running the Leadville 100 this year. No deal. She decided not to run for
an entire day and night, a hundred miles, starting at 10,000 feet, on trails
back and forth over the Continental Divide. How do you not want to do that?
After the first fifty miles, you’re allowed a pacer to run with you and help
you through it. This year, Stephanie is going to pace a friend for six
hours. That will be about 26 miles. A run just for fun.
A drive north from Buena Vista, through Leadville, through Copper, through
the big tunnel. Back to Denver until the next trip. It won’t be long.
We’re off again in a week.

A river park along the Arkansas.