Colorado Springs

We left Alamosa on Friday, August 18^th and drove to Colorado Springs for an 11-night stay at Cheyenne Mountain State park. We always visit Colorado Springs in late-August to take care of our annual doctor and dentist visits.

On Monday, August 21^st, we viewed the solar eclipse from Cheyenne Mountain, where it was 90% in Colorado Springs.

We enjoyed dinner on Tuesday night with my two daughters Kim and Jen and two granddaughters Audrey and Hannah.

We took our motorhome to the local Freightliner service center in Fountain on Thursday for its annual servicing. It was lost among all those trucks.

Last Friday we met our friends Kris and Jan from Albuquerque who were overnighting in Colorado Springs on their way back from Wyoming where they saw the total eclipse of the sun. We drove them to Westcliffe, where we met our friends Vince and Lisa for lunch. Then we all went to Vince and Lisa’s house to spend the afternoon and take in the great views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

On the way home, we stopped in Pueblo for dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant, Jorge’s Sombrero.

Yesterday we "moved" to Littleton, a suburb of Denver, for an 8-night stay at Chatfield State Park.  

Steve & Julie Cornelius

Arboles, Creede and Alamosa, Colorado

We departed Lake Powell on Sat, July 29^th and drove to Arboles, Colorado and Navajo State Park for a two-week stay. Although we didn’t have our boat with us, we enjoyed our great view of the lake. We also enjoyed watching all the families, with their RVs and boats, come and go on their summer vacations.

On Saturday, we drove to Durango about 40-miles away to go to their Farmers Market. We got some fantastic home grown tomatoes, lettuce, and beets. We enjoyed those tomatoes on salads and even a few B-L-T sandwiches. After shopping at the Farmers Market we went to one of our favorite breakfast places, The Durango Diner.

We left Navajo State park last Saturday and drove east through Pagosa Springs, over Wolf Creek pass (at 10,856 feet of elevation), through South Fork and north to Creede for a 5-night stay. We had never been to Creede before and it’s a beautiful area of Colorado with a silver mining history. Creede has a year-round population of just over 400, but grows quite a bit during the summer with the influx of summer residents (mostly Texans) and other summer visitors.

    

From its headwaters in the nearby mountains, the Rio Grande river flows through Creede on its way south to New Mexico and Texas.      

Creede was a very interesting town with its 125-year old hardware store, gift shops, and many restaurants. We especially enjoyed dinner at Arp’s restaurant our last evening. I thought they had the best carrot cake on the planet.

We departed Creede on Wednesday and drove 75-miles to Alamosa for a 2-night stay. We had reserved seats on the Rio Grande Scenic Railway a few weeks ago for their trip to and from La Veta today, a trip just over 50-miles one-way. We left Alamosa at 9:30AM and the scenery was spectacular, especially going through the mountains near La Veta pass.

Our seats were in the Super Dome car and later we ate lunch on the train in the dining area of our dome car. We had time to walk down town to get some ice cream after arriving in La Veta. We also wandered into other cars, including the private car that used to be on the Chicago-New Orleans route. We also enjoyed the open air car to see the scenery and get lots of fresh air.

Steve & Julie Cornelius 

Lake Powell

We thoroughly enjoyed our two-week stay at Lake Powell. We thought it would be hotter than when we normally visit in early-September, but it wasn’t quite as hot as we expected—only in the mid to upper-90s and low-100s, but no humidity. The water temperature was in the low-80s and perfect to go swimming.

Our friends Ron and Kathy from Titusville, Florida arrived on Tuesday with their motorhome and stayed in the same campground loop we were in. They had arranged to rent a 62-foot houseboat for 5-days with three other couples but came in a few days early to get ready.

On Saturday we boated out to Padre Canyon to where Ron and Kathy’s houseboat was beached. They were all having fun on the houseboat with its upper deck hot tub and wet bar, swimming, riding the two jet skis they rented and boating with the runabout boat they rented.

We enjoyed dinner on Wednesday night with Ron and Kathy and a card game of Golf.

One big difference we noticed on this visit to Lake Powell were all the rental RVs coming and going from the campground every day and the larger crowds of tourists shopping at Safeway and Walmart and eating at one of the several restaurants in Page.

We saw many couples and families on vacation from across the USA and also saw many foreign tourists from Asia and Europe. There are some rental RVs and tourists in September, but it seemed there were many, many more this time of year.

Thursday night we went out for dinner at the local BBQ joint and were shocked that the inside seating was completely full and only a few seats remained outside.

Gunsight Butte

Camel rock

Big Johns Texas BBQ

Steve & Julie Cornelius 

Grand Canyon

We arrived at the south rim of the Grand Canyon on Monday, July 10^th for a 5-night stay inside the national park at Trailer Park Village. We had a long campsite with full hookups. On Monday night we saw a young, buck elk walking through the campground. We didn’t see him the rest of the week but saw many elk cows.

We walked along the rim of the Grand Canyon during the day and enjoyed the views, but the best views were in the evening about an hour before sunset. The early-evening sunlight on the rocks really brought out their colors.

On Friday night, we enjoyed dinner at the El Tovar Hotel, the lodge in Grand Canyon Village, open since 1905.

We got up early last Saturday morning to leave the Grand Canyon and drive to Lake Powell in Page, Arizona. Although we had reservations, it is first-come, first served for campsite assignments. We had a good idea of which sites were double-wide for a place to park the boat and also had great views of the lake. We arrived around noon and snagged a perfect campsite for our two-week stay. We got settled in and the drove up to Big Water, Utah to pick up our boat where we store it.

Our picture window view

The lake is up 15-feet from the same time last year and we could see the difference. It’s our first time here in July and we knew it was going to be hot. Triple digit air temperatures but the lake water is only a cool, refreshing 80-degrees.

Wahweap campground at Lake Powell

Steve & Julie Cornelius