Road Trips

[Gene]

It look like we will travel at the end of June to southwest Colorado. We may make it to Lake City and miss Steve H. for the 5th (?) consecutive time since he comes in August. Surely we will go to Mancos since an old friend moved there recently from the Front Range. I will need the rest cure.

The party was a success and then we removed the countertop, sink, oven, cooktop. New countertops are in, a new stove is in place, tiling goes forth. So far it looks good, but as always takes forever. Long ago I took a blood oath (not sure what that is, but it sounds serious) never to go into Sears again. Every time I buy anything there I regret it. Apparently a blood oath is not very effective, because we bought 2 fridges and a stove. Kenmore had the best ratings for simple fridges and the stove was half price (sort of, no Sears price is real, constant sales make the prices ephemeral). It took 4 hours to buy 3 appliances, we then got about a score of robocalls that made no sense that were hard to stop, we finally scheduled a delivery for the stove (hard to do since the appliance dep't never answers their phone, so anytime there is a problem you have to go to the store), they told Barb delivery was not free even though we have an invoice saying it is. They missed the delivery date since they couldn't find the stove, then after I called the store manager, they found the stove, but Mr. manager had no concern when it would be delivered. The owner of the delivery company went out of his way to get it to us the next day and did; the Sears manager didn't care. I e-mailed Sears about this and then haven't replied. This time we mean it—never, ever buy anything from the worst store I have ever dealt with. The real estate Sears owns must be worth more than the business. The only things Sears can sell anymore is Kenmore appliances and Craftsman tools. The tools are not very good anymore. The parking lot outside is pretty empty and probably most of the cars are employees. Sad ending to a once great company. I don't want to lose our warranties and I want Sears to die an ugly death for what they put us through. The epitome of mixed feelings.

The stove looks good and we can see a flame, adjust it immediately and hope we never have another electric cooktop again. We had to change the orifices since we have propane. There was no way to tell which burner which orifice went to since the instructions don't tell what the BTU of each burner is. I found a rough indication online by looking up the Sears website, but that took a while. Then I dropped an orifice into the void. It disappeared into oven insulation. Since the orifices are brass, a magnet could not find it. You can't raise the top on a Kenmore stove like most gas ranges, so we started taking the stove apart by removing panels. A small hole in the back of a 2nd panel could fit my arm when I moved a gas line, but I got stuck (not permanently) and couldn't get far enough. Barb's petite arm could reach further and she felt around and found it down between the oven insulation and the outer panel of the stove. Trying to get a new orifice anytime soon would have been a struggle since everything with Sears is a struggle. So it fits (just barely), cooks, looks good.

More subway tile to install, grouting the sink surround tile, install sink, remove old bar above this area and put in new one with the same grey tile used around the sinks. So we will have many shades of grey in the kitchen (not 50 though) with contrasting white tile and stainless steel appliances. Part of the stove is black, so perhaps black is the ultimate shade of grey. Two days without a cooktop are over (used the Airstream stove once) and we have all essential things operating though a lot of counter space is piled with tools, tile, etc.

As I discover with every project (and try to ignore), things are harder to do now and i'm not sure which part of my body hurts more. Trying to get motivated to hurt some more today and finish this part of the kitchen before a quick Pueblo trip to my in-laws next week. Next trip will probably feature a lot of naps and eating.

Weather here is full summer with highs down in GJ in the 90's and 80's up here. We seeing thunderstorms and some rain, rivers are running high and sky is blue most days. I heard last week there was 3 feet of snow on Grand Mesa and campgrounds may not be open yet.

Gene

[rmkrum]

Sears has been on my "I have a little list, and they'll never be missed" list since they went out of the catalog business right when I was building a home in Alabama. I bought what I could on sale, found other stuff I needed elsewhere, and have not bothered since. Their consolidation with K-Mart was like tying two drunks together in the hope that they would not fall down. Sad. They could have outdone Amazon if they had done it right.

I still buy craftsman hand tools, occasionally, but their line of power tools have gotten so bad it's ridiculous. Appliances just as disappointing. I shop at Lowe's or Home Despot most of the time nowadays, and my power tools are DeWalt yellow, mostly.

It's very sad, because I was a very loyal customer for darn near forever, it seemed. They lost their way so badly.


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[Gene]

I have a lot of DeWalt tools too—when I can't find review that I can believe, I buy DeWalt as a default measure since their tools are always good and usually as good as any. It is Black & Decker's premium line and far better than other B&D products including their other companies operating under different names.

I remember the Sears' catalogues from my youth (the women's underwear section was of particular interest to a young boy since we didn't get National Geographic). They used to rate their products as "good", "better" and "best" and were honest about it. I bought my first appliances from them plus a bedroom set in 1962. Good stuff, but the company started going bad in the '70's. Instead of going online, they gave up on catalogs which was a natural extension of catalogs. The guy who took them over later has terrible management practices, is running the stores into the ground, but will probably come out ahead if he can separate the real estate from the store business and take profits from the real estate and dump the retail business and its debt. I hope Kenmore appliances are still good. I relied on Consumer Reports for reviews on that, but wish I hadn't after the pain and suffering of dealing with Sears. I hope the warranties will be safe if Sears suddenly goes into debtor-in-possession bankruptcy, but they may liquidate entirely. They can't lose money forever.

It is not difficult to buy distressed companies, load them with junk bond debt, cash out, make them public again and profit from that, walk away with big bucks. I just read a NY Times' story about a well known man who owned Atlantic City casinos, did a lot of shady deals, didn't pay contractors, made a lot of money, left the casinos rundown and eventually owned by others while he paid himself out of junk bond proceeds.

Watching major high quality companies go under during my lifetime teaches that nothing is permanent and a good company can and probably will go bad.

But our end of month trip feels necessary to give my body time to repair itself so I can return eager to tackle more kitchen remodeling. In the meantime, I am making very small efforts to plan something. We know we will go through Mancos and Cortez (Cortez has a CG we stop in when we are there). Mancos is near the entrance to Mesa Verde NP, but we've been there a couple of times. After visiting a friend, we'll go east and over Wolf Creek Pass and possibly stop in South Fork (there's a CG with a funny name there that was part of the movie "Vacation"). Then turn north and go to Lake City. There are dispersed sites in the national forest near Slumgullion Pass and Spring Creek Pass to check out too. Lake City is a favorite destination for Texans, but we'll brave it.

But today the bar between the kitchen proper and the "great room" gets removed to be replaced with plywood, tile and some decorative edge banding to match other places with the banding which is not true banding but I have no other name for it. Gotta finish subway tile backsplash, adjust the stove oven whenever Barb figures out how to turn it on and install the sink soon.

Hot and humid outside with temps near 90˚ outside—summer blasts its way here after a longish winter and short spring. Thunder possible for the next few days. The bird hasn't been around for a while. I ordered the angry eye balloons that are supposed to scare birds away, but they have not come (Amazon is getting slower as well as more expensive?). I expect the bird is a busy father now, but if he was eaten by a bigger bird, we would not be upset. Now we have to clean the windows on the second floor side of the house and I used the tool for that for something else. Mañana for window cleaning.

Gene

[Jim Flower]

👍, Jim


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[Gene]

Temps of 99 to 100˚ in Pueblo and a father-in-law who turns off the A/C in the house whenever he can get away with it. I think he sets the thermostat at 78˚ inside, but it gets hotter than that before and after the A/C is on. My parents used to do the same thing when we visited them in Fla. I keep waiting to be so old I need the temps inside to be at 80˚, but so far I prefer 65˚. It must be my Canadian blood.

We have reservations in Lake City at the most expensive and highly rated CG for 3 days next week and reservations in Cortez for two nights. We went for the cable TV and everything else CG's so we can be sloths. One night may be boondocking near Slumgullion Pass.

Lake City is the county seat of very small Hinsdale Co. Less than 1,000 in the whole county I believe. There are quite a few CG's there, restaurants and various tourist shoppes. There are lots of 4wd roads to explore, but with a full sized pickup, it can be tight. Last time we were in Lake City, we went with friends and they both fell off their bikes. They have traveled cross country, but we stayed on bikes and did not get injured. That time we stayed at the Hinsdale County CG, Wupperman. It is along San Cristobal Lake and the views are wonderful. Though there is a water spigot and dump station, the campsites are somewhat primitive. We weren't in the mood for that this time.

Hinsdale Co. was the place where cannibal Alferd Packer dined while stranded in a blizzard. Rather loose school standards in the 1800's may have led to the spelling of his name. Debates have continued for well over a century whether Alferd actually murdered any of the others in the party or they died of exposure. He did serve some time, but I think he died a free man. Dining in the County has improved since. At the time this saying was going around: "There were only five Democrats in Hinsdale County and Alferd Packer ate four of them."

Photo of the status of the kitchen remodel follows. We have 4 days between trips and will start building the bar between the kitchen and great room and planning the countertops for the rest of the kitchen. Need to start them to give the polyurethane time to cure before we use them. My rest cure is working here and I'll be ready to exhaust myself again. At least I don't have to cut firewood anymore, although using a chain saw in my '70's gave me a feeling of beating the grim reaper.

Gene

[Gene]

For a few days I have been getting a message about half of the time, "checking your browser" and then I am sent to a blank page and nothing happens. I can go back to the post I tried to post and do it again and then it seems to work.

Some new security thing that is so annoying that people will give up using the website?

Gene

[eubank]

AirForums has been experiencing a directed denial of service attack for the last week or so. The screen is to defend against the attack.
Lynn

[Gene]

Lynn,

i found the thread on it and the cure may be as bad as the problem.

I hope you and Maria are doing well. Looks like you still have the CG.

Gene

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Originally Posted by Gene

For a few days I have been getting a message about half of the time, "checking your browser" and then I am sent to a blank page and nothing happens. I can go back to the post I tried to post and do it again and then it seems to work.

Some new security thing that is so annoying that people will give up using the website?

Gene

Hi, same thing here.

[Ag&Au]

Originally Posted by ROBERTSUNRUS

Hi, same thing here.

There must be some way to turn it into a game. I tried a bit on the thread about it. It was a conspiracy theory. Perhaps we can give an award for whoever comes up with the most rediculous theory.

Remember: When you are given BS, make BSade.

Or maybe a jelly bean dispenser.

http://www.candycrate.com/thbupocadi.html

Ken

[Gene]

I haven't had to deal with a browser check, take off my shoes and belt or be scanned in a few days, so I guess things are back to normal.

Getting things ready for the next trip—six days starting Thursday. Slowly moving along with the kitchen—plywood for the bar is installed and half the tile is in. I am taking a break from it and hope to get the tile in today, but maybe not. Won't make much difference either way.

Second thoughts about the northeast trip. Barb's parents—90 and 91—have been so healthy for so long we kind of think of them as invincible, but they look much more fragile than we have seen them before. They have been in the same house for almost 60 years and suddenly the neighborhood is showing signs of wear and tear. All the old timers are gone and younger, less responsible people are moving in (they aren't as concerned about bluegrass and their lawns are not cared for with extreme measures). We hear about more crime. Because they don't want to "bother" us, we are much more bothered by their stubbornness, refusal to consider moving to a better place and a house with less upkeep. We don't know what they aren't telling us (don't want to "bother" us) and we don't know how to help them. Thus, when one gets real sick or dies, nothing will be ready and everything will be an emergency. Kind of ties you down waiting for the hammer to fall. They are very good people (couldn't ask for better in-laws) doing the things that people do when they get really old, but for us (who aren't so young either) it sure drives us nuts. Hard to help people when they don't want help, but seem to need it.

Gene

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, "Check your browser" was the first thing I got tonight as I clicked onto Air Forums, so it is still there. My Dad bought his house in 1950 and stayed in it until 2011 when he passed away. I fully understand why old people don't want to move. They don't want anything moved or changed in their houses as that is how it will be until the end. My last/first house was for 33 years and this house is planned to be my last. I HATE MOVING! I also like to keep my vehicles for 10 years or 100,000 miles or more. My Airstream trailer is/was planned to be our one and only trailer until I can no longer can handle it anymore. People get comfortable a resist change, especially old people. Hope you have a nice trip.

[Gene]

You are right Bob. Try and pry my cold, dead hands off the steering wheel! We presently are at our third last house. I do learn some things—it probably isn't our last house, or one of us' last house. Barb will probably want to downsize when I am shipped off in my Airstream urn, so it may be last one, but not hers. But parents are another issue. Their neighborhood has been remarkably stable for generations, but not so much now. The early signs of decay are either there or we are looking too hard for that and things are ok. I really don't see that they will be strong enough to hold out much longer, but will probably live a lot longer. If they have to move, it will be a struggle to find where to go. Everybody seems to have these issues and solutions are many, and many of those are not too good. We now realize we did not buy a house that was convenient for one or two parents to live in with us. Not sure how we screwed that up. I look at my future and knowing that each year I have a little less stamina, a little less strength, I wonder when I get feeble and at the same time am doing as well as anyone. Then I look at older people and some are still getting around well, but many others are struggling.

We are now at Elkhorn RV Resort in Lake City. It was 104˚ in Grand Jct. two days ago, but low 70's when we got here. That is welcome. I picked the best rated CG in town, but it seems kind of crowded in the part we are in. Our dinette is feet from a residential street and someone with a large 4 wheeler on a trailer parked it (facing wrong way) right on the street outside our window. Nice view of an orange macho machine. Are those street legal? They are the size of a small car and remind me of VW's The Thing.

We got into town after a slow trip of about 160 miles and a nap seemed wonderful. It was. I can remember two times we spent several days here and have been through here a few more times. Every time the restaurants are different, so we have to figure out which ones are good this year. Bruno, who is the chef at Alpine Moose Lodge, seems to be the fine dining chef here. Reading the reviews and his responses on TripAdvisor is fun. Bruno takes no prisoners. Appears the food is good, but Bruno can be fiery. Not sure I want to chance it. It looks like the lodge and restaurant are for sale. Bruno has been here a long time and some people will miss him. Five years ago it was the place to go for pizza, now it is fine dining. Try to find a menu for most any restaurant here is a challenge. Like a lot of small mountain towns, there will be one really good restaurant, a lot of "family"/"comfort food" type places with not very good food, a steakhouse, maybe a good breakfast/lunch place, maybe a "bakery" with food beyond bread and cake. The latter two will be run by one or more women who really care about their restaurant and/or bakery and the food is usually pretty good. There are 12 restaurants so far as I can tell. 408 people means every 34 people have their own restaurant to staff and eat at. Obviously people come here for the summer. Never been here in the winter, but at close to 8,661', it must be cold. Average temp in January is 17˚. A one time mining town, it was down to 91 people in 1970, but tourism got bigger and people wanted to move away from cities, so more have moved here.

Gene

[ROBERTSUNRUS]

Hi, one more scary thought was, what to do with all the junk collected in the decades of living in one place. After 33 years in our house, we trashed, gave away, and donated truck loads of stuff. At my parents house, we got the job of going through 61 years of stuff. At 98, I'm sure my Dad wasn't going to do it and I'm sure your parents/inlaws in their 90's wouldn't feel like doing it either. [My kids will get that job when I get old, or pass]

[Gene]

Our 2nd day in Lake City. Had a fair breakfast—all you can eat for $7 at Poker Alice's—that is cheap here. Decided to drive up to Cinnamon Pass (more than 12,000'), a place we've been to before. Then maybe drive over to Engineer Pass, another repeat. These are heavily used 2wd and 4wd roads and last time we went over Engineer (there are really two Engineer Passes to be accurate, North and South I think) was maybe 7 or 8 years ago. Today, though, the bumpy road hurt my back, I didn't feel good on the shelf road as the drops got higher and higher and I just wasn't having any fun. Maybe better in our relatively small FJ Cruiser, but not in a full sized truck. So we came back to town, had lunch, and will go to the county museum shortly. Lots of photos in a while.

Been hot for Lake City here—up towards 80˚. Clouding over in the afternoon for the occasional thunderstorm as if normal in the mountains in the summer. And the town seems kind of quiet. There's some sort of race today, but otherwise lots of empty parking and quiet restaurants, stores and streets. It may be the high season starts here July 4. Some stores don't open until July 1.

Gene

[Fly at Night]

Decided to drive up to Cinnamon Pass....

Another excellent trip report. You're on a roll.

[Gene]

Sunday: A humid afternoon with thunder far in the distance. We are camped at West Fork CG between Pagosa Springs and Wolf Creek Pass. I can occasionally get one bar, but the signal is so weak I can’t get any data. Photos and this screed will have to wait.

Our time in Lake City was quiet (mostly) and restful. We went to see the X-Men movie and as superhero movies go, it was better than the others, but if you like a realistic plot, forget it. Constant action and weak attempts to be meaningful and to even answer major questions about humanity. The movie theater, the Mountaineer, was apparently rescued from oblivion several years ago. I think it seats 70. Hard to make any money with few seats and few people over winter, but good for them that they could pull this off. They had a digital projector, difficult to afford, and good sound. They even had fairly recent theater seats, though they didn’t recline.

By that evening, Lake City was cut off from the world—cell service was out. We had been told at the CG the whole town had lost cable TV and we never did get any while there. Later that evening, I could get the internet by switching back and forth between our Verizon system and the CG system. That was the norm until we left—intermittent and slow.

The CG was adequate. Some sites, ours included, were small and crowded. Our dinette faced out on a residential street about 5’ away. Since we were either out on the town, reading inside, or napping during the “waking” hours, the CG didn’t matter much. New owners and they seem very eager to please. So, Elkhorn RV resort is not really a resort, but is ok. Most of the CG’s in and near town have only back-ins (maybe a few have some pull thrus, but we didn’t see any) and are crammed together. The next time (we go to Lake City every 5 to 10 years) we might look for a CG with more space.

The town also has a lot of old cabins from the days before RV’s. We stayed in one in town run by a very nice widow in 1990. That was good. We had planned on backpacking deep into the Lost Creek Wilderness west of Denver, but it poured and poured. We hiked back to the truck and drove southwest until it stopped raining (it was the wettest August ever in Denver that year). Never did get back to Lost Creek.

The local museum is much like a lot of small town museums. The collection in the main building was kind of jumbled and themes were not well developed. Many of these museums have the same stuff every other small town museum has. It is a challenge for non-professionals to do professional displays. A very friendly man took our money ($4/senior) and liked to talk. He started following me and I had to stop responding to him or he would have followed us back to the trailer. He parted his hair in the middle like men did a century or more ago; he also had a pencil thin mustache—maybe he was an apparition. They had some buildings in the back with a few interesting things.

This morning we got an early start for us (9:20) and started south. Climbing up out of Lake City is a long slog on a steep highway, some of it like a paved shelf road, to Slumgullion Pass. Slumgullion stew is a collection of whatever food you have in a pot, boiling for hours. The Pass is something like 11,200’, a half mile climb from town. That is the same altitude change from Grand Jct. to our house, but in about half the distance for the steepest parts. One grade was so steep that for the first time ever the Tundra was maxed out.

The highway stays above 10,000’ for a while, traversing Spring Creek Pass and more very high country. Lots of opportunities for dispersed or CG camping along the way. After Spring Creek, we entered the Rio Grande headwaters area and followed the river until South Fork. The river valley widens significantly and pretty soon we saw lots of neutron villages (neutron bombs only kill living things, no other damage). These are places with second homes and no one around—no children, dogs, adults, cars. Along the way was Creede, a former mining town in a very narrow side canyon. The highway goes past Creede instead of into Creede. Soon we were in South Fork, a town made up of CG’s and motels and some restaurants. We passed Fun Valley RV CG, moderately famous in the movie “Vacation”. Then we started up Wolf Creek Pass, a long trip up to 12,000’ or so. This pass gets amazing amounts of snow every winter, 400” seems normal I believe. They rebuilt the road some 10 or 15 years ago and it took a few years of awful, hour long delays. So traumatized by that, this was the first time we traveled this way since.

We arrived at this CG not long after noon. It is an old CG and most of the sites face the wrong way to back in a trailer. Many are for very small RV’s or tents. I just drove into one facing backwards since we aren’t unhitching. This one will be easy to back out of in the morning. This CG is run by a concessionaire who spends no money on it, but instead of the $6 these CG’s used to cost not that many years ago, now it is $18 (half for those of us with a senior pass). Nice, wooded area, pretty quiet and we got a space without a reservation.

Monday we drive to Cortez and hopefully good wifi, cell service and television. I love being in wild and distant places, but I need internet and cable news. This is a problem. But tonight we burn scrap wood from remodeling and can stare into the fire; almost as good as cable news.

Gene

[Gene]

This morning, Monday, we got another early start, even before 10 am, and about a half mile from the CG as we passed through old cabins and a small RV park, I heard one of the Equalizer hitch bars hit the dirt. I stopped and the part of the inside link plate that holds the L brackets had broken off. Not a bad weld, a clean metal break. About 30 seconds later a man on a Kobuta 4 wheel thing they use in place like this pulled up and offered to help. He had been wetting down the road. He looked at it and said he could weld it and off we went to a garage about 50 yards away and he welded it. Not pretty, but it has survived 125 miles. Could you leave one bar on and still get some sway control? Neither of us have been able to figure that one out.

There are no Equalizer dealers in southwest Colorado. I called the company and reminded them of their lifetime warranty. They will ship me 2 new link plates plus new bolts, washers and nuts. The design has changed since our hitch was made, so I will get the new design without a box welded on. But I'll have drive home with the fixed part and hope the weld is ok.

Today we are in Cortez at Sundance RV CG. Nice place, we've been here 2 or more other times. Only problem is the TV picture is fuzzy. Back in the heat after several semi-cool days though everyone is complaining about the heat everywhere.

Let's get back to photos.

1. Poker Alice's restaurant. Actually if Alice was still alive it would be a bordello and casino. She, the madam, would be up front with a big cigar in her mouth.

2. Across from Poker Alice is this multi-business: gas, garage, coffee shop, cafe, a big fish next to the pumps must mean something else is for sale, and BBQ. And it is for sale—here's your chance for a new life.

3. This finely restored building is now the library, but was a tourist store 5 years ago. There was a big tree where the cars are parked in front. This close to one end of Silver St., the one time commercial street. Note boardwalks.

4. Further north on Silver. Since the town had several major fires long ago, hard to know whether the buildings date back to the 1870's when it was founded, or much later.

Gene

[Gene]

More photos:

1. Some not so good old buildings on Silver St. Most houses in town are small and well kept. This is across from the museum.

2. The museum in Lake City.

3. Detail of the top of the museum main building.

4. The buildings and the Dodge pickup may be old, but the flowers and some of the boardwalk are new.

Gene

[Gene]

So what happened to the bird who was attacking our windows? Gone now that I have the angry eyes balloons which I haven't be able to use. They do look cool and I might leave one in the guest room to scare our guests.

Another thing about Lake City—a couple of days ago every cottonwood tree in town decided to pollinate the same day. There was pollen (strangely enough it looks like raw cotton) everywhere and my nose got stuffed and my eyes itched. Glad to be gone from that.

Back to Photos:

1. Now an art center, this formidable brick building looks like a one time hotel. In the right foreground is the town park. Once a group of commercial buildings, when they burned down, it was turned into a park. There are quite a few vacant lots in the middle of town.

2. One of the downtown empty lots has been turned into a flower garden.

3. A grossly underserved population finally gets some help. Let's hope we can get government grants to help husbands everywhere.

4. Lake San Cristobal. Second largest natural lake in the state, created by a gigantic mudflow long ago. The road south crisscrosses the mudflow and I can report it did not move while we traversed it.

Gene