June 17, 2002, Monday- unwind day. Pack up four condos worth of "stuff" and figure out how to get some to Denver (the karaoke machine and the tuxedos), some to the coach, some to Cami's house and some to Allan and Fran. Cars full of stuff, and then worry about the people and luggage. But, somehow, we got through it all and by one o'clock we were having a 10 person lunch at the Bully.
Fran was nice enough to offer her house and the next thing we knew, 16 of us were back at her house to work on finishing the Boca and salmon burgers left from the Saturday BBQ.
June 18, 2002, Tuesday- while Sue worked on wash and getting the coach back into shape from the last week's activities, I drove Rob, Deb and Steve back to DIA for their flights to Boston and California. Winding down…… relaxing dinner with Mom, Fran and Allan, and for a change earlier to bed.
June 19, 2002, Wednesday- up at 4:45 to make sure that Mom was up for her van ride to DIA. She and another young lady were the only passengers. Plenty of room for Mom to sleep.
We left Fran and Allan's, headed for the coach in Vail, and were hooked up and ready to roll by 9:30. from Vail to Monarch Pass we went over Vail Pass and Freemont Pass. No problems with either. Monarch Pass was a grunt. Kept the engine up near the red line (2200 RPM) and watched the needle climb as we drove the 6 plus miles, at 6 to 7% grades, to the summit. As we approached the top the temps were at the point of having the alarms go off, but we crested, and after 3 minutes of fast idle, we were back at normal temps. On the other side, 7 miles and some 4000 foot decent were easy using our pac brake.
Arrived at our Blue Mesa Recreational Area camp site and as expected, it's dusty and barren high desert at 7000 feet. Across the street we look down on the very low, Blue Mesa Reservoir.
Fran and Allan were delayed in Denver and didn't head our way until after 3. At 7 we met them in town, and can you believe it, we were turned away from a nice restaurant because we didn't have a reservation. Incredible…on a Wednesday…
Mom made it home okay….but even with a 3 hour wait for her flight, all she bought was a cup of coffee and she munched on her peanut butter cookies. To each his own.
June 20, 2002, Thursday- the Durango forest fires, even though they are 130+ miles away, caused heavy smoke and haze today throughout the valley. The reservoir and hillsides were not visible for most of the day.
After putting all the bikes on Allan's car, we headed into Gunnison and rode around for 12+ miles. Although the distances were not great, we did cover a lot of ground and got a great feel for this town of 14,000.
Many of the lawns have an open ditch running along the curb. The town diverts river water upstream, sends it down though these canals, and the individual lot owners pump out the water to use for irrigation. It looks strange but keeps down the amount of water that the water company plant has to process.
Ride the Rockies came though town today, and ended up, after starting in Montrose, 66 miles away, at the Gunnison High School. 2000+ riders came into Gunnison and watching the luggage being unloaded at the staging area gave a clear indication of the massive coordination needed to bring together an event of this size.
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As we rode out bikes up a dirt road towards the second golf course, we heard a dog barking. It sounded like Hobbes. The next thing we knew, we were chatting with the dog's owner, a women that grew up in Bayonne, NJ. Their dog, at 90 pounds was quite a bite bigger then Hobbes, at 60 pounds.
I spoke to Al about my conversations with Ken, and it sounds like we are making good progress on work in the Naples area.
Small world again. Carol, a neighbor of ours in Paradise Point from 18 months ago, is working in this park and remembed us and Hobbes.
Steaks on the grill and an evening of cards, Hand and Foot, finished a good day.
June 21, 2002, Friday- after 300 miles and 12 hours we returned to the coach, with nonstop talk about what we did and what we saw today.
First, 66 miles to the west to Montrose, where we found the cutest little coffee shop with the freshest pastries and, for me, the strongest coffee. Side trip number 1.
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We continued westbound to Telluride. Since I had been there 15 or so years ago, I tried my memory and found many of the same things still in town. First, the clothing drop box is still just off main street. A cubby for girls stuff, women's stuff, etc. Telluride real estate is still operating out of the " drug store". Sidewalks are still dangerous places on the side streets. This weekend is the bluegrass festival and there were 1000's of people in town. And we do mean many, many thousands. Most were hippies, young, and all made Hobbes the center of attention.
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We toured the Mountain Village ski area above Telluride, with much of the development similar to Beaver Creek ski area. High quality buildings with ski in and ski out opportunities.
Continued back to Ridgeway and then went south to see Ouray. First we toured the "Box Canyon" waterfalls. Then over to Vapor Cave hot springs for a relaxing dip. Finally back to Montrose for dinner and then returning to our Gunnison campground.
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June 22, 2002, Saturday- 10 miles to the west lays Pine Creek trail. From the parking lot it's 232 steps down to the river, and along side the river are the remains of a 3' wide narrow gauge railroad spur for the Denver & Rio Grande. This trail runs along the peaceful river, looking like it did thousands of year's ago.
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We checked out the Elk Creek Marina, 2 miles to the west of the campground, and observed first hand, that the lake level is down 45 feet from normal. That's a lot of water missing.
Returning to the coach, we did a hot tub and a few hands of "hand and foot". Relaxing day with much less smoke and haze, primarily due to wind shifts, not to fires going out.
June 23, 2002, Sunday- more car rides were the order of the day. First we headed to see Lake City, the county seat of Hinsdale, where the cannibal, Alfie Packer was tried for eating 5 of the 7 Democrats in the county. Our Naples friends, Ken and Gwen have an acquaintance that run a Lake City restaurant, and so we decided to have lunch there. It's a quaint little town with not a lot going for it. Only 530 people winter there. The kids have to take a bus to Gunnison, one hour each way, to get to school.
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After touring Lake City we headed south for 90 minutes, to the town of Creede, another cute little mining town, now turned tourist Mecca. Several galleries, banks, and real estate offices line the 2 blocks of "downtown".
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Returning to Gunnison, we observed another forest fire, 5 miles north of town, being fought by several tanker planes and ground crews. A free bluegrass concert in the town park provided an evening's entertainment.
Dinner at Garlic Mike's and more cards back at the coach finished a full day.
June 24, 2002, Monday - another active day with Fran and Allan….they never stop. Off to Crested Butte we headed, about 45 miles. It's been about 7 years since we've been there and based on what we observed, not much has happened on the positive side. The ski area has changed ownership and had a terrible year, based on skier numbers. There were many empty stores downtown. But on the positive side, we road 8 miles up Slate River Road, a dirt road with unbelievable beauty. Fran ,still recovering from her January leg injury, did great on the grades and rough sections.
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June 25, 2002, Tuesday- a day of trading phone calls with Al and Ken, finishing up at 8:30 tonight. We're excited about getting together with Ken in Pittsburgh and then in Naples and getting back into the working world. Lunch and dinner in town (where cell service is dependable), and a few more hands of cards in the morning and afternoon. Lots of laughs.
June 26, 2002, Wednesday- all good things must come to an end, and Fran and Allen headed home today. For the first time in a few weeks we have the house to ourselves, so time to reconfigure the coach. Up from the basement came all of the things that have been stored there.
A few walks with Hobbes and a few hours to catch up on computer work, starting on the June web page.
June 27, 2002, Thursday- with a bucket of water and a few towels I gave the coach and car a much needed "sponge bath". They were groaning about all the blown dust and dirt that had accumulated.
Next, we head up to the northern entrance to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, where the water has carved a deep notch in the rocks, 2700 feet deep at the highest point, and 1700 at the lowest. Quite an impressive ditch, after 2 million years of carving!
With all of the wildfires burning around the country, it was interesting to learn today that in 1900 the average forest acre had 70 trees. Now, with our attempts to stop fires, environmentalists, housing, etc, the average acre contains over 1000 trees. No wonder that when the fires start they can't be stopped.
Back at the coach I started printing some of the wedding pictures to send to our friends. The photos, 4 x 6, came out quite well on our new printer.
June 28, 2002, Friday- for a little exercise Susan and I hiked up a ravine trail that starts behind Blue Mesa RV Park. After an hour of hiking we gained quite a bit of elevation walking through fields and fields of sage brush. As we continued up the trail it was harder and harder to find the way so we decided to call off the 5 miles needed to reach the lake. It's a good thing that Hobbes wasn't with us since there was cactus in abundance.
Looking in the phonebook we found that the local golf club, a membership place, was open to the public. Over we went to hit some range balls, and were rudely told that since 6 members have been hit on the adjoining hole this year, only members can use the practice area. Bummer!
June 29, 2002, Saturday- our last day in Gunnison was spent walking through some of the local shops filled with rustic furniture, furnishing, clothing, etc. Neat things for those trying to make a Ralph Lauren ranch.
We spoke to our friends Hank and Linda who attended the Gillette, WY American Coach Rally. They described is as the worst rally….too many meals not provided even though there were high rally fees. But what was more amazing was that with 240 or so coaches, they sold the 24 coaches that were brought in by the dealers, and took orders for another 4. It was the highest percentage of sales to coaches in a long time. Where do all these people get their money from? With the disaster of the first half of year on the stock market (6th worst for the DOW and the worst for the NASDAC), we're looking to get back into making money, and not spending money.
June 30, 2002, Sunday- travel time. We had to make a decision as which road to take back to Vail. Going over Monarch pass is a 4000 foot climb at 7 to 8%. Not the first choice. Going back via Paonia and Hotchkiss involves two passes. Since we were hoping to put the coach into storage at a friend's ranch in Eagle, we decided to take the easy and scenic way to Montrose, Grand Junction and I-70 back to Eagle. It is the same mileage from Gunnison, so we pushed the cruise control and wound up into Eagle 220 miles and a few hours later, without having to climb any passes
After parking the coach in Eagle, it was packing time. Since we would be out of the coach for the better part of a week, we shut down the refrigerator and freezer. The car was packed to get to Fran and Allan's. Nothing else could have been fit in the car.
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