Our Travel Blog

Again, nice and cool overnight, but warmer than usual when we awoke. Today we decided to get in some much needed exercise so we headed off to a walk along an old railway line a few miles away. We made an early, for us, start to try and beat the heat. We succeed in the first goal and failed in the second.

By the time we got to the area it was already hot. Unfortunately the old line was a couple of hundred feet above the parking area, so a bit of a steep trek to get to it.

Once on the track we had a great view down at the Arkansas River, and also the rail line that we traveled on the other day.

With a name like the tunnel trail you’d expect to find the occasional tunnel

Some interesting rock colouring.

The river was active with rafters, it had been closed to commercial rafting for a few days due to high and fast water levels. I guessed these guys to be doing 10-12 mph floating with the current.

Some more flowers and cactii


and even a turkey vulture riding a thermal

There are many of these small lizards around, but they move pretty fast. I finally managed to get a picture of one.There were a number of geo-caches along the trail, but most involved some rock climbing, we decided to give them a miss, but we did find one cunningly hidden in a pipe!

After about 2.5 miles in 35°C temperatures, we headed off north to find the suspension bridge that we saw from the train. The bridge was located in a park area which had strategically placed fences all around to prevent you getting a view of the bridge, unless you paid an entrance fee. Unfortunately the rather high entrance fee also included free access to various rides and activities, all we wanted was to see the bridge, so that was a dud! I did manage a shot though.

Driving out of the area there was a no parking area next to a fire hydrant, this gave a better view, but also resulted in a caution that we shouldn’t park there!

On the way out there was a small dirt track with a cache at the end of it. The cache was called Royal Gorge for Free. We had to go for that one. Unfortunately we didn’t find it, but we did get a few more views.

Bridge and Canyon

Bridge and Gondola
Bridge and Zip Liners

We headed back to the camp site, and Lyn said their was an Amish store on the way that she’d like to stop at, we forgot it was a Sunday so the store was closed.

A little late on this blog, but we didn’t get home until nearly 10 PM yesterday.

As usual a nice cool night to bring the trailer temperature down. Fridays trip was a double header, we were heading out to Manitou Springs, just north of Colorado Springs, which was about 60 miles away.

Our first stop was at the Caves of the Winds. Normally I would expect to descend into caves, but on this occasion we had a steep climb of about 300 ft and 4 switchbacks to reach the entrance.

From Whence we Came

Once we got to the site we had to get tickets, and found out the next tour was at 2:15, about 30 minutes wait. That should work. We had another trip booked at 4 PM, and we needed to be there at 3:30. This was a 45 minute tour, so we should be out by 3 o’clock, 10 minutes to the next site, no problem.

We started the tour at 2:20, luckily we could enter via a tunnel, not like they did 100 years ago, using a rope ladder to climb down. The black marks on the roof are caused by carbon deposits where earlier visitors extinguished their candles, it was deemed unsafe to climb back up a rope ladder with a lighted candle!

First of all we had to have the “obligatory photo” a lot of tours now insist on this, they say it is so you can purchase a memento of your visit, but my suspicious mind thinks big brother may be behind this, trying to keep a record of who enters public places. What, me paranoid… never!!

Anyway the tour got underway, it was a pleasant 12° in the caves, but one thing was missing…. moisture. Nearly every tourist cave system I have been in has been wet, puddles on the floor, water on the walls, dripping from overhead etc. This place was really dry, and as we looked around there wasn’t really a great abundance of stalagmites and stalactites. The majority of the ones we did see were small, only a few inches in length. 

They did have a couple larger ones

There we also a couple of columns, where stalactite meets stalagmite

To protect the caves environment Colorado has passed a law that allows a fine of up to $2500 for touching any surface inside the caves except for the concrete floor and hand rails. In addition to this, the offenders (or offenders parent) can have their driving licence suspended for a year!

Below is a small area that has been provided for those that just had to touch! It is quite polished.

By 3:15 the tour was still in full swing, and time was not on our side. I spoke to the guide and she arranged to have some one come and escort back to the main area as there were still about 10 minutes left in the tour.

We made it out to the truck in record time, and a quick drive down the switch backs (no problem with new brakes!!) got us on our way. As we approached our destination along a one way street we hit a traffic jam, it turns out the jam was caused by people going to the same place and trying to get a space in the parking lot. Lyn got out and walked ahead to see what the problem was and also to pick up our tickets. The traffic started to move, and we eventually made it to the parking lot with about 10 minutes to spare.

This trip was on a cog railway up to Pikes Peak summit, 14,110 fee above sea level. Below is a cog train about 3/4 of the way to the summit

The train is similar to a normal train, but there is a cog wheel on each driven axle that engages a third rail.

The trip was 8.7 miles long, with a rise of approximately 8800 feet, at times the gradient was 1 in 4 (25%).

Below are some general views

Marmot close to the track

Below are some big horn sheep.

Above the tree line, looking back on the rail tracks

The summit station

Proof we were there!

We walked around the summit for a while, but the temperature was down around 5°C, and the altitude really made a difference to breathing up there. This was about 3,000 higher than we were a week or so ago as we crossed over the mountains. Below are some general summit views.

Back down at the base station we went back to the truck and headed off in search of food. We found a nice Indian / Nepal /Tibet restaurant in Colorado springs. The food was good, and there was enough left over for a good lunch today.

Today (Saturday) was a semi lazy day. I replaced a bulb in the truck and had to replace a cap on the trailer sewer system. This afternoon was shopping afternoon for food and other essentials. We combined this with a drive along a road known as Skyline Drive. This road runs along a ridge above Canon City and give great views, what a shame both cameras were back in the trailer! We did manage to find our first Colorado cache up there though. We’ll probably return with the camera before we leave.

As we got back late this evening I’ll combine today’s blog with tomorrows.

Another comfortable nights sleep, and clear blue skies and around 18°C when we woke up.

Today’s outing was a rail trip along the Royal Gorge through which the Arkansas River flows. The Arkansas is the 5th largest river in the US. We had one stop to make before the railway station… the hospital. The truck hospital that is, so the rear brakes could be replaced. The repair shop had offered to take us to the station after we dropped off the truck, which solved a lot of problems for us. Even better they offered to pick us up when the train returned. Well above and beyond their service requirements.

We got to the station and picked up the tickets, we were also told “no food or drinks could be brought onto the train, bags would be subject to search”. A little heavy handed I thought, but it seems the owners are trying to establish the train as a “classy” restaurant as well as a train ride. We ate our packed lunch on the station!!

There was an old steam engine at the station, it would have been neat if it was in use but I am not sure it would have enough pull to get all 16 carriages moving.

Instead we had one of these at either end and a power car in the middle!

The carriages were all ex- Canadian National Railways from the 50’s, some had been converted to open air ones.

Open Air Coach

Inside of Coach

As we left the station we passed the city’s first gated community, the local jail.

This establishment played a large part in the history of the gorge. About 125 years ago, inmates were put to work in the gorge to build a water pipe to transport water from the mountains into Cañon City. The pipe was built using redwood in sections similar to a barrel , instead of using hoops to keep the pipe together it appears it was wrapped with chord.

The pipe was in use until 1973 when it froze solid and left the city without water for 3 weeks. That was the end of the pipeline! Although there is now water in the city, the outlying areas are not connected to the system. In fact at this campground, there is no groundwater available, and a water truck delivers to the site every day.

Shortly after departure we were followed by a “drone”

We passed under a suspension bridge someway along the gorge, up until 2001 it was the highest suspension bridge in the world at 955 ft above the river. The bridge resulted as a bet between two Texans as to whether it could be built or not. Building started in 1929 and was completed in only 7 months at a cost of $350,000.

The black “blob” in the top right of the picture is a cable car that runs across the gorge.

Below are some general shots of the gorge trip

At one point the gorge narrows to 30 ft across, at this pint there was no land to build the railway on so they built a “hanging bridge” suspended from the rocky side to carry the tracks.

The first half of the trip was spent in the open air car, for the return we went back to our seats to escape the sun and heat!

Back at the station we phoned the repair shop who sent a van to pick us up. When I went to pay the mechanic asked me to go and look at something with him. Uh Oh, we had an estimate from yesterday, but I had a horrible feeling that it was going to increase. He wanted to show me the cause of the problem, the rear caliper had got suck in the on position causing the brake pad to wear. He was full of apologies, but there was no way they could have foreseen this when the gave me the estimate yesterday. I was figuring about $150-$200 more for the fix. In fact it was less than $50! As they could not reach me for approval to do the extra work, they went ahead anyway, they only charged me their price for the part and didn’t charge for the extra labour. What service!!!

The truck is now sqeakless, and stops very well.

On the way into town this morning Lyn spotted a quilt store,  so we headed there on the way home. It turned out to be one of the ones we couldn’t find yesterday. Although we put the correct address into the GPS it took us to the wrong location!

More trains tomorrow.

Woke up to a pleasantly cool morning. Lyn had some laundry to do and I had nothing (specific) to do. We sat around outside for a while enjoying the more reasonable temperature of around 25°C. After lunch we headed off into the Cañon City to look around and do some shopping. We also stopped in at the local railway station to book some tickets on a train trip up the Royal Gorge tomorrow.

Lyn had found a couple of quilt stores on the web, so we took a walk around to find them, but they no longer existed.

I wanted to get some shopping and get the truck fueled up and washed, and Lyn wanted to get her hair cut, so we went our separate ways.

I was going to leave the next bit out, but here it is anyway. Late yesterday afternoon after we had descended the mountain road, a squeak had developed in, I thought, the front left wheel of the truck. I wasn’t sure if it was brakes, wheel bearing or something else. Given the recent issues with the truck, paranoia has well and truly set in so, as we passed a brake shop I made a quick exit from the road onto the forecourt. One of he mechanics took it for a test drive, brought it back and put it on the ramps and checked the bearings. He said he could hear the sound, but like me he wasn’t sure where it was coming from. He took off the left front wheel and checked the rotor and pads, again all was well. He gave me a couple of plausible explanations for the noise, and assured me that all was well, but he’d take the rest of the wheels off and check all the brakes. A good call! The left back inner brake pad had worn right down and was the cause of the noise. I am a little confused as to why this had happened as I changed all 4 rotors and all 8 brake pads not too long ago. Seven of the brake pads were fine, just this one worn right down. It certainly didn’t seem to affect the braking, but it wasn’t doing the rotor any good. Bottom line, two new rear rotors and sets of brake pads. The truck goes in tomorrow while we are on the train, although the shop spent over an hour  diagnosing the problem they didn’t charge me for that, and the final bill for the parts and labour was very reasonable with only 45 minute labour for installation.

Back at the trailer the inside temperature had risen to A/C level, so we switched it on for a couple of hours, after about 7 PM the evening starts cooling down enough to switch off the A/C and go to “natural ventilation”

Another outside BBQ and dinner, tonight. Life is good!

An early start this morning, the cool weather from yesterday continued, and we woke up to a chilly 15°C in the trailer. Our well practiced packing up went well, and from falling out of bed, having breakfast and getting on the road took almost exactly one hour.

After the last few trips with broken pipes, tires etc I must admit to being a little apprehensive about this one. As it turns out, I had good reason  for the apprehension; about 15 minutes into the trip the check engine light came on! I have a “black box” in the truck that gives me the 4 digit code that caused the light to come on, but there is no translation into English. I can however reset the light, so i did that and all was well. If the light stayed off I reasoned it couldn’t be too serious! About an hour later the light came on again, same code with no adverse effect, reset it and all was well for a few minutes! This time it came on again, and the truck went into “Limp mode” which limited its speed to 40MPH. Limp mode cleared itself,and I cleared the light. We were about 6 miles from a major town, so we continued to McDonald’s to get some free WiFi and a coffee. The coffee for the nerves, the WiFi to decode the code. Problem code equated to lack of fuel pressure at the injectors. First and easiest solution was to get some fuel additive with injector cleaner in it and chuck it in the tank, so I filled up with diesel, chucked in the additive and off we went.

All was good with the world. We started climbing, and climbing, and climbing. Out of respect to the engine I dropped the speed down to 35 MPH on some of the hills, at that speed the engine was still generating over 270 HP to keep us going, but keep us going it did. No more problems with lights or limp mode so whatever the problem was went away with either new fuel, the additive or both. We finally stopped climbing at 11,300 ft. Another 700 ft and oxygen would have been required if we were flying! At this altitude the temperature had dropped to 13°C, and there was some snow just off the side of the road.

Some General Views on the way through Colorado
Approaching the Summit at 11,300 feet.

Plus a couple of lunch time views

We then started the descent, with 12,000 lb of trailer behind you care has to be taken not to overheat the brakes, and not let the speed build up too much so that the brakes stand a chance of stopping you safely! Eventually we reached more level land at around the 7000 ft level. Probably the hardest day of driving I have had!

We made it to a nice modern RV park in Cañon City Colorado around 4:30. We got the trailer set up and I went to move the truck, it started… then cut out. The old problem was back, but like last time it was a quick fix. While fixing it I noticed some air bubbles coming from around the edge of the fuel filter housing. If you remember a couple of weeks back I put in a new fuel filter, the instructions explicitly said to only lightly hand tighten the filter. I guess my hand tightening wasn’t tight enough, I managed to get another half turn on it, enough to stop the air bubbles. Thinking back, if air could be sucked into the filter housing, that may explain the loss of fuel pressure earlier?

A very comfortable nights sleep with the temperature around 20°C. We were woken up by a loud single clap of thunder around 4:30, followed by about 2 minutes of rain. At our proper wake up time the temperature was around 22°C, so off with the air and all windows open. The temperature stayed this way for most of the day. It did climb to 25°C for a short while, but then dropped to 19°C as a thunderstorm went through.

We spent the day at the trailer, both days we have stayed here have been good choices weather wise, cooler and overcast. Lyn caught up with some quilting, or at least tried to. It seems every time she sewed a whole load of squares, either the top thread or the bobbin thread ran out without her noticing. She was not a happy quilter at times, I think she “sewed” three times more than she needed to.

It’s amazing how many small jobs need doing around the place, just like home really. The infamous rear camera had been working pretty well, but on the last trip it kept cutting in and out then just plain died. First diagnostic showed no power getting to the camera, that narrowed it down to a break in 35 ft of wire running from the back of the trailer to the front, often buried deep in the under body insulation. As I was scouting around looking for any obvious issues, I saw a wire hanging down near the trailer wheels. This was not a welcome sight as my first thought was that the electric brake circuit to the trailer had become disconnected. Closer inspection showed that the wire was in fact part of the camera system. I am still baffled as to how the wire got broken, but at least it was in an easy place to fix. Camera now working again!

Next issue was the stereo, if we ran the radio music would come through all 6 speakers, as it was supposed to do. If we routed the TV through the stereo, sound would only come from the back two speakers. I took the stereo out of the cabinet, played with a few connectors, nothing seemed to be amiss, but it now worked…. put it back quickly!!

Final fix for the day was the bed room slider, It had not been fully retracting recently, one side stayed about an inch further out than the other unless assistance was provided in the form of a push from the outside. The other day I noticed some damage to the wood on the underside of the slider, and decided I had better investigate.

Not having a clue as to this contraption worked I employed the age old method of “rip it apart until you see how it works”. Luckily only three screws had to be removed to reveal the secret. The damage to the wood occurred where it slid over a roller. I am assuming the roller had been adjusted a little too high and was putting too much pressure on the wood. There was room enough to reposition the roller away from the damaged area, and with the help of a hydraulic jack I was able to adjust it a little better. Slider now goes in and out a lot better.

A lot of the above is written as a record of what I have done, should I need to refer back to it later, as a bonus you get to read it!!

As the afternoon progressed the temperature hung around the 20°C mark, with strong winds and thunder at times, very pleasant for a change. I have started packing some of the stuff away for a semi-early start for our trip to Colorado tomorrow.

Another comfortable nights rest, I think I’ve got the A/C under control finally. After experimenting with opening and closing various vents the whole trailer cools to the same temperature. When we first started the sleeping area was about 10°C hotter than the living area! Conversely to get a decent sleeping temperature the living area was down at 18°C.

After breakfast Lyn made up a lunch and we headed out to Dead Horse Point, in Dead Horse State Park. Why was it called Dead Horse Point?? Well a couple of centuries back, a group of cowboys discovered the point of land on a cliff which was 2-3 miles long, with a narrow part that was only about 30 yds wide. Across this narrow part they could make a fence to corral the horses in. So being good little cowboys they got a whole load of horses in the corral from the surrounding area and then went off to round up some more. Water wasn’t a problem as the Colorado River was only about 2000 ft away. Unfortunately that 2000 ft was measured vertically over the cliff face. When the cowboys got back, the horses were dead.

As we left the main road to head off to the State Park, I caught a movement in my peripheral vision, there was a large animal in the field.

 I know it feels like we have traveled back in time now we are in Utah, but this was ridiculous.

OK it was a dinosaur museum!

The road to the Park was home to a few geo-caches, so naturally we (I, Lyn had little option being in the passenger seat) stopped to hunt for them.

Again, this will be more pictures than words, as I am sure the pictures are more interesting than my ramblings.

Above are two buttes named Monitor and Merrimac. They were named for two iron clad warships from back in the days of the Civil War.

Below are general views

Below are a couple of shots taken from our lunch stop.

As I mentioned at the beginning, the Colorado River was 2000 ft below the point.

As were looking out over the river there were a couple of bright blue patches visible

These looked like lakes, but the colour just seemed too vivid. In fact they were lakes, but they were there for commercial purposes. The area is rich in potassium chloride, which is used in fertiliser production. Water is pumped from the river into the rocks below the ponds, this creates a potassium chloride solution that is forced to the surface. The solution is left there to evaporate, bright blue dye is added to speed up the process, and then scrapers are used to remove the product.

One of our cache detours took us into an area of cacti, again many were flowering.

Ummm…. need to read up on using the macro setting!

The last surprise of the day was an oil well in the middle of nowhere.We headed back to the campsite, with a quick stop for fuel and some forgotten groceries.

As we descend the 2000 ft from the park the nice cool temperature of 26°C rose up to 34°C. At least that is a little cooler than the peaks of a couple of days ago.

Woke up to an overcast day and ONLY 26°C outside. Inside was a chilly 21°C. For most of the morning the A/C worked as it should have, it came on, it cooled down, it switched off. Repeated as necessary, unlike previous days where it had ran flat out from 8 AM until 11 PM!

This morning a little more maintenance was required, numerous thousands of bugs that had chosen the front of the trailer as an aiming point for their kamikaze mission practice had to be removed. Why can’t bugs learn to die without leaving blood and body parts all over the place.

I also needed to lubricate the 5th wheel hitch on the back of the truck, it had been a bit reluctant to spring back into the locking position recently. I, or more specifically my right index finger, can now attest to the fact that the locking mechanism springs back very well!

It was still cool enough at lunch time to sit outside for lunch, a first on this trip. We headed into town to do the weekly grocery shopping, then came back to the trailer to do nothing. The clouds cleared this afternoon, so the temperature started to rise up to 36°C, but the trailer maintained its cool.

We also managed an evening meal outside today, this is getting close to real camping!

I figured there have been enough photos over the last couple of days, so this is a photo free day.