travel

Quad State Weekend Jump to West Yellowstone

Published on May 16, 2012 by Katya in the category travel | 2 Comments

Colorado

Friday

On our last day in Breckenridge, we went to The Crown cafe to work and see our one friend in town (who we met last week). It was raining when we left the trailer and during the time we were in the cafe it had started to snow pretty heavy,  then it would stop snowing and melt and everything would look normal again. By the time we left, at around 6:30, it had started snowing again and the air had gotten cold enough that it was sticking. It was the first time in our 8 months in Colorado that we had seen wet snow (let alone good rain), and there was lots of it. We had made plans with our friend to have dinner at 8:30 but first had to go back to the trailer, load my motorcycle into the back of the truck and pack everything else around it. We had expected rain, worst case scenario, but the windshield of the truck had a half an inch of heavy snow already and the drive back to the trailer was practically a white out.

Snow on the last day
I’m not sure we went inside the trailer for more than a minute when we got back. Long enough to get my motorcycle keys and useless fingerless gloves. It took just a minute to start the snow-covered bike, putting a towel on the seat and wiping off the handlebars. I was expecting to be able to ride it to the loading hill we used last time at Tiger Run, about a half a mile away – since the bike had been running pretty well. Eventually I got it to idle enough to warm up but unfortunately I had started it too early and Ross wasn’t done unloading our load from the cabin. When I finally decided to just go and wait at the hill in the cold wet snow flurry, the bike stalled.

snow bike

After that, it had no intention of starting. I put in more gas, attempted to kick-start it and even had Ross push start me, but when I noticed the towel I was sitting on had somehow got soaked in gas and a rainbow puddle covered the concrete below the bike at every juncture I popped the clutch, I realized it was futile. Ross had to push the bike all the way to the hill in the snow while I ran inside and put on some jeans, my leggings and dress soaked now. The hood of my hoodie was full of snow and not realizing in the rush, I put it up and received a full pile of snow down the back of my dress. No time to change, I grit my teeth, and met him with the truck a few minutes later.

The metal ramp was so slippery that when I tried to walk the front of the bike up the now slight incline, I realized I had no footing (my pretest was a lie) and the bike was starting to tip towards me, 350lbs. I was able to step up on the tailgate and continue walking the bike somehow without being crushed. By then it was well after 7 and we still had everything else to load. Our studded tires, ladder, outdoor rug, gas, water and black water tanks, trailer cover, bike ramp, hoses and our 10+ pieces of wood for our jacks – then to somehow arrange it all to fit around the bike and not fall out on the drive. This took the longest and by the end we were both soaked and cold and had about 10 minutes to get dressed and meet our friend at the restaurant.

snow bike hill

Saturday

We left Breckenridge at about 10am with dry roads and most the snow melted. After dinner we had done most of the inside preparations, making sure everything wouldn’t smash on the ground as soon as we left the lot, so by morning we were pretty much ready to go. The landlord decided not to come up because of the prospective weather, so we had no choice but to leave town without our deposit; Something that would come in handy in the following days.

Lake Dillon

Ross had been worried about the brake controller for the trailer for months, but a recent visit from an RV Medic seemed to do the job because they were working as they should as we approached the freeway. We had only gone west once to check out Vail, Colorado and never went back out of disappointment, so we didn’t really know what the road would be like from Frisco on.  This new truck has a “tow mode” which uses gears differently and has a sort of engine braking when going down large hills, which we thought to be a benefit till the first large hill came along. What it seemed like to me, was that the truck started engine braking faster than the trailer brakes could engage and it felt like the truck was being pushed by the trailer, and the trailer started to sway a bit – even with out anti sway hitch. It was a little unsettling and we made sure it didn’t happen again. Otherwise the trailer brakes, aside from a delay, worked OK and we didn’t rear end anyone so that’s a plus.

As soon as we got a little ways away from Summit County, where Breckenridge is and where a severe drought has been official for over a month, we saw what spring in Colorado was actually supposed to look like. Even the aspens had bright green leaves where in Summit they were still mostly dead looking. The ground was covered in green grass and wild flowers, where Summit looked like a high desert with only sparse green, and even the golf course near the cabin was struggling to stay green. I had thought it was fairly normal but it’s now clear that the area is at major risk of wild fires and water shortages for a while.

Hilly Range

Runaway Truck Ramp up Ahead. Scary Brakes Suck.

We came to Glenwood Canyon we had an especially great view for miles. The canyon walls were high on both sides, and narrow, one area so narrow that it barely fit a railroad track, the Colorado River and the Freeway comfortably. Soon after the Canyon and another strikingly green Colorado town, Glenwood Springs, the terrain started to look more like Utah (It was from Glenwood Springs on that I had the “Green Acres” song stuck in my head…).

Glenwood Canyon

Glenwood Canyon

Glenwood Canyon

It was around this time that we started to really suffer from an overheating problem with the truck. I had gotten Ross a
Kiwi Bluetooth Android Phone Car Diagnostic Kit for Christmas because of his concerns about the truck, and he was making good use of it on this trip. There was a lot of climbing from the beginning and the truck (which was looked at for a possible head gasket issue recently) had gotten a new radiator cap that was supposed to solve the problem of “puking” coolant at times.

Engine spray

We had to stop at least 5 times before arriving in Springville for the night (a town south of Salt Lake) to check and replace water in the overflow tank, making much of the trip a worrisome time for both of us, but while the truck was cooling down we got a chance to check out a few Eastern Colorado and Western Utah lookouts and rest stops. Utah had really started living up to its name the deeper in we got, with towering mesas and strange volcanic looking hills.

Utah Hills

Tunnelcowspyramidutah-desert-sm
Trains in Utah

After spending over 10 hours on the road we arrived at what can only be described as the largest and busiest Walmart I’ve ever seen. I understand it was the night before Mother’s Day but I don’t know the last time, aside from Black Friday, that I’ve ever seen a store so full of people.

We went to bed around 10, after we made a small pizza on an artisan corn meal pizza crust.

 

Sunday

Since our trailer running lights (side lights and tail lights) were not working, again, we could only leave as early as the sun, but wanted to get as much cool air out of the day as possible for the engine. We got up at 6am, stumbled to the Walmart bathrooms, packed up whatever was laying around and headed out. Our first goal was loosely to try and find some coolant for the truck. After we found an auto parts store, and were officially back on our way to West Yellowstone, time seemed to rush past.

The trip through Salt Lake City, a very spread out area, was surprisingly uneventful. We couldn’t see the Salt Lake or any giant Mormon churches from the highway and before we knew it, it was gone. As we got closer to Idaho, the terrain quickly went from stark to green, and I don’t think in all our travels that I have ever seen so many cows as in southern Idaho. Utah had its share, mostly hungry or lost looking things in the desert, but in Idaho there was nothing but cow and horse farms on both sides of the road all the way to Montana.

About 3/4 the way through Idaho I started to look for the Tetons, a spiky mountain range we were planning to live near when we were first looking for a cabin. We passed signs to Driggs, a town where we had even made plans to see cabins, and eventually Mack’s Inn, a tiny little place (literally an Inn in the middle of nowhere) where we had almost committed to a cabin (but its distance from everything and absolute need of 4WD to get to were drawbacks) before we decided to stay in Breckenridge. From the freeway the Tetons seems to be a 100 miles away, not even worth a photo but one day we’ll see them up close.

When we got to the Montana border at the top of a long mountain pass, it started to look like the Montana I lived in as a kid. Dense trees, lakes with rocky beaches and people in cowboy hats. Chocolate covered Huckleberries, syrups and preserves line the shelves of every gas station and coffee shop and stuffed animals, not the plush kind, on every wall in sight. From the border to West Yellowstone, we already had the feel we were in the greatest national park in the country. Passing what looked like a cracked lava field of monumental proportions, dirt roads that went off into the wilderness where no doubt Grizzlies and Eagles await, and sparkling rivers and mountains within reach again as they were in Colorado.

montana

As long as the truck wasn’t completely overheating, we didn’t stop to top off the tank very often on this last jump. It was puking coolant as badly as the day before, but aside from getting to West Yellowstone in one piece and finding someone to work on it, there wasn’t much we could do about it.

We had possibly made our earliest arrival at a destination, getting into Hideaway RV park around 5pm with enough time to set up, talk to the park manager for a while, and walk downtown for a pizza at Wild West Pizza.

 

On the Road Anxiety

Published on May 3, 2012 by Katya in the category travel | Leave a comment


We are in our last week at at the cabin and all I can think about is getting back into the trailer and on the road. I love the cabin, Breckenridge and every part of Colorado we’ve seen, but there is always something about traveling that I can’t resist. I like having all the space in the cabin, a yard to potentially work in, a wood stove and a familiar place for Susa to go outside and not get spooked or lost for once, but ultimately, I think 7 months here has been enough.

As soon as the snow started to melt I’ve wanted to leave. The cabin was our winter home where we were to have a long epic winter with deep snow, skiing, low weather/deep snow hikes and the woodstove going from dusk to dawn, so when the winter ended, so did the point of being here.

I know there is 1000 things to do here in the spring and summer but my mind has already been resigned to “winter home” and what we want out of our summer we can get somewhere else, almost anywhere else. We only really require warm enough weather so sit outside and work and beautiful places to hike (a good rv park isn’t bad either). This country has so many gorgeous places to see, hike and photograph, so many little towns to discover, so many different people from one state to the next that staying in one place seems like such a waste. A person could literally travel the US all their lives and never stop discovering, if they were actually interested in doing so. If you drive past a little town with 100 year old buildings, riddled with mining shacks and go “meh” or think that every trail looks the same, you might have a hard time traveling full time.

For me, going to the same restaurant, coffee shop or trails over and over again gets old sooner than it should, and generally I don’t feel the need to have the familiar around me, people or places, so I don’t miss anything much when I travel which I think is one thing that holds people back from doing it. Me family lived in 30 houses and I went to 12 schools by the time I was 18 so I imagine that is why, as I never know the same people for very long and always had to adapt to a new house, new environments, all the time. When I was younger I just wanted to stay in one school, have friends for more than a year and maybe settle in somewhere but as I grew older and tried settling down I found it boring and ultimately depressing (my choice of place being a big reason – Portland) and my travel anxiety was bottling up.

Now we are getting back out there, belonging to the road, living in RV parks with no “home base” (that’s a great feeling to me) and I anticipate a great Summer of showing Ross some of the places I saw or lived near as a kid, Yellowstone, Glacier, Makoshika, Libby and eventually the Badlands of South Dakota. We anticipate difficulties finding internet for work in the desolate state of Montana at times, but it will be worth it.

Colorado Dreaming – Video of our time in Colorado, 2011-2012

Published on March 19, 2012 by Katya in the category travel | 2 Comments


Our stay in Colorado, still in progress but ending in early May. We stopped here on our way to Wyoming and fell in love with the area. We’ve had an awesome winter of fun and snow, skiing and hiking and looking at the awe inspiring views in every direction.

Since we’ve been gone…From Illinois to Dodge City to Breckenridge

Published on September 30, 2011 by Katya in the category RV Parks, travel | Leave a comment

We decided randomly, in the last couple months sometime, that we wanted to try the snowy cabin thing again. We decided, or I suggested, Wyoming, since we spent plenty of time in the South/Appalachians/Smokys in the last year already and were itching to get out of the midwest, east and south, and back to places where the air is dry and coffee good.

We left Carbondale, a surprisingly cool little Illinois town, with a somewhat set plan to make several 2 week and 1 week jumps through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado then finally Jackson. I even made a google map and planned the towns and RV parks we would probably stay at but as is our nature, a night or 2 before we left, we decided Kansas City had little to offer in Green areas (google maps state parks and national forests) and what it did have to offer had no water or sewer hookups.

We changed our plans and decided to spend the weekend driving to Dodge City, Kansas, crossing almost 2 states.
It may have been under 700 miles but it’s tough on the truck, animals and us to go that far – and who knows how Susa manages not to pee all over the truck when we make jumps like that. We have a catbox in the back of the truck but she hates the thing and just sleeps next to Chena (usually after a 20 minute meow-fest when we leave a place) and just holds it the entire time, snacking on treats here and there and sleeping in strange positions. Much of our time is lost when We have to stop every 70 miles or so for drinks, gas and to let Chena out to pee.

Somewhere in East Kansas

Somewhere in East Kansas

On the way to Dodge City, while finding out things about the town, I saw that Willie Nelson would be playing at the Dodge City amphitheater. I grew up on his voice and have over the years grown to appreciate his music, as well as many other ‘original’ country artist (like Dolly and Hank Williams), so I bought us some tickets for what would be the first live music we’ve seen in the 2 years on the road, minus the brithday party at Smokey Bear Campground in Gatlinburg for the owner, Chong, where our neighbor, a guy from the Tonuenes, and the guy who wrote the King of the Hill song played a couple sets.

Minus the concert, which was pretty great and opened by Junior Brown, a country rock master of a custom steel guitar, the first week in Dodge City was all work, warm days and cool nights. The park, Gunsmoke RV Park, was a bit of a gravel pit but had some serious southwest/high plains charm that we had missed over the last 18 months or so. Wagon wheels, cowboy cutouts, false front buildings, horses and even cactus were somewhat evenly placed around the scrubby campground. Dodge City itself overall wasn’t quite as cool but definitely was holding onto its historic roots as a town of gunslingers and lawmen like Wyatt Earp. The downtown and Boot Hill made up for the highway full of fast food, motels, and coffee shops that charge way too much for coffee and vegetables on a bagel.

Gunsmoke RV Park

Gunsmoke RV Park

We again changed our plans and decided to leave Saturday rather than spend our usual 2 weeks, partly because of the lack of nearby hiking or outdoor actifities, but also because of our rush to get to a cabin. As far as things to do in town, there is basically the Boot Hill Museum and little more. The museum is basically an entire small western town with cemetery, jail, church, school house – and a working bar and restaurant. There was almost no one else in the Museum and no guides which was great. You were just left to your own devices to wander around, poke at exhibits and artifacts, and even, yes, get a beer (piano player and all). It was 94 degrees on that last day in Dodge City and the last bit of real heat we will see for a long while.

The Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City

The Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City

Ross trailer shopping

Ross locked up in Boothill Jail

Ross locked up in Boothill Jail

Boot Hill

Boot Hill

I always try to picture myself living many of the places we stay, thinking I could make the best of even the smallest and least cultureless towns, and although Dodge City wasn’t very modern, it had internet, coffee and an awesome, though short lived, history that they’re proud of  (the 1870s made it famous basically), I can imagine making an effort at helping that place into the 21st century, without it turning into some horrible place like Gatlinburg or Virginia Beach – places where any sense of culture and history has been replaced by novelty mugs and “authentic local art” (soullessly manufactured by some poor artist, strictly to appeal to tourists so they can make it through another off season).

Although Iv’e heard Kansas referred to as a “fly over state/drive by state”, I liked it. It disturbs me that nearly all of the state is privately owned by farmers and ranchers and not a single wild bison roams free anywhere where there used to be millions, but it still brought up thoughts of western films and old west history, and somehow kept me from cringing too much. Plus it reminds me of eastern Montana where I lived for a few years and my sister’s family is from. A flat golden place where the skyline goes on for miles and miles (hence the Big Sky State), the sunsets are always inspiring and the terrain will surprise you with canyons, cactus and rattle snakes.

But we left the high plains Sunday morning, and were on our way to Colorado anyway. Again I spent much of the drive looking for RV parks or campgrounds, with all the same issues lately, no running water (what?) and no sewer (not that odd), or places that were booked solid or even closed for the season already (its still 80 in Denver so that was odd). After spending more time staring at my phone screen than I like to during a drive (a time where I’d rather be staring outside and pointing at cragly trees in fields of cows and looking for antelope) I gave up on finding something near Denver and we opted for Tiger Run RV Resort in Breckenridge, a place far up in the mountains west of Denver 80 miles. Inconvenient because we wanted to look for a new truck in Denver, but convenient because of the price and its great distance from the massive amounts of people in Denver. We called ahead and got our spot, knowing it would be late when we arrived, and made our once reasonable day trip into one around 470 miles.

The truck nearly choked and died on the way up the mountains and is now leaking oil. It took a beating while climbing  upwards of 10k feet, making 6 degree descents and climbs, one for 6 miles straight – probably working harder than the truck has ever had to work. We arrived around 11pm, having seen none of our mountainous trip, worn out as ever and worried about the truck. We spent a while setting up, the weather significantly colder than Denver already, and went to bed curious about our new 2 week home.

Luckily, we woke up to this and there were no more regrets about finding a place so far from Denver and our Jackson Wyoming route (try to ignore the RV in the picture, this place has a large number of owned spots with stored RV’s and empty Chalet’s).

Tiger Run RV Resort

So here we are, and basically everywhere you look looks like this or closer (in proximity). From downtown you can see the ski runs and Breckenridge offers more to do, and more vegetarian options than any town I can remember since maybe Asheville, NC. Thank you Western U.S.!!!  So, since we like it so much.. we’ve been looking for cabins here and should have a code tomorrow to go inside one highest up on the list. We may not make it to Jackson (or probably Victor Idaho area) after all, but who cares. Apparently there is almost no cell reception for Verizon there and we have 2 verizon phones and 2 mifi units, which cost us enough every month that it would be a waste to pay for them and not be able to use them just for cheaper rent. Plus when you can take a bus to town year round, get 11mb internet (and probably higher but that’s what the cafe we go to gets)… great views..less gas costs because everything is close.. why go to East Idaho. Wish us luck that this place is awesome tomorrow.

Last goal for Florida, the Keys

Published on December 17, 2010 by Katya in the category out and about, state parks, travel | Leave a comment

We have been in Florida since September after almost not coming here at all. We were thinking of jumping straight to the Smokey Mountains after Savannah, but since the Everglades and Florida Keys were a major goal of mine on this “trip”, we decided to take on the potentially ’full to the brim with retirees’ state. After spending this last month in South Miami, a time where there wasn’t much to see or do unless we left town on the weekend, we finally made it to the Keys the day before leaving town on a 600 mile drive back north. This time we took Chena, something we don’t get to do often because it is either too hot, or she’s not allowed where ever we’re going (which is most places, especially since ‘pitbulls’ are banned in Dade county), but the drive down the keys could be as far as 300 miles round trip and she couldn’t stay alone in the trailer that long. Luckily the weather was cool the entire day and although she is used to sleeping 80% of the day away, she managed to stay up most the trip and get some vacation time in.

The unpopular beaches and old bridges were the best part of the Keys for me, especially the remnants of an old rail road bridge that still ran along side parts of the main bridges. We stopped at one of many state parks along the way and walked around the beach a little but the second state park we stopped at, Long Key State Park, had far less people and a beach-side boardwalk that was missing the typical “no dogs allowed” sign you see on Florida state park trails. We walked about a quarter mile and stopped on a small deserted beach covered in shells and dead tree branches. My kind of beach. The water was cold but tolerable enough to wade in and Chena got a chance to cool off but unfortunately kept trying to drink the water.

We ate at a little cafe, too early for the lunch menu (by like 20 minutes) and had banana, pineapple, coconut covered pancakes with a side of papaya syrup. For pancakes they were great though unfortunately not that filling. To make up for it, we later tried to find a pizza place but ended up finding a raw bar and had pita sandwiches, also not so fulfilling, but the raw bar was inside a health food store and book store and luckily they had the awesome and completely satisfying Stonewall’s Jerquee bites (vegetarian jerky) for us to snack on during the drive home.

Our last goal before turning back was the 7 mile bridge, At the end we found a pull-off just where we watched the sun go down and said our goodbyes to any chance of warm sunny beaches for a long time.

Chena in the Florida Keys

Lobster in the Keys

Neon sunset in the Keys

7 mile bridge and railroad bridgeRoss does the Crane

The next day we left to north Florida’s St George Island State Park, where it would be down to 22 degrees the first night. After enjoying an average of 83 for the last month, this was going to be a rough change. Sure enough I was sick within the first day. I think spending 3 days in the car between the Keys and the 600+ mile trip north probably didn’t help either.

1 2 3 4 5   Next »

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube