On to Ft. Collins

The Starship Enterprise
One of the amazing cloud formations we saw on our drive

Our long drive through Wyoming and into Colorado was filled with rolling plains, hundreds of pronghorn antelope, interesting clouds and of course, high winds and rain.  Lately we seem to be wind and rain magnets.  Long driving days are really exhausting and we try not to do them often.  We were so glad to arrive in Ft. Collins to calm winds and blue skies.  After a simple dinner, it was a walk for Maya and then showers followed quickly by bed.

 

 

Rocky Mountains near Ft. Collins

 

 
The next day we met some friends, Reyes and Martha from just down the road in Longmont, for a wonderful brunch at the Silver Grill in old town Ft. Collins.  Ft. Collins is such a fun city with a great downtown and it is the home of Colorado State University.  We spent two days enjoying ourselves and getting to know Ft. Collins a little better.  It is a place that we might want to live someday.

Fall leaves and red rocks, near Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs

 

Colorado Springs was our next destination with a few hours stop in Loveland along the way to get an oil change and service on the RV.  It seems like this has been our month for car and RV maintenance.  But we are traveling a lot and must not neglect these things.

 

Garden of the Gods

I wish I could report that we got our refrigerator all fixed in Colorado Springs in record time and went off to play.  However we were not so lucky.  We are learning that dealing with routine maintenance on engines, etc. is usually pretty easy.  But things in the ‘home’ part of our RV are not always so simple.  There are not that many RV technicians out there.  Getting things diagnosed can be a challenge.  And then there is the issue of getting the parts.  They don’t have the right part and it may take weeks for it to arrive.

 

Garden of the Gods is a great place to learn to mountain climb

 

 

All in all we stayed 3 days in Colorado Springs with the second repair person finally diagnosing the problem but it would take at least 10 days to get the right part because (wouldn’t you know it) our model of RV refrigerator has been discontinued.  So instead of playing around for a few more weeks in Colorado, we decided to keep on heading to Texas and then to order the part when we get ‘home’ for the winter.

 

We did take some time to have fun in Colorado Springs between waiting to find out about our refrigerator.  Colorado Springs is another great place to visit and live.  It is much bigger than Ft. Collins but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  The mountains are close with Pike’s Peak and the Garden of the Gods right on the edge of the city.  We had a nice hike in the Garden of the Gods but then our last day the rain moved in and we decided it was time to move on to another of our favorite places, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

David's Stats:
Days Hiked  1/4
Total Miles Hiked   2.25
Total Elevation Gain     75

 

Balancing Rock, Garden of the Gods