Once we got north of Denver, Colorado our focus turned to Wyoming. The sunset makes it look like the Colorado Rockies are on fire. Morning blue sky followed by afternoon thunderstorms has been the normal weather pattern, all the way through Colorado along the I-25 route. The last time we were cold was in Colorado Springs when it snowed on Pikes Peak in mid-June.
Carter Lake
By far the most beautiful campground was at Carter Lake, just to the west of Loveland. We also stayed at Bear Creek Lake and were hosted by the family at their house for the fourth of July. Camping in a driveway isn’t normal for us – thanks Jim and Tami.
Cheyenne
Family and friends visits were the dominant theme for the last month. Boy was it busy. We are now in Cheyenne Wyoming, Warren Air Force Base and my daughter Sarah and her 10-year-old twins are here with us. They have been with us before, but haven’t seen the RV move yet. Tomorrow that happens when we all drive to Scottsbluff Nebraska, adding two new states to our RV travels map in the last week. After that Sarah is off to Kansas and we go north to the Dakotas.
Birthday
My birthday cheesecake was a big surprise along with the happy birthday song (the song lead by a professional singer, thanks Dave) the big surprise was because it was two weeks prior to my actual birthday. The cheesecake was super, Tami made it from scratch.
We finished the cheesecake off the following day when my brother Jay came over to check out the RV, he had never seen it before. I think my RV water filter system met his approval — he is a professional water guy. We filter (three times) and soften the water before we put it in the RV and before we drink it. I know lots of people don’t drink their RV water, with good reason.
Colorado State Parks
Since we were staying at Colorado State Parks for most of the month, we got an annual pass and visited some parks that we weren’t staying at. Eldorado Canyon State Park, Golden Gate Canyon State Park and Rocky Mountain National Park were all visited. I had not been to any of them since they started charging an entrance fee back in the 60s. They were all beautiful and unique but my assessment is that Colorado is full of awesome places that don’t have an entrance fee.
Everything in Colorado has changed so much over the years. I still know where I am, having grown up in this area, but only because of the ridgelines, streams, and mountains. The entire section from Castle Rock all the way to beyond Fort Collins is occupied. New buildings — paved roads everywhere. The cattle population is way down. I was stunned to find a section of dirt road, even more, stunned to find that part of it was closed for construction.
Some folks we met were using highway numbers to describe which roads we should use going up into the mountains and of course, I didn’t understand. I needed the canyon names, not the highway numbers. The only canyons we missed were Sunshine Canyon and Left Hand Canyon. Of everyone I met, all new to the area, I was the only person to know that Left Hand Canyon was named after Chief Left Hand of the Arapaho Indians.
I did get a Colorado Native bumper sticker to go along with my South Dakota license plate — I think I still warrant it.
As always, if you get this, and don’t want it, just let me know and I will do my best to take you off the list, it is hard to manage and it is 100% manual.
Scott & Tami
Here is a link to the google map for the area.
Link to our 2019 Route.
Link to our route Colorado to Minot North Dakota
Our blog page doesn’t allow comments after one month… So much for me controlling it – I am not a coder… Please comment anyway, by filling out the form at the bottom. Be sure to mention which post you are commenting on, I will be glad to manually insert them.
Scott, Will you send me a description and photo of your filter system. We are going to Yuma, AZ for 4 months and their water sucks.
Phil Piazza
to Phil
Initially, I thought you wanted a description of the filter on my camera. No filters used on the camera.
Will photo my water set up and send it later.
Great trip.
Beautiful picture. It sounds like you have been having great family time and pre-birthday.
Thanks for the update! Keep on rolling and enjoying.
I have some Solar and Battery questions. We have a friend that needs an O2 concentrator that must run 8-10 hrs/night. when they travel with their RV they are limited to spots w/ power. even then they carry 2 Honda 2000 generators as back up, but fuel is a hassle. The unit draws 3amps/115volts.
Is it feasible to build a system using 6-volt golf cart batteries solar panels and an inverter to run it?
Joel
Thx
Wow! beautiful!
Safe travels!
Thanks for the update, Scott! To add to your trivia about Left Hand Canyon, it was named for Chief Niwot (which means “left hand” in their language.) There’s a small town just NE of Boulder named for him as well.
I just returned from a week of backpacking on the Western Slope with a handful of old girlfriends. We were in the Raggeds Wilderness outside of Paonia, CO. Beautiful! A nice bonus was that I was able to spend the night in Payson, AZ with Doug and his family on my way home. Super fun!
Glad you’re having a ball with RV life. Keep the updates coming!
to Phil,
The water filter is two stages, followed by a softner, then a carbon filter. The order is important. #1 to keep the chlorine in the water killing germs and to save money on unnecessary replacements. Do not put a carbon filter in the first two stages it takes out the chlorine.
The first stage is a 5 micron spun filter and is the first one that needs replacing most of the time. The second stage is a .5 micron ceramic filter. Stage three is the water softener. The entire system up to this point is operated on city pressure, then the water (including the city supplied chlorine is filled into my freshwater tank). Exiting the tank via the pump, the water passes through the final stage carbon filter which doesn’t filter at all, but rather improves the taste and removes the chlorine.
The 5 micron spun filter need replacing every few months. 3-6 seems to be a good frequency. The rest of the filtering requires replacing rarely — if ever.
2 filter casks in series. The casks come with carbon filters which I use in my RV supplied cask. These carbon filters never get clogged because the water is already filtered by the time it gets to the carbon filters.
The second filter is ceramic mine stated .5 micron, instead of replacing this filter you scrub the outside with a scotch bright pad.
Get the biggest softener that will fit in your location. These must stand upright.
To regenerate the water softener resin to keep it gathering the calcium and magnesium you need to pass a brine solution I put a drop of food coloring in the salt solution so I can tell when the brine is fully into the softener and passes through the resin. To do this, remove the first two stages of filtration filter and fill the cask full of saltwater. Use the city pressure to slowly pass the salt solution through the resin and directly to the septic connection. Do not fill the tank with the brine solution. After all the brine solution is gone, flush the resin tank with fresh water, at the same slow rate as you introduced the brine solution. Rinse for fifteen or so gallons.
Will send a picture in a few. Look for a better description soon.
Scott
Beautiful photography and great perspectives. Thanks for sharing.
Love this picture!
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