January 15, 2025 to January 16, 2025
To Parker CO
Wednesday morning we pack up and take our leave of Summit County. Daniel drives off to his home in Colorado Springs where we're headed tomorrow. Barry and I will take Luke to the Denver airport to fly home. We'll miss him, but are glad he'll be there holding down the fort for us.
Luke has saved us from packing fails on many a trip when we forgot something essential, either shipping stuff to us or bringing it with him. This time there were a half-dozen 'essential' and not-small things we failed to pack, including a tablet and a pair of hiking boots. Then there were the medications often prescribed for older men - not the sort of thing one relishes describing for one's children, let alone in a blog, but here we are.
As always, Luke cheerfully packed all our stuff into his carry-on bag for the flight here. I promise him if I discover anything else we forgot this trip, I'll find a store that sells it.
I didn't take too many pictures with the boys this time, but have one of us with Luke that I love. This was late in October after we spent a couple of days camping and kayaking the upper Meramec River near Onondaga State Park. It was the middle of the week and we had the river to ourselves.
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From the airport it's a quick 20 minute drive back to Watkins to pick up the RV. Unlike on our first trip here to drop it off, the hilly farm roads are clear now and not scary.
Back inside the trailer, I'm not surprised to find that the snow has melted off the bikes that we left inside. The new floor is dry so the water either evaporated or soaked into it. I guess we'll see how it holds up in the fullness of time.
Once we carry the bikes out and mount them back up on the car, my way is clear to check the food in the freezer. The first thing I notice is that the power light inside the freezer is off. Then I see on the panel that the trailer battery is completely dead. Both propane tanks are nearly full, so the fridge could have been off for days. I guess its lucky that it's been so cold because everything in the freezer is still frozen.
Not so lucky- everything in the refrigerator is also frozen. There wasn't much there of consequence except for a can of Diet Coke that exploded, leaving droplets and little brown slush piles all over the inside. Add that to my unending list of RV lessons. It's an appalling scene that I can't bring myself to take a picture of. Maybe later.
With no water or power there's not much to be done about the mess except to scoop the slush into the sink to melt. It looks like we'll have sub-freezing weather all the way to Tucson so we won't be sleeping in the trailer until we get there. The cleanup will wait. At least we can power the fridge from the car as soon as Barry hitches the trailer back up to it.
There's such an appalling crust of road grit and salt on everything that we drive to a DIY wash to hose it off. The driveway on the other side isn't long enough to pull the whole rig through the bay so only the car and the front of the trailer get cleanish. That'll do for now.
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I'm afraid that's it for bike shots today. While I was going to go on about tomorrow's ride in Colorado Springs, by the time I got this far I figured today is enough for one post. So that'll be in the next one.
Tonight we're staying south of Denver in Parker to visit with our friends Scott Hunt and Lynne Duman. Scott and Barry have been friends since eighth grade when they started working as caddies at the country club in Minocqua Wisconsin. It's our first time meeting Reggie, their handsome and voluble Irish Setter, and Remy- as in Remington Steele, their extra fluffy Persian cat. Reggie and Remy seem a bit unsettled by the strangers in their house.
Before he gets too comfortable, Barry heads back out to deal with the power outage in the RV. He traces the problem to some loose wires, calling it an easy fix. Easy for you, I think. I don't know how we'd handle RV life without his talents.
We get some good Mexican food at Casa Mata and play a few games of Mexican Train after dinner. Scott and Barry reminisce a bit about hanging out at the caddy shack and boating out to Beer Can Island on Lake Minocqua in high school. After college they took off for six weeks in Barry’s 69 Mustang, going south to New Orleans, west across Texas and beyond. Barry recalls hiking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and back in a day, playing chess on the beach in southern California and camping in the snow in Idaho. It seems they were up for epic road trips early on.
While we see these two every summer in Wisconsin, it's been extra nice to spend some time with them at their beautiful home.
Today's ride: 13 miles (21 km)
Total: 13 miles (21 km)
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