Sunday July 22, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

Good morning to all. First of all, I want to thank all those that left me "nudges" or messages on Facebook, reminding me that I have fallen behind again in posting here. The problem is that we've not been doing anything exciting or fun, if you take into consideration the great weather we are experiencing up here in Colorado. I wish you could be with us up here with cold mornings and upper 70's in the afternoon. We are out of the vacation mode and are very content to stay around the park and just hang out.

Then another thing that irritates me is the fact that we don't have good Internet here. It has become impossible for me to add photos and difficult to even do the mundane chores on the computer. I haven't been able to download videos or many attachments that have come to me in emails. I am irritated because this park advertises wifi in their "resort" and it is impossible to access. They tell me in the office to come up to use the DSL lines which are free to use, but they wouldn't like it very much if I brought my recliner and sat there in my underwear, surfing the web. No, I want what is advertised, decent wifi in my own trailer. Why don't I just use my own aircard you ask? Because it is worse than the wifi! I just got the 4G mifi card from Verizon, the latest and greatest available, but we are in a dead spot and good service is not available. Verizon is sending me an antenna that is supposed to improve the service, but I am doubtful. Sorry for another rant, but I am tired of paying for a service and then hearing lots of excuses for why it doesn't work.

Now on to current events. I was horrified to hear of the shootings in Aurora Colorado. My heart goes out to the families of those injured in this incident and to the family of the killer. We may never know what caused this young man to do what he did, but I am more worried about the resulting overreactions by lawmakers. We are living in changing times friends.

We are planning to take some day trips to see some of the beautiful mountains in the area. I wish I could share them with you, but we've already gone over all that. If and when things improve, I'll put up a lot of pictures to show you.

Until then,

So long.

Saturday July 14, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

This is a picture of Stella making pancakes for us to eat breakfast at Pat and Lori's place last week. I had planned to add more photos but the computer and the Internet still won't cooperate, so it will have to be done later.

Since my last post, we haven't done very much. We did meet a new couple, Darwyn and Becky, at the park breakfast yesterday. We went over to their place in the afternoon and they cooked out. They are renting one of the high dollar sites fronting the river and it includes a very nice outdoor kitchen and dining area under umbrrellas. We had a very nice meal with them and then played a game of chickenfoot. It was a very nice day.

The weather has been lousy most of this week, with cold temps in the morning and rain in the afternoon. Today it rained off and on all day and the temperature never got above 60 degrees. This week has seemed to be more like Texas winter weather with 50 degree days and high humidity levels. The kind of cold that just goes right through you. I noticed this morning when I checked the weather that we are expecting rain every day for the next week. Lets hope the weather guessers are wrong again.

Pat and Lori didn't get to come back down from Los Alamos this weekend. Pat had a large plumbing project that didn't get completed until today, which made it implossible to get down here. They will return on Wednesday. I guess we'll just have to find something to do around here.

So long.

Tuesday July 10, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

Another cool morning here, about 51 degrees. I had met the owner of a new Landmark San Antonio yesterday and had invited him over for coffee this morning, so we had made extra in case he showed up, but of course he didn't. Oh well, Stella and I drank much of it and I will use the rest this afternoon for iced coffee. I have grown to like that drink a lot. I add a shot of creamer and some ice and it makes a nice afternoon drink.

We drove over to Alamosa today to have a check engine light checked out on the truck. It came on while we were on the way over here from Pueblo when we were going up a long hill. Alamosa has the nearest Dodge dealership in the area, so we drove the 60 miles over here and found out that it was a Turbo Underpressure alarm but the tech and the service manager didn't think it was anything to worry about, so they cleared the code and told me to watch it. If it alarms again, I will bring it back in and have it checked further.

We went to Wal Mart and spent a lot of money there, but it was necessary! We haven't spent much, really since we left Texas and many of the items that we bought won't have to be replaced for several months. Things like vitamins, minerals etc. that we won't have to buy for a long time. We made the very pretty drive back over here to the park. After putting everything away, we decided to sit outside for awhile and read in our Kindles.

We were soon hungry, so I got out the Weber grill and Stella was soon cooking us some hot dogs. I came inside for a few minutes and was surprised to hear raindrops hitting the roof. I ran back out and helped her bring things inside and luckily she had finished our "dogs" before it began to rain in earnest! Wow, how lucky was that! It rained hard for ten or fifteen minutes and then, before we knew it, the sun was back out and it was a very nice afternoon. I went for a walk around the park before we turned in for the evening. Another nice day in the mountains!

So long.

Monday June 9, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

Here is our site with the mountains behind. We are located in a valley with mountains on all sides of us. It is the perfect setting for an RV park. I was told that this was originally a fishing camp and at least one of the buildings on the property is an original for this site. They have added several new buildings
that are constructed in the old design.

This is our site that is right across from the front gate. We get to see everyone as they come in. One thing that we've noticed is that the gate only stays up long enough for one vehicle to go through. There are several people with four wheelers that go out daily to drive up into the mountains. It seems that it is a game to them to see if more than one can get through the gate before the gate lowers on them. We've seen several of them hit with the gate, but nothing serious has happened, at least yet.

We have not been doing too much of anything. Pat and Lori went back home to Los Alamos NM yesterday but will be back later in the week. I'm sure that we will find something to do while they're gone. I'll keep on trying to get more photos loaded up for you to see where we've been.

So long.

Friday July 6, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

The last two days have been bad for me. Wednesday night there was a big thunderstorm-although no one heard the thunder or saw the lightning- that knocked out power here in the park. It happened about 3 o'clock in the morning and was back on in about an hour, so you would think, who cares? Well, the power outage also knocked out my satellite dish and the parks wifi Internet connection. Remember I complained about the park wifi? Well it hasn't gotten any better but now it was down completely. My own Verizon MIFI is not any better because we are in a marginal reception area. So Thursday morning I had no television and no Internet.....BUMMER!

I went several times to the office to inquire about the wifi but was always told that "they're working on it". We decided to begin using our new 4G MIFI card but soon learned that it would only receive in 3G mode because that is all thats available here. Then today when we tried to use the new card, we were told by Verizon customer service that we needed to go to a better location to enable the new card, so we had to drive 20 miles to South Fork to get the card "turned on". We got it done and returned home, hopeful that everything will work better. Nope, didn't happen. The park's wifi doesn't even show up on the screen any more and the Verizon card is very, very slow. I just learned this morning that the post I made on Wednesday had not gotten posted, so I put it up for you to read, but I still can't post pictures because of the slow connection.

Don't worry though, I'll find a way to get them posted and keep you advised of whats going on with us.

So long.

Wednesday July 4, 2012-Mountain View RV Park

Today is Independence Day. I hope everyone had a good day to spend with friends and family. Please don't forget those that served in the armed services and the sacrifices that they made.

We had a nice potluck meal today. The park furnished hot dogs with all the trimmings and we, the guests, furnished side dishes and desserts. The food was great but the food serving could have been better. The serving line ran very slowly and it took us about 20 minutes of standing in line to get our food. Could have been done better!

This is a lovely park in a beautiful setting. I can't think of a thing that I would change in the layout of the park and the landscaping, and I can assure you that you won't find a prettier place. It is in a valley with mountains surrounding and a river running behind it. Of course, the riverfront sites are all on the resort side and much more expensive than most of us can/will afford.

While I'm on the subject of this park, I've got to vent a bit. As I said, this is a lovely park but some of the "amenities" need some work. Although it is common for parks in Colorado to not furnish cable, there must be a way to at least give access to some local television stations, even if its from a dish sattelitte that guests can hook up to. Some way for us to get local news and weather. And the wifi "service", not thats another subject all together! Many people rely on the internet for both staying in touch with friends and relatives (like a blog!) but also for work and keeping an eye on their investments. They could do much better in furnishing wifi, especially at the prices that are charged.

What started this rant is that last night the power went out after a rainstorm and knocked out both the wifi and sattelitte, so when I got up this morning, I had nothing to occupy me. No television, no internet! What am I supposed to do, talk to Stella? Soon after the sun came up we got things figured out and were back in business but it was miserable for a couple of hours. At least its back on now.

So long.

Monday July 2, 2012-Mountain View RV Resort

 Saturday we rested up from our trip here from Cody. Sunday morning we went to a patriotic church service here in the park that was very nice. After church, we went into Creede for lunch at the Blue Creek Inn along with Pat and Lori and our new friends Bill & Mary and Jim & Alice. The company was much better than the food but although somewhat high priced, the food quality was at best so-so.

Today was our first day of doing much of anything in the area. We went with Pat and Lori to the headwaters of the Rio Grande River and saw some beautiful country and rivers and a spectacular waterfall. I'm sorry to say that even though I took photos of our sights, the park wifi is so slow they wouldn't upload onto my blog. I am hopeful that when the 4th of July crowd is gone, things will get back to normal and I will add the photos.

The weather has certainly been cooperating for us. It has been in the mid  40's in the morning and mid 70's in the afternoon, except for today which has been damp and rainy with temps in the mid 60's. I know that some of you are in triple digit temperatures, so I won't say much more, but the weather has had much to do with where we choose our summers. Wish you were here!

So long.