Monday September 7, 2009-Priest Gulch campground

Today we went over to the Blue Spruce RV Park to see Ricky and Dee. We left here to the upper 40 degree weather and when we arrived there, it was in the 60’s and very pleasant. We had a nice visit with them and walked around the park with them. There were two other Bighorn trailers in the park, but Ricky said he had talked to one of the owners and he didn’t seem to be inclined to talk to him. The other trailer was in the process of leaving and did in fact leave about fifteen minutes after we got there. There was also a Sundance trailer in the park but we didn’t see anyone around it, so we didn’t stop by.

This is a park that we have been to many times in the past, but under new ownership, things have changed a lot. Many of the trees have been removed and a lot of the low-hanging branches removed. A lot of the sites have been changed and of course, they no longer have the long-term (seasonal) people there, so the look of the sites is much different. The previous owners allowed landscaping and storage buildings but the new owners have changed this policy. We asked at the office about our old friend Bob and Louise but we learned that Louise had gotten sick and they had left after about a month. They were supposed to have stayed for the season but left early.

I spoke with Kent, the owner of the park about the possibility of workamping there. He said he starts talking to people about working in the park during the summer after January 15th. I took his business card and will call him back then.

We took a walk down to the National Park at the end of the county road. It is supposed to be a mile down there, but it seemed longer. Ricky has bad knees like Stella does but they both made it all the way. We stayed about an hour longer than we had expected to, but we still got back home before dark.

We stopped off at a service station in Durango for fuel. We took 69 gallons to go 771.1 miles for an 11.17 MPG average. This low average was expected because of going up into the mountains. This fill-up began in the Woodlands when we left. I guess 11 miles per gallon isn’t bad pulling the trailer up into the mountains.

We also stopped off at the little supermarket in Dolores to pick up some milk. We got a couple more items too, but Stella noticed that their meats looked real good. We may come back down here to buy some meats before we leave.