Sunday, August 17, 2008
Shady Acres Mobile Home Park, Lafayette, CO: July 16-Aug 15
We thankfully only planned one night in Limon. We were up bright & early the next morning and on the road earlier than usual. Shortly after pulling onto I-70, however, Doug noticed the brake controller was not reading "zero", which theoretically means the trailer brakes are slightly engaged. This is worrisome since it causes a drop in gas mileage, it causes unnecessary wear on the brakes, and the brakes can heat up enough to catch fire. We pulled off at the next town (Deer Trail) and found a garage with about six mechanics, all busy, who, after hooking the truck up to a computer and not finding anything, noticed the electric wire in the truck bed that we plug the trailer into was melted. He felt we were lucky that we hadn't caught fire & suggested we drive the rest of the way with the trailer unplugged, which meant that we had no turn signals, brake lights, or trailer brakes for the last 90 miles of our drive. We were thankful we had already left Limon so we didn't have to spend another night at Limon RV Park.We arrived at Shady Acres at about two in the afternoon and after inquiring about "our" reserved site were shown an overgrown field and told "here is your spot". "Where?", we thought. The hookups were buried hip-deep in weeds. After we had backed in and trampled the weeds for a while and our socks were loaded with cheat grass seeds, the manager came over with a very loud weed-whacker and cut down what we hadn't parked on top of. It added a rather loud and frantic quality to our setting up -- never relaxing in the best of times. We did finally get settled in and immediately started making social plans.
The first thing on Willie's agenda was to get her hair cut off and donated to Locks of Love. It had finally reached the required length, and she was tired of it stringing around. The young woman at Great Clips did a fine job and it is quite a new look for Willie.Our friend Sue Horne, who had visited us in Chaco, recently adopted two kittens from the Humane Society of Boulder Valley. Visiting Sue and the kittens was next on our agenda. What a cute pair of kitties! It made us quite nostalgic for our days of fostering kittens when we lived in a stick house.
We continued to be quite busy, though it didn't seem as overwhelming as in times before, visiting friends, playing bridge both socially and at the Boulder duplicate club (where we even managed to win a few master points!), playing other games with different groups, eating out A LOT, etc. We even found a really nice line dance class that met once a week, with a special dance party from 9 am-1:30 pm one extra day.
We also had visits from other RVing friends who were passing through the area. Our friend Lloyd Treichel was staying at a nearby Elks campground and came up one day for lunch at a nearby Chinese restaurant. Carole & Delbert Ulmer, a couple we met during our winters at Port Aransas, TX, drove out from their home in Shelbyville, IL, for a two-day visit. It was great to see them after such a long time. They continued westward in order to enjoy a bit of cool mountain air before returning across the plains.Since we had so many pending issues with the truck, we decided to really help out the economy and get some major work done on it. We had new shocks all around, basic maintenance, rewiring of the trailer connection (including fixing a major short in the trailer itself, which the guy said was lucky it didn't cause yet another fire!), new muffler, tailpipes and catalytic converters (YAY! It doesn't rattle any more!), and, of course, a new radiator. Oh, they also fixed the windshield wiper reservoir, which was the only thing actually broken by the serpentine belt, which the Melloy Dodge (BOO, HISS!) dealership in ABQ missed entirely. For the final RV wiring issue, we had to pay a guy to come down from Loveland, since we couldn't find anyone closer who would make "house calls".
The weather was somewhat tiresome, with a record 24 days over 90 degrees starting two days before we hit town. We have vowed not to come back in summer, but that's what we have said before. At least we had enough power to run the air conditioner -- but not while anything else was running!
Two days before our departure the hot spell ended abruptly with highs in the low 60s and LOTS of rain. We almost had to stay another day, but it finally cleared off around 2 pm and we could hit the road. During the early morning of our departure day, while lying in bed listening to NPR, we heard a loud crash from outside. Later when we investigated we found a VERY LARGE (about 5 feet long and 18 inches in diameter) tree branch had fallen just feet from the truck. Doug estimated the weight at between 100-150 pounds, but he was able to move it so we could hook up & leave.# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:20 PM 
