Rocky Mountain National Park

We elected to spend five nights at Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP), as we haven't been here in about 17 years. We booked three nights at Glacier Basin Campground in RMNP, one night at Mary's Lake in Estes Park, and one night in Aspenglen Campground back in the park. Mary's Lake was our amenities night - power, water, dump, showers, and laundry.

Glacier Basin was fantastic. It's right in the heart of the most visited areas of the park - Bear Lake corridor. While others hoped to get a timed permit to enter the corridor, we were already past the gate and free to explore the area. The park, like many, has become so popular they have to limit entries via a permit system. There are two levels of permits - one to enter the overall park, and another permit to enter the Bear Lake corridor.

The first evening we took a short hike to Sprague Lake. There was an older female moose grazing in the lake, and we sat and watched for a while. Human impact on the ecosystem weighs large. In the 1900s hunters killed off the last of the top predators - wolves and grizzly bears. In the 1980s the state of Colorado brought in 24 moose to the state for tourism and hunting. The moose have proliferated without the top predators to manage their population. Moose eat the willow trees, which the beavers need to make dams and lodges. The beavers are essentially gone from the park now. Years of fire suppression, to protect nearby communities, has resulted in many invasive species growing in the park. And climate change is wiping out the glaciers and stressing many species as they seek higher ground.

Sprague Lake near our campground

The next morning, we got up at 5:15AM and drove to the most popular trailhead parking lot at the end of Bear Lake Road. We went for several hikes. The first one was a 6 mile, 4 lake visit. We gained about 1,200 feet on that hike - and it started at 9,500 feet of elevation! After passing the smallest lake (Nymph) we headed up to Haiyaha Lake. It was the most colorful because it has fresher glacial sediment suspended in the water. We then came back down to Dream Lake and on to Emerald Lake. Near Emerald Lake, there was a very large elk grazing at the side of the trail. It seemed oblivious to all the people streaming past.

Nymph Lake

Elena the mountain climber

Haiyaha Lake

Elena at Dream Lake

Elena and Elk

Paul at Emerald Lake

We returned to the van and had lunch, then headed back out to loop around Bear Lake. This one was only a mile with minimal elevation changes.

Bear Lake

 We then decided to hike to Alberta Falls. That added another couple of miles and 230 feet of elevation gain.

Alberta Falls

When we arrived back at the campsite, we decided to add another couple of miles back to Sprague Lake to see if the moose was out. It was.

The next morning, we got up early and drove a few miles to the Bierstadt Lake trailhead. We hiked up about 700 feet and around 4 miles total. As we came to the first lake view, we saw a moose mom and baby on the other shore. We eventually got around to that side, and they were both out in the lake by that point. We watched them for a long time and visited with an off duty park ranger who was out taking photos on her day off. 

Bebop at our campground

Paul climbing to Bierstadt Lake

Paul & Elena at Bierstadt Lake

Mom and baby moose at Bierstadt Lake

Duck trying to get people to look at it instead of the moose.

We slowed the pace the final few days with several visits to Sheep Lakes to see if the Bighorn came down - they did not. However, we caught a great photo before and during a rainstorm.

Mountains from the Sheep Lakes

Same mountains in the rain with a layered effect

 We also visited the Alluvial Falls, which were formed in 1982 when an upstream dam (man made) failed and sent a cascade of water, mud, and boulders down the river bed. 

Alluvial Falls

Our final night was in Aspenglen Campground in RMNP. The next morning, we drove across the 12,000-foot Trail Ridge Road to the west side of the park. We made several stops and hiked to Rock Cut at 12,300 feet for a top of the world view. We only saw one Elk, but watched many marmots and pika dashing around. We also saw a coyote right along the roadside. Eventually, we descended the west side and are at Stillwater Campground on Lake Granby for the night. 

Paul with Longs Peak in the back

Paul & Elena at 12,300 feet on Trail Ridge Road

Scenic Vista

Our Winnebago Travato getting us up and down the mountains

Marmots on a rock

Pika having lunch

It was a great five days at Rocky Mountain National Park.

- Paul

 

Read More

Colorado's Front Range

This will be a catch-up post covering a few days along the front range in Colorado. We left off at Trinidad Lake in Colorado. The following day we were headed to Lake Pueblo to camp. An old friend suggested we detour past Bishop Castle in the mountains southwest of Pueblo, CO. So we did. I will save you the details, but the owner of the place, Jim Bishop, was a bit of an eccentric fellow. You can read his family accounting of the place at their website. https://www.bishopcastle.org/. 

Basically, he built (over many, many decades) a stone and iron castle. No one lives there - it's not a habitable structure. It's more art than it is practical. He apparently worked on it most weekends, but is about 80 now, and his son won't let him work on it any longer. He does not care for rules, as the many signs posted on the property will attest. The place is open all the time for people to stop and tour at their own risk. There were a few dozen vehicles of tourists there on a Thursday late morning. As we drove away, Elena and I were both thinking about how he could have used his talent to build interesting, but habitable structures.

Bishop Castle

We had a nice camp site at Lake Pueblo - an easy walk to the water. We watched some monstrous thunderstorms to our NE, but it was clear over us. She inflated her paddleboard, and we got it to the water, but the wind was blowing at over 25mph making it difficult to paddle. She swam around in the lake instead, and we carried the board back to the camper. A short time later, new cells developed over us, including a strong hail storm. It only got to marble size, but it was quite loud. 

UL: Trinidad Lake; Others: Lake Pueblo

The next morning we drove in early to Colorado Springs and visited Garden of the Gods. We arrived about 8AM and the crowd was very small. It grew rapidly over the next hour. We started in the popular central garden area. On our way out, a large group of teenagers gathered around to pet Bebop. They were lined up a few people deep for their turn. She always draws attention when we are hiking.

Bebop always the center of attention

We decided to try and shake the crowd by visiting the Siamese Twin rock feature, as it required a small hike to reach. There were less than a dozen people there, which enforces our observation that crowds dwindle exponentially with distance from the parking lots. This theory was again validated when we later drove down past Balanced Rock. This feature sits just feet from the parking lot and there were a several hundred people gathered around trying to take photos in front of it - from every angle. We drove on past.

Garden of the Gods

We went to the Red Rock Open Space in the late afternoon and got a couple miles of hiking in before another round of afternoon storms chased us back to the camper van. There were only a few other people there. We had some heavy rain and a tiny bit of hail at our campground that evening. 

The next morning, the skies were clear, and we tackled the 19-mile horizontal drive (and about 1 1/2 miles vertical) up Sun Mountain (Pikes Peak). As we approached the entry gate, we saw about 18 old Ford Model A cars lined up to go in. They were all meticulously restored. We saw one Model A break down in the road at about mile 15 and another broke down near the bottom as we departed. Overall, their success rate was not bad for a 90-year-old vehicle. Our camper van handled the nearly 8,000 foot vertical climb nicely.

Mountaintop Bebop

As we reached the top at about 9AM, we saw the mountain begin to perform its weather making show. It was a sunny morning, in the upper 40’s with fairly light winds. As those winds blew across the top, they created negative pressure and updrafts of the leeward side. This drew valley air upward, and the moisture began to condense into clouds. We watched the swirling clouds forming directly in front of us. By the time we got down in the early afternoon, some had built into thunderstorms nearby.

Up top for us and the caravan of Ford Model A cars going up

Sun Mountain (Pikes Peak) top and bottom

We drove to the Florissant Fossil National Monument next. This area had a very large amount of petrified redwood trees. Much of it was removed before it became a monument, including an entire stump that Walt Disney took to Disneyland for display. They have excavated around some of the other enormous stumps that were just below the surface. As we arrived, we had to dash into the visitor center to avoid another heavy thunderstorm. This was three days of storms in a row, but we missed the hail with this one. After the storm cleared, we walked around the observation trails. The visitor center has an excellent display of a rich trove of fossils of plants and animals that have been found at the site.  It was a great look at the ecosystem from about 34 million years ago when a warm and wet climate allowed giant redwood trees to grow at 8,000 feet elevation in what is now Colorado. Bonus Points: The visitor center was also similar to our house with SIP walls, solar water heating, solar electric, and natural daylighting.

 

On day six of our trip we visited the Dinosaur Ridge in Golden. This is the site of a number of 100 million year old fossils and bones. In 1877 several dinosaurs were discovered at Dinosaur Ridge, including Apatosaurus, Stegosaurus, and Allosaurus. After a couple of miles of hiking we headed to the Museum of Earth Science at the Colorado School of Mines. An amazing display of geology - many rocks. Then we checked into our creekside campground in Golden and watched approximately one million people tubing in the adjacent creek on an Sunday afternoon. We walked to town and met my longtime friend Lara Wallentine Hussain for dinner. 

 

Fossil Ridge in Golden, CO

Clear Creek in Golden, CO

 Next up, Rocky Mountain National Park. 

- Paul

Read More

Westward and Upward

We departed DFW at noon on Tue, July 11th. Elena and I had to dodge morning rain showers to get the van loaded up, but once we got west of Denton, the sun broke through with a vengeance. We spent several hours driving west in 105 degree F temperatures with the sun beating on us through the front window. We stopped at a rest area to stretch our legs and a car pulled in beside us. The driver got out and used an infrared thermometer to check his tire temperatures. He then aimed them at ours. Our front tires were 145F, back was 158F. His car tires were 138F.

We arrived at the Amarillo Travel Center, where there is a nice parking lot for sleeping. And the good news for our 5-week trip - we got the longest drive day (363 miles) and the hottest day out of the way on day one!

Daily miles drive plan

On day two, we completed our 3rd longest drive day. About 450 miles from home, we finally got out of Texas. We made a couple of stops in NE New Mexico to break up the drive to our campsite at Trinidad Lake, CO. The first stop was at Clayton Lake to view the dinosaur footprints. Bebop enjoyed checking them out and noted that they were even older than me. No treat for Bebop after that remark.

Clayton Lake Dinosaur Footprints

We then visited Capulin Volcano. A relative youngster, it last erupted about 60,000 years ago. Bebop was not allowed on the trails, but she got plenty of love outside the visitor center from a mom and 4 girls. We drove up to the top parking area and hiked the rim trail around the cone. We were above 8,000 feet and the trail was 1.1 miles with a 350-foot elevation gain. Great views in every direction.

Rim trail at Capulin Volcano

We are settled in to our campsite at Trinidad Lake in southern Colorado.

View from the back of our campsite - Trinidad Lake

And some bonus sunset walk photos too.

Sunset at Trinidad Lake

- Paul

Read More

Texas is Hot - Mountains are Cool

We've not had a long camper van trip since last fall, but we're ramping back up again with three big trips planned for the second half of 2023. First up is a ~5-week trip planned to depart the heat of north Texas, and saunter in the cool mountains of Colorado. Colorado is busy during summer, so I planned the trip over 6 months ago. We needed to be ready to reserve our selected campsites when they became available. I like boondocking, but I've found we can pack more adventure into a day if we already have a reserved campsite, and don't have to worry about getting to our evening site early enough to get a slot. 

 

We picked some popular sites that can be difficult to book, but our record was perfect in securing reservations. A few of the major prizes were Rocky Mountain National Park, Telluride Town Campground, and the tiny Silver Queen campground (only 5 total sites) next to the Maroon Bells near Aspen.  

 

Our route plan takes us up the east side of the Rockies to RMNP. Then we cross the park and work our way down to Leadville (or should I say UP to Leadville - at 10,152 feet above sea level, it's the highest incorporated city in North America). Then we'll take Independence Pass into Apsen to the Maroon Bells wilderness. After that we'll work our way down to Telluride, then the Million Dollar Highway to Durango. We'll visit friends in Pagosa Springs, before making our way through NM toward home. 

Summer 2023 Trip Plan

One change this time is that we are carrying a spare tire. We didn't have one for the first 2 years and 20,000 miles - and we never needed one. But a local Travato owner changed her tires and rims, and sold me a rim and tire (with 20K miles on it) for $100. We evaluated many spare location options and went with the roof. Story Link. 

Our departure lines up with our 2 year vaniversary date. Here are the total stats from our first two years:

Bebop and the Bebopabago are ready to go. And Elena & I are also ready to go exploring together.

Read More

Can You Spare a Spare (Tire)?

The Winnebago Travato does not include a spare tire. We've gone two years and over 20,000 miles without needing one, but a flat in an out-of-the-way location could cause some trip delays, including a tow to a tire shop.

When a nearby Travato owner posted her Travato rims and tires for sale for $100 ea, I jumped on it. The next step is to decide where and how to mount it on the van. One company sells a rack that will replace the bike rack and use the same mounts - but we use our bike rack. Another solution is to add a tire rack on the left rear door, but this requires removing the ladder and moving the license plate holder and light. Another solution attaches to the left rear hinge and can provide a mount and ladder as well - but that is a costly solution. There are also hitch mount solutions, but that might require reinforcing the hitch. The solution I chose is to mount it on the roof - since it's not something we'll need very often.

To mount it on the roof of our 2022KL I needed to remove the rear solar panel. Since we have the lithium battery model, the solar panel is not as critical as it would be for the non-lithium model. I saw another member on the Travato Owners and Wannabees Facebook group had flipped the rack rails upside down to lower the profile of the spare. Since I had an additional rack cross rail that I had removed from the front of the van (due to the highway speed vibration issue), I decided to put three rails across to support it. 

Unfortunately, that roof rail system doesn't make it easy to add bolts. Ideally, a 5/16" carriage bolt would slide into the rail and provide support to attach the extra rack. But that would require some major rack disassembly. I used some of the existing bolts, and added a few of the M6x20mm Hammer Head T-Bolts ($10 for 8). These slide into the slot and rotate into place. They aren't as robust as the existing bolts, but the load is spread over three rails. 

While I had the cross rails off, I slid several 5/16" stainless carriage bolts ($9 for 8) into the channel to attach the plate and some tie down anchors ($9 for 4). The bolts are secured with a flat washer and nylon lock nuts. The hardest part is attaching the cross member back to the bracket. Since the bracket is now upside down, you have to blindly screw the bolt into the receiving nut in the channel. That nut can easily slide, so it took a little tape and patience to line it up correctly.

I purchased a spare tire carrier for roof racks ($45) and mounted that plate onto my three crossbars using the 5/16" carriage bolts I had placed in the cross members. 

To lift the tire up, I used a rope and a ladder. By attaching one end of the rope to the rack, then looping the rope through the tire, I could pull it up from the roof. The simple pulley system halves the weight of the tire to less than 40 lbs. With someone else guiding it up the ladder (set as an inclined plane, it was quite easy. On the road, I'll only have the stock ladder, but with two people it won't be difficult to lower and lift using the rope system.

Once on the roof, the tire and rim are locked down to the plate with the supplied J-bolt. Here's where I had some difficulty. I first had the tire laid with the outside face down. The problem was the threads didn't go down the J-bolt far enough. I cut a wood shim, but the bottom hook of the J-bolt came up enough to interfere with that shim. So, I flipped the tire over and attached it that way.

I added a tire cover ($17) to protect the tire from exposure, then crossed some straps over, mainly to keep the cover from blowing off. The screw down arm sticks up a bit under the cover, but overall it should work well.

Total cost: $90 for the rack parts, $18 for a 10 meter rope, and $100 for the rim and tire. Total of $208, and we now have a spare on the road with us. And before you ask, I didn't center it on the roof, so I could keep a bit more clearance around the a/c for airflow.

Top view - 3 crossbars flipped and a mounting plate

Mounting plate on crossbars

Crossbars and anchor bolts

J bolt and tire plate / screwdown

The inclined plane

Initial mounting attempt - J-bolt threads not long enough

Flip the tire and lock it down

Add cover and ratchet strap

Finished product. Screw down arms protrude up a little under the cover

-Paul

Read More

The Jazz Cruise 2023

One if by land, two if by sea. Or, camper van by land, cruise ship by sea. We’ve travelled on The Jazz Cruise 5 times since 2012, and we were scheduled to go again in January 2021. COVID cancelled that, so our reservation rolled to January 2022. A late Dec COVID surge caused that one to be canceled. We were hopeful that Janurary 2023 would mark our return to this floating jazz festival. And it was. 

We departed Fort Lauderdale on Friday, January 6th. Once on board, I had to check out the basketball court - need to do something to work off the calories consumed on a cruise.

Look at that jump shot elevation by Paul

Once we were sailing, the music started almost immediately. We heard Tierney Sutton, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Samara Joy, and the Welcome Show, which featured about a dozen great musicians. Saturday was a day at sea, so we heard the Christian Tamburr Quartet, Houston Person, an All Stars #1, Bria Skonberg, Samara Joy, Clint Holmes, and the full big band with several guests. 

The passengers on The Jazz Cruise skew toward the older ages. Elena and I are still among the young crowd. It’s a very jazz knowledgeable audience. There was one lady on the cruise who liked to get up and dance when the music moved her. It was joyful, yet a bit funny, as she reminded me a bit of Elaine dancing on Seinfeld. 

Sunday we arrived at Costa Maya, which is just a made up corporate port name. After we were forced to snake past all the shopping opportunities, we emerged into the small village of Mahahual where we had booked an excursion to the Bacalar 7 color lagoon for kayaking. The girls at the check in booth informed us that we were the only people booked that day. Instead of cancelling, as some tours do when there aren’t enough people, they gave us a private excursion. Our guide Eliot came over to introduce himself. When we told him we were on The Jazz Cruise, his eyes lit up. He said he played drums, trumpet, and was learning sax. He asked if we had heard Chuck Mangione, which of course we had. Chuck’s tenor sax player Chris Vadala twice. 

Eliot turned out to be the most interesting and well-educated tour guide we’ve ever had - and he was only in his 20’s. He was knowledgeable about biology, geology, Maya history, and so much more. He was trilingual in Mayan, Spanish, and English, and he even knew some Texas slang like “y'all” and “fixin’.” At one point, he started naming US Presidents in reverse order, and he apparently knew them all. And, of course, we spent a lot of time talking about jazz music and musicians. It was almost an hour drive up the Yucatán to the lagoon, and we finally turned onto a narrow dirt road where the jungle scraped the van on both sides. Eliot said, “This might feel like a kidnapping at this point, but it will be the nicest kidnapping you’ll ever experience.” We arrived at a small resort on the lagoon, and we were the only people there. 

We had a great kayaking trip across the lagoon and into the mangroves. Then we paddled back and sat on our private deck overlooking the lagoon while we were served a delicious lunch of chicken and pork tacos. The salsa was great too - both a traditional salsa and a fresh pineapple salsa. We had stopped on the way to purchase some very special local pineapple, and they made into the pineapple salsa for us. Even the hibiscus tea was delicious. We were able to hang out and relax for a while before we loaded back up for the hour drive back. On the way back, Eliot taught us the Mayan counting system. I can now write numbers in Mayan, which is a base 20 system that uses only three symbols - a dot, a dash, and a seashell looking figure.

Bacalar 7 Color Lagun

We returned to the ship and enjoyed concerts by the All Stars #3, Etienne Charles, John Pizzarelli, and an All Star group of vocalists with Shelly Berg on piano. 

The next day was Cozumel. Elena loves to be in the water, so we scheduled a 5-hour, 4-stop snorkeling tour. We visited a coral reef, a sea turtle area, a starfish area, and finally a sandbar where we snacked on guacamole and ceviche while stingrays swam around our feet. Elena even saw an Eagle Ray on one of the stops. There were also many large starfish, sea turtles, barracuda, very small sharks, and many varieties of fish.

Snorkeling off Cozumel

We returned to the ship to see the Christian McBride salute to Ray Brown with Benny Green on piano and Greg Hutchinson on drums. We then heard the Wynton Marsalis Octet. Next up was Clint Holmes and Monty Alexander. 

Tuesday was a day at sea. Elena spent most of the morning in the pools and spas. I shot some hoops and had a bit of rest. Then we heard Christian Jacob, All Stars #5, Kurt Elling, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and the big band with Ann Hampton Callaway, Christian McBride, and Bria Skonberg. 

Wednesday was another day at sea. We spent much of the morning in the pools. Then we attended concerts by All Stars #6, Tierney Sutton Band, another All Star lineup led by Nicki Perrott, the Hall of Fame show with a cast of talent as they inducted Joey DeFrancesco into the Hall of Fame. We dined in the dining room that night for the first, and only time, on this cruise. We then enjoyed Ted Rosenthal Trio and All Stars #7. At the last concert, I started to feel ill and was concerned that I had picked up a virus on the ship. I had a scratchy throat, irritated sinuses, and a bit of fever. I went to bed a bit early, and it was almost gone by morning. t realized that it was probably a reaction to the lady who sat next to me at one of the prior evening shows. She had way too much perfume on, and I’m sensitive to smoke and perfume. I was the victim of olfactory assault. 

Thursday was the final port day in Nassau. There were 5 cruise ships in port, so we opted to stay and swim on our ship. We then enjoyed a final day of concerts too: Keyboard Capers with all the keyboard players doing a solo piece (best piano recital ever), then they rotated through a bebop chart and each took a short solo. We then saw Monty Alexander, Christian Sands, and finally the full big band with a few guests including Samara Joy. The best sunset of our cruise saved itself for the final day too. I stood on the deck watching it and talking to sax great Dick Oatts. 

Sunset on our last night

 Friday morning, we departed the ship and headed for the airport to fly back home. It was such a wonderful week filled with love, kindness, intelligence, wit, humor, and humanity that it was difficult to leave this little bubble of how society should really function. And the other super bonus of the cruise was that my sister and her partner were on the cruise too, so we were able to spend many hours visiting and catching up with them. They live in Virginia, so we don’t see each other very often. They are both librarians on the front lines of the current wave of ignorance and book banning efforts.

Here are some of the musicians on the cruise: Christian McBride, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Wynton Marsalis, Bill Charlap, Monty Alexander, Tierney Sutton, Joey DeFrancesco, Samara Joy, and Kurt Elling. John Pizzarelli, Ken Peplowski, Houston Person, Emmet Cohen, Benny Green, Randy Brecker, Niki Haris, Wycliffe Gordon, and the cruise’s music director Shelly Berg. John Clayton leads the Big Band which includes an incredible array of players: Bijon Watson, Randy Brecker, Terell Stafford, James Morrinson, John Fedchock, John Allred, Javier Nero, Jennifer Wharton, Dick Oatts, Mark Gross, Ada Rovatti, Ricky Woodard, and Gary Smulyan. Below are images of the band members and the All Star groupings.

Band Members

All Star Groups

Keyboard Capers

The Jazz Cruise 2024 lineup is already announced and the cabins are being booked, so we’ll decide soon if we’ll return next year. There is a very strong possibility we’ll be on board. 

 

- Paul

 

Read More