Driving home we passed Mosquito Lake, Lake Alpine and through a very cute town, Murphy. We continued the limited freeway route only jumping on near Manteca.

We timed it perfectly. We were out of wine, out of gin, out of money, out of vacation time, out of Starbucks, and out of firewood. We still had clean clothes having done the laundry at Ft. Collins, Colorado but with just 2 Fat Tire beers left (brewed in Ft. Collins) we were close to be desperate and homed in on the driveway like a cruise missile tracking the donkey carrying Osama bin Laden.

I think Presley was the only one who would have kept going. Riding for days, looking out the window, it is his idea of doggie heaven. Now he is back to the cats and just the park.

Time for the news and a martini. I’ll shower later.

Back in California and it feels good to know we are 1/2 day away from home. We checked out a campsite on top of Monitor Pass at 8314 feet, N38° 40.805′ W119° 37.717′. It would have been a great place to camp but just a little too early in the day. The smell of sage brush was remarkable after crushing some under the tires. A fire station with what looked like a passable road was near by. I would have like to gone up to see that but we will leave it for our next exploration with some other Sportsmobile owners.

We camped at Silver Creek Campground in the Toiyabe National Forest. It is run by a concessionaire and is an ok place. Fishing is close. Sites are pretty well separated but it gets lots of use. There are many campsites around both in campgrounds and dispersed.

How many days without a shower? Well for me, a “Wipe It” does the face and hands, put on a clean pair of socks and you are good to go. Debbie prefers the more traditional shower so she is counting the days. Her hair looks kinda cool though – it just stays in any position she puts it in. I have a pair of jeans like that.

At morning coffee time there were 2 mule deer on the edge of the meadow near the aspen trees. We watched them for 5 minutes or so before they drifted back into the tree line. This morning  a little dog came walking along and wanted to play with Presley. Presley didn’t want to play with him and was surprised someone else was in “Presley’s Meadow” (N 40° 42.954′ W 109° 28.515′). We took him back to a motor home about a 1/4 mile away and found out his name was Mickey.

Then we dropped down out of the forest and into Vernal, Utah. We found that the visitor’s center was being rebuilt at Dinosaur National Monument and since we were running behind we opted to visit the Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum. It is a great place to put together the history of the early earth.

We continued south through Helper and Price and stopped at Green River for fuel and some coffee at the Green River Roasting Company. They had moved from where they were last time but still have a good cup of coffee.

We doubled back to the cut-off towards the Henry Mountains and headed for Capital Reef National Park. As we approached there, Debbie recognized a spot we had been hunting for – a place where on her way to California as a young girl with her sister, brothers and dad, she had written her initials on a rock. The spot was there, complete with the swimming hole but thankfully no initials. I think mother nature took care of it over the years with a rock fracture or two.

Hot. Denver is hot. The freeways are a mess. Merge lanes merge directly into traffic. The average speed on city streets is 10mph over the posted speed limit. Traffic “safety lights (cameras) everywhere. Did I mention it was hot?

We stayed in Cherry Creek State Park. The campground has been updated with new tables and new parking pads. There is also something that bites through clothes that will leave a welt the size of a quarter on your shoulder, back of neck and side of face. They fade away but for a while you look like the elephant man. If we come this way next year, or anyway for that matter, maybe it would be better in the fall.

We visited grand-kids and got them fixed up for school then stopped in Ft. Collins to see Debbie’s brother and family. Lots of fun there.

Tonight we are at 8400 feet in the Ashley National Forest with a meadow out our picture window. It was cloudy but I am hoping it will clear so I can see the stars.

There are a lot of trailers up here. Most have no occupants. It is dispersed camping so it is ok but just strange. Does someone rent them out? Do their owners work in town and then come here after work? I haven’t seen this before.

Presley loves the big meadow. Signs of cows and some bear scat. It is bear county but I don’t know why it would be out in the open. We love our National Forests!

Here we are in the San Isabell National Forest, N38° 51.112’ W105° 58.929’, some 3-1/2 hours south of Denver. Of course, the closer you get to that madhouse the worse the traffic becomes. Oh, let me interject right here. If you are the 100 year old man (by the looks of the long white beard), on Hwy 285, riding your motorcycle following what looked to be your terrified 100 year old wife on her motorcycle, you do not have the right to go along at 50mph in 65mph area just because your arthritis makes it difficult to just slightly turn onto the shoulder (wide) of the road. Likewise, if you are the errr, hmmm, “lady”, also on 285 driving your SUV pulling a trailer, you also don’t have the right to back up traffic all the way back to Durango. Those rear view mirrors are not for looking at you, although the different angles must be wonderful. They are there so you can see the red faces and mouthed curses from the people behind you.

Last night we stayed with my sister in Durango. At her place there is a young bear lurking about so you have to carry bear spray when you go outside. Probably the only place on this trip I have to worry about a bear and it was the slightly urbanized area of Durango. He may be there because he hears my sister’s husband (and me while I was there) snoring and it reminds him of his mama. Garbage can’t be that good.

Yesterday we traveled through parts of Arizona and New Mexico. I haven’t been through Gallup in maybe 30 years or so. There is a lot more advertising for “genie” Navajo rugs, pottery, painted jewelry, etc. We used to buy Navajo rugs for maybe $10 at roadside stands and used them for saddle blankets. Ah, the good old days, circa 1957.

I saw a sign in Gallup, Sheep $100. I think that was for 1 but it is one of those words you can’t tell. Anyway, it sounded good to me. My nephew is off to college and I need someone or something to keep the lawn mowed. They said they couldn’t FEDX it and I would have to take it (or them – I only know one word in Navajo that I learned from John Wayne) with me. Since I am picking Debbie up in Denver on Saturday I knew that wouldn’t work.  WANTED:  Teenager in my neighborhood to mow and trim lawn. Reasonable pay and lunch included. Sadly Gallup also has a long highway “safety zone” where the speed limit is 50mph, and the highway extra wide with lots of streetlights. This is for walking drunks to get home or maybe back to the bar.

I also went through Cortez where I spent most of my childhood. Sad. You can see the shattered dreams and lost hope.  The café I used to play pin balls in, the barber shop where flat-tops (including butch wax) were a dollar are long gone. I checked out Chestnut Street – they used to block it off for sledding and it was extremely long and steep. Now it is short and not steep at all. Just a gradual slope. Must be the paving – it used to be gravel.

Durango is full of tourists as normal. Still a great place to visit. The street to my sister’s house was under construction and figuring out the detour signs took me almost as long as driving from Cortez to Durango. Oh, I was a day early. And I just got an email from my daughter I am a day late. Mysterious missing time, sounds like aliens probably living in a hollowed out Sleeping Ute Mountain.

What did I see today? Pagosa Springs is totally cool. Presley went wading in the San Juan River. I saw Devil Creek and realized that the Holly Molly Creek I saw in Arizona was really Holly Moses Creek. What does it mean? I also saw fenced in buffalo and elk that are there just to be killed and eaten. I curse the owner’s and their next 15 generations with great, dripping facial warts.

Note: “Easy out” mayonnaise, if sealed at sea level, will come out very easy and very fast in copious amounts at 7800 feet.

OMG, its cocktail time . . .

PS. Had to move. No connecty to the internet.

Arizona was hot! 115 degrees in Kingman but thank goodness we were heading up in elevation. Finally got to the Kaibab National Forest and RON’d (remain over night) in this great spot.

I can report and Presley will agree that the cattle feed lot at Coalinga smells way worse than normal. The cows are super crowded together with only their own manure to walk and lay on. Horrible. I think they have it out in the sticks as to avoid prying eyes.

Traveling through the Bakersfield area, eastern California and Arizona, I am amazed at all the giant pieces of equipment, buildings and Rube Goldberg  looking things you see. I wish I knew what they all were used for.

Today we also drove over Holly Molly Creek. Holly Molly!