July 14 track

This is the last update of the track logs I had previously posted, and covers our westbound trip. Further updates to follow with new track logs to cover the actual meet itself.

We got in to Colorado pretty early in the morning, having camped so close the night before. Eastern Colorado is virtually indistinguishable from Kansas.

Because we had some extra time, we decided to make a side trip to check out Burlington Colorado, just because we live in Burlington Ontario and thought the coincidence was amusing. Burlington Colorado is a pretty dusty little town that's apparently there solely for a fuel stop, and people who need to give the kids a break. There are a few "old West" themed attractions, a museum, an old carousel, and so forth. Unfortunately they weren't open yet for the day when we were there. We drove around, got a few pictures of things that said "Burlington" and stopped at a gas station that had a large sign outside claiming to have a large selection of souvenirs. For such a small town, the sign was true to reality. They had a lot of cool things there, so we got a lot of our souvenir shopping out of the way early. The attendant working there was quite happy to see a couple of tourists who wanted to spend money in his shop.

We continued on to Limon, where we parted ways with Interstate 70. We gassed up at the Flying J there. Most Flying J locations are nice and large, well laid out, with ample turning and parking space for trucks and RVs, and a nice store. The one in Limon is a dump in comparison. It looked like someone took some tiny Sinclair station and painted "Flying J" on the side of it. Traffic was a mess, because all of the truckers and other RV drivers made the same mistake I had of assuming that a Flying J would have enough room to accommodate large vehicles.

From Limon, we picked up US Highway 24 to Colorado Springs. This was a two lane highway (one in each direction) across the rolling hills of eastern Colorado. Naturally every other vehicle on the road wanted to go much faster than we were traveling, and none of them were happy to see us blocking the highway. I'm sure they got over it.

We managed to navigate through Colorado Springs by following the signs for the highway. Unfortunately, the maps on my GPS haven't been updated for the recent construction that's been happening in the area. We were fairly close to what the GPS said, but not exact. It was still an immense help to see where we were in relation to major features like the airport and freeway.

Most of this day was a continuation of our gradual uphill climb across the plains and rolling hills. Just out of Colorado Springs, we launched up the canyon, which was a very steep climb, especially pulling the trailer. I knew the canyon was going to be steep, but I hadn't expected it to be so narrow and twisty.

We arrived at Lone Duck and got checked in and made sure everything was still on track for taking over the group area on the 15th. No problems. Steve had set aside an RV spot for us right on the creek, next to the group tent area. I went to check it out, and realized that there was no sewer hookup. I asked him, and he said that we could just let the grey water (sinks and shower) run out on the ground, and dump the black tank (toilet) at the main dump station before leaving. I realized we were also going to need to dump the black tank before parking for the week, so I had to do some interesting turning around maneuvers to get lined up without smashing the trailer in to the side of their office building. Lone Duck is a cute little campground, but there's not a lot of room for larger vehicles. And our trailer isn't even that large, I'm impressed by how well the guys with the huge 5th wheels manage to get parked.

Our spot was also in a position that we had to back in to it. I'm still working on my trailer reversing skills, but I managed to get it pretty close to where I wanted it on the first try, much to my amazement. To my even further amazement, it required no side-to-side leveling whatsoever. I thought for a second that the level must have been stuck. I've never had any camp site that was that level. I usually can't even get it that perfectly level with the leveling jacks. After marveling at this for a few minutes, we got the truck unhitched and the water and electrical hooked up, and got the trailer stabilized and all arranged for the next week of camping.