Thank you for visiting RV Ramblings, the daily happenings of full-time RVers, James and J, as told by James.
You may share this particular blog entry by referring to www.rvramblings.com/?date=2010-07-10.
Visit www.rvramblings.com to view the latest blog entry. Click here to create a bookmark that will take you to the latest blog entry.
July 10, 2010, a Saturday
near Trout Creek Pass to near Cottonwood Pass (Stage Stop Meadows), Colorado, USA
— Up over Cottonwood Pass
We got up around our usual time and I had my usual breakfast. We prepped the RV to move and I left in the RV around 9:15 and J stayed for a bit to reload J&DC's bird feeders.
I went to the dump station that's part of J&DC's HOA (Home Owner's Association). I think it's crazy that there's an HOA for the extremely rural properties around there that are mostly still undeveloped.
I met up with J around 10:10 at the top of Trout Creek Pass and hooked up the Jeep to tow. We got underway at 10:20 heading west on US-24.
We went to the Post Office in Buena Vista around 10:40 and dropped off some things in the mail.
We went to the Buena Vista Public Library around 10:50 to use their Wi-Fi network. We couldn't park close enough to the building so we could access the Wi-Fi network from the RV, so we packed up our computers and took them inside. The building is very nice, modern, and architecturally-interesting. There's a nice "reading area" that was perfect for working on our computers, and several other people were doing the same there. The Wi-Fi connection was suitably fast, and I started to upload the images that were selected from my last stock submission. I started to work up a blog entry and downloaded an episode of Car Talk. Then I purchased fittings and cables for the external cell antenna through some Buy-It-Nows on eBay.
I went out to the RV around 12:15 and had my usual ham-and-Swiss on rye sandwich with a glass of Coca Cola Classic while J kept an eye on my computer as it was still uploading my images.
I went back into the Buena Vista Public Library around 12:30 and purchased a Wilson Electronics 859957 700-2400 MHz Splitter. Soon, we'll each be able to use our external cell antenna with a direct connection to our USB727 sticks simultaneously. J was ready to leave, and my image uploads finished, so we left around 1:05.
We drove around looking for a good place to take on fresh water, and we ended up at one of the Buena Vista city parks where they have conveniently-placed faucets. After I got the hoses connected and started taking on water, I finished the blog entry and posted it. After we finished taking on water, we went to the Hi-Rocky store across the street. It's an interesting store with souvenirs, guide books, fishing tackle, a Verizon Wireless section, and a large Radio Shack section. We returned to the RV and I had my banana and apple to finish lunch.
We went to the City Market in Buena Vista to do some grocery shopping around 2:00. We left around 2:45 and ...
Went to the Loaf 'N Jug in Buena Vista to fill up the RV and top off the Jeep with gas at $2.559/gal using our 10¢/gal King Soopers discount. We got underway around 3:00 and started heading up to Cottonwood Pass.
It was my first time over Cottonwood Pass, and J had been over it several times before. We ran into some rain around 3:05 while still in the valley, and it looked really nasty up around the pass. Fortunately, the rain stopped and the sky cleared by 3:15 as we were just beginning to head up the pass. The road up to the pass from the east is paved and goes through some nice scenery. There were some wildflowers in bloom, but the settings weren't the best for photography. We reached the top of the pass (12,126 ft or 3696m) at 3:41 and just kept going even though there were nice puffy clouds to the east and the view was pretty. The road on the west side was a nicely-graded, and pretty smooth, dirt road. I just put the RV in first gear and sat back and relaxed as we headed down. We went by some really nice wildflowers and the settings were good for photography, but the sun and breeze weren't good so we just kept going.
We reached Stage Stop Meadows around 4:10. It's a nice flat meadow among the pines and a great place to boondock — except that there's no Verizon Wireless or AT&T signal. We found a nice spot to set up camp and I leveled the RV. The slide didn't go out, so I went out to the battery compartment and jiggled some wires to improve the continuity, and then the slide went out — whew. After we were all set up, I downselected the images from our second trip to the Pawnee some more.
We had dinner around 5:55 of an awesome grilled chicken salad. J went all out and added some tasty extras: croutons, sunflower seeds, and Waldorf Salad!
After dinner, I finished downselecting the images from our second trip to the Pawnee and then processed them through Capture One (C1) by assigning final file names and converting the RAW files to TIFFs.
I went to the dump station that's part of J&DC's HOA (Home Owner's Association). I think it's crazy that there's an HOA for the extremely rural properties around there that are mostly still undeveloped.
I met up with J around 10:10 at the top of Trout Creek Pass and hooked up the Jeep to tow. We got underway at 10:20 heading west on US-24.
We went to the Post Office in Buena Vista around 10:40 and dropped off some things in the mail.
We went to the Buena Vista Public Library around 10:50 to use their Wi-Fi network. We couldn't park close enough to the building so we could access the Wi-Fi network from the RV, so we packed up our computers and took them inside. The building is very nice, modern, and architecturally-interesting. There's a nice "reading area" that was perfect for working on our computers, and several other people were doing the same there. The Wi-Fi connection was suitably fast, and I started to upload the images that were selected from my last stock submission. I started to work up a blog entry and downloaded an episode of Car Talk. Then I purchased fittings and cables for the external cell antenna through some Buy-It-Nows on eBay.
I went out to the RV around 12:15 and had my usual ham-and-Swiss on rye sandwich with a glass of Coca Cola Classic while J kept an eye on my computer as it was still uploading my images.
I went back into the Buena Vista Public Library around 12:30 and purchased a Wilson Electronics 859957 700-2400 MHz Splitter. Soon, we'll each be able to use our external cell antenna with a direct connection to our USB727 sticks simultaneously. J was ready to leave, and my image uploads finished, so we left around 1:05.
We drove around looking for a good place to take on fresh water, and we ended up at one of the Buena Vista city parks where they have conveniently-placed faucets. After I got the hoses connected and started taking on water, I finished the blog entry and posted it. After we finished taking on water, we went to the Hi-Rocky store across the street. It's an interesting store with souvenirs, guide books, fishing tackle, a Verizon Wireless section, and a large Radio Shack section. We returned to the RV and I had my banana and apple to finish lunch.
We went to the City Market in Buena Vista to do some grocery shopping around 2:00. We left around 2:45 and ...
Went to the Loaf 'N Jug in Buena Vista to fill up the RV and top off the Jeep with gas at $2.559/gal using our 10¢/gal King Soopers discount. We got underway around 3:00 and started heading up to Cottonwood Pass.
It was my first time over Cottonwood Pass, and J had been over it several times before. We ran into some rain around 3:05 while still in the valley, and it looked really nasty up around the pass. Fortunately, the rain stopped and the sky cleared by 3:15 as we were just beginning to head up the pass. The road up to the pass from the east is paved and goes through some nice scenery. There were some wildflowers in bloom, but the settings weren't the best for photography. We reached the top of the pass (12,126 ft or 3696m) at 3:41 and just kept going even though there were nice puffy clouds to the east and the view was pretty. The road on the west side was a nicely-graded, and pretty smooth, dirt road. I just put the RV in first gear and sat back and relaxed as we headed down. We went by some really nice wildflowers and the settings were good for photography, but the sun and breeze weren't good so we just kept going.
We reached Stage Stop Meadows around 4:10. It's a nice flat meadow among the pines and a great place to boondock — except that there's no Verizon Wireless or AT&T signal. We found a nice spot to set up camp and I leveled the RV. The slide didn't go out, so I went out to the battery compartment and jiggled some wires to improve the continuity, and then the slide went out — whew. After we were all set up, I downselected the images from our second trip to the Pawnee some more.
We had dinner around 5:55 of an awesome grilled chicken salad. J went all out and added some tasty extras: croutons, sunflower seeds, and Waldorf Salad!
After dinner, I finished downselecting the images from our second trip to the Pawnee and then processed them through Capture One (C1) by assigning final file names and converting the RAW files to TIFFs.