Wednesday, 24 June 2020 Denver to Steamboat Springs

Wednesday, 24 June — HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANNE

Boy I had a rough night. Not much sleep at all. A strenuous hike followed by a bunch of alcohol and not enough water and electrolytes. I had leg cramps every time I moved. I had to jump out of bed to try to get rid of them. I ended up sleeping, but not sleeping on the couch. 
We are not in a hurry this morning because we have to wait for three repairs on the Jeep 
I got all caught up on the blog while enjoying coffee this morning. 
We started packing things up in the RV getting ready for our move to Steamboat Springs.  
We went for a short walk and then around 10:00 went to visit Barbara. We finally got a picture. 

Visiting Barbara through the window

At least we got to visit. It has been very nice to see her and visit after the past three days. I wish we could have visited her in her apartment, but maybe next time.  While we were with Barbara the Jeep people called and said the Jeep was finished and ready to be picked up. The timing was perfect, because right about that time, 11:15. The Notary man from the Title Company arrived to have Barbara sign documents for the sale of her house in Fresno.  That is going to be such a relief for her when it sells.

From Barbara we headed over to the Jeep. We parked the rig in a big parking lot there.  We picked up the Jeep, went to a gas station to fuel it up and then went to Burger King for some food for the road.

We went back to the Jeep and headed out.  We had to go back the way we came, through Vail.  Over the big pass and through the Eisenhower Tunnel 60 miles west of Denver.

 

The tunnel carries interstate 70 (I-70) under the Continental Divide. With a maximum elevation of 11,158 feet (3401m) above sea level, it is one of the highest vehicular tunnels in the world.  The tunnel is the longest mountain tunnel and the highest point on the Interstate Highway System.  With the completion of the second bore in 1979, it was one of the last major segments of the interstate system to be completed.  Opened in 1973, the westbound bore is named after Dwight D Eisenhower, the US President for whom the Interstate system is named.  The eastbound bore was completed in 1979 and is named for Edwin C. Johnson, a governor  and US senator who lobbied for an interstate system to be built across Colorado.

 I’m still amazed at how much snow there is in the hills. This is the end of June already and there is still so much snow in the mountains.

As we continued on the scenery did change quite a bit. Beautiful all the way.

We got out of the mountains and into the hills......

And then finally into some beautiful lush green valleys.

 We arrived at the Steamboat Springs KOA at about 4:40. I was having some serious issues with nap attacks the last hour or so.  At one point I seriously thought about pulling over to either walk about or take a nap, but I seemed to wake up as we talked about it over the Walkie talkies and tried to figure out where to stop 
We were led to our spot and set up pretty quickly. It is warmer than we thought it would be so Rob wanted to walk down to the river for a dip.
We are located along the Yampa River. When we got down there is was pretty rapid and there really was no place to swim. We did find a very small alcove that Rob waded into. Apparently it’s a bit icy as it took him awhile to get the courage to dip and once he did he shot up and out pretty quickly.  
I’m not vey impressed with this campground because we are crowded in together.  Normally all the site go in the same direction with your own set of hook ups.  That way you open up to your own little area at the non-door side of the rig next to you. This one has you sharing hook-ups so you are back to back with a rig on one side and front to front on your opening side. No privacy. But a good way to meet people if you want.

Our front neighbors have three big dogs. Ella, April, and Scout. I have no idea what the people’s names are or where they are from. Hmmmm what does that say about me?!  Anyway as you can see in the pictures, we carry fencing with us and as soon as we get here we set it up. We have a doggy door, so Bella can go in and out as she wants and sit with us anywhere when we are outside without being tied up.  There three dogs have to be leashed to them while they are outside.

We fixed dinner and actually watched a little TV (first time in two weeks) before going to bed.