Category Archives: Bicycle

Enormous Pot Pie

The weather remains a topic of discussion as we’ve had more wet days again this week. Three quarters of an inch of rain fell in the last seven days. On average, January is the second wettest month in San Diego with a total of two inches of rain. We’re well on our way to exceed that average. February is the wettest month with an average rainfall of two and half inches.

We had some rain Monday morning, but it cleared up in the afternoon. I borrowed Sini’s car and drove over to Dan Diego’s for a cold one with the guys around 4pm. The parking lot at Dan Diego’s was empty and the sign by the door said “Closed.” I knew they changed their hours after the New Year, but I didn’t remember them closing on Mondays.

I went down the street to the Offshore Tavern and Grill and saw the guys at the bar there. I mentioned Dan Diego’s being closed and they told me that was news to them, they were about to go there. I looked up Dan Diego’s hours on my phone and it showed it open at 3:30pm on Mondays. I called Dan Diego’s and the owner, Ryan, answered. I asked him if he was open – he said, “Yeah, but the place is empty.” I told him he should check his sign! We went to Dan Diego’s for a cold one before the Alabama vs Clemson NCAA National Championship game.

I came home and tuned in the game at 5pm. Donna went out for dinner with her sister, Sheila and her nephew Connor. They went to Sushi Ota – where they serve the best sushi I’ve ever had. Donna brought home a spicy tuna roll and some nigiri for me – yummy!

As our time here is winding down, I’m looking forward to dry, sunny days in the forecast ahead, beginning Friday. I’ll need to organize the trailer and move things like our folding chairs, Weber grill and Traeger smoker/grill over to the trailer. Here at Mission Bay RV Resort, we have to leave our trailer in the overflow lot outside of the RV park.

Donna reorganized an overhead bin in the coach where she stores snacks. She used to have opaque plastic containers with lids that snap on and off. She labeled the containers so we would know what’s inside. The thing is, the labels are pretty generic and we would often forget about a particular snack inside.

Old container with generic label

She found a set of Oxo clear plastic containers with pop-up lids at Costco. She moved the snacks into these containers and now we can see at a glance what we have on hand. She’s planning to go back and get two more sets for other pantry items!

Clear Oxo containers

I repurposed the old opaque containers and used them to organize some odds and ends in one of the basement compartments. I had a few loose bicycle tools and lubes. Now instead of digging around in the compartment to find things, I can just pull out the container.

Tuesday, Donna and I went to Pacific Beach Recreation Center and played pickleball for a couple of hours. I’m going to miss the pickleball and the people we’ve made friends with at the rec center over the last three winters. We’ll find pickleball courts in Mesa, Arizona – our next destination.

On Tuesday evening, Donna cooked a chicken pot pie that she bought at Costco. Like almost everything at Costco, this was the biggest pot pie I’ve ever seen – it was over five pounds! We invited Tom and Kris Downey over to join us for dinner – they were the ones who told us about the pot pies made fresh at Costco. The four of us ate about two thirds of the pot pie – we have about two servings left over. It was tasty and I’m looking forward to reheating the leftovers for lunch!

Sini has to leave the RV park today. She’ll head up to Temecula with her son Beau. They plan to spend the night at a casino there and also visit an RV shop to get a quote on new flooring. She’ll be back tomorrow. This will be her first solo run. Although Beau is with her, he doesn’t have experience driving their 37-foot National Tradewinds motorhome. I’m sure she’ll be fine.

Speaking of returning, I posted earlier about the neighbor who left her bike in our site before Christmas. Her bike is still here. Yesterday I went to the office and asked if they could look up the person that was in site 114 and left on December 22nd. I told them about the bike and said I was leaving on Sunday and needed to figure out what to do with the bike. I only knew the woman’s first name, Lindis. They remembered her and looked up her info. We learned that she came back to the RV park two days ago. I’ll clean and lube the chain on the bike – it’s rusty – and return it to her today.

Keep an Eye On My Bike

Last month, we had a neighbor move into the site next to us on the driver’s side. It was a young woman in a large fifth-wheel trailer – I think she said it was 43 feet long – with four kids. There were two boys and two girls ranging in age from about three to 11 or 12 years old. The oldest girl took on a lot of responsibility for her siblings. A couple of times the woman – her name is Lindis – went out for several hours and left the kids in the trailer. We could hear them running back and forth inside, but all in all, they were pretty well-behaved.

On December 22nd, she packed up her trailer. She told us they had to move and were heading up to the Thousand Trails park in Menifee. It was a rainy morning and not the ideal conditions to hook up and head out. The mom and her oldest daughter made short work of it though and got the trailer hooked up to their truck. Then the girl came to our door and knocked. She said they couldn’t fit one of their bicycles – a cruiser style bike with baby seats on the front and back – and asked if we would keep an eye on it until they came back for it.

We told her to put the bike in our site by the picnic table, which she did and we saw them drive away. That was two weeks ago. We haven’t seen them since then. I’m wondering if they’re coming back. We’ll be leaving on the 15th. I’ll check with the office to see if they have a reservation to return here.

On Monday, the neighbor on the other side of us had to leave the park overnight. He told me he was coming back to the same site on Tuesday. He asked me if they could leave their bicycles in our site rather than stow them aboard for an overnight trip. So we had a site full of bikes for a day, but they were back Tuesday afternoon and retrieved their bike rack and bikes that were left in our site.

On Monday evening, Donna made garlicky tomato-basil shrimp and served it over squid ink spaghetti. This recipe is a keeper for sure.

Garlicky tomato-basil shrimp

Yesterday our friends, Hans and Lisa (Metamorphosis Road) moved into the site next us. We’ll be able to get together a few times before we leave – starting with happy hour this afternoon.

I played pickleball for a couple of hours yesterday in Pacific Beach. I’ll head over to Ocean Beach Recreation Center to play today. The forecast calls for clear skies but the temperature will only reach the mid-60s. More rain is forecast for tomorrow.

A Nice Walk

I returned the rental car to Enterprise on Friday after writing my post. The Enterprise agency is on the northwest corner of Garnet Avenue and Mission Bay Drive. After I dropped the car off there, I walked back to Mission Bay RV Resort – a distance of about a mile and a half.

This gave me the opportunity to stop at the Chase Bank across the street from Enterprise. Then I walked to the west end of Figuroa Boulevard where there’s access to the Rose Creek Trail at the end of the street (map).

Access to Rose Creek Trail

Walking home on the trail, I realized how easy it is to take our surroundings for granted. Being in San Diego at this time of year is a beautiful thing. I took my time walking the trail and enjoyed the scenery. It’s not only people that like the winter weather in San Diego – a large variety of birds winter here.

I saw waterfowl in the creek and snapped a photo of a dapper-looking Western Grebe.

Western Grebe

I thought about the flora as well. There are trees and flowers here that you don’t see everywhere. Of course palm trees are found throughout southern California.

Palm tree at the RV park

Bird of Paradise plants can be found in gardens here – including the entrance to Mission Bay RV Resort. These flowering plants are indigenous to South Africa but have flourished in temperate climates like we have here.

Bird of Paradise flower at the RV park

Eucalyptus trees are found throughout San Diego. I don’t recall seeing these trees anywhere else in the country – maybe I just haven’t noticed them.

Eucalyptus tree

Donna was out for a run and our paths crossed near the park entrance. I gave a wave and continued on. Across from the RV park office is another San Diego sight – City Deco Bikes. These are rental bicycles found at many locations – especially near the beach. You can pay for a 30-minute rental (the minimum) at the bike rack and unlock a bike. You return the bike to any city bike rack and it records the amount of time you had the bike. Donna paid for monthly bike access to reduce the cost and she uses them from time to time. Sometimes when she goes out running, she likes to run to the beach. Then she picks up a city bike and rides back to the RV park and leaves it in the rack here.

City Deco Bike

As you can see in the photos, it was a beautiful day for walking. The temperature reached the mid-70s and we had sunny blue skies. This morning it’s overcast with a low ceiling. Rain will move in over the next couple of days and we can only expect to see highs in the low to mid-60s. I’m not complaining though – it’s a great place to be at this time of year.

I Am Just a Cowboy

Saturday was another warm day. The temperature reached the low 80s. Donna went out for a run before it got too warm. I puttered around. We planned on going to Donna’s sister’s house for a Halloween party in the evening. This has been an annual event for us over the last four years.

We were going to do western themed cowboy-cowgirl outfits since we both had the boots and would only need a couple of accessories. Donna changed her mind and made a creative outfit. She used cotton balls to create clouds on a blue shirt. She had a water bottle that sprayed a fine mist. When she was asked what her outfit was, she said, “I’m your up-to-the-minute weather forecast – partly cloudy with 100% chance of showers.” Then she would spray her water bottle. Fun.

I went ahead with the cowboy look. I rode the Spyder over to the Boot Barn in Kearny Mesa. I bought a Roper cowboy shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps and a bolo tie. I have a Stetson cowboy hat and I wore cowboy boots. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos from the party.

We decided to take a Lyft ride to Point Loma for the party at Sheila’s house. When I tried to schedule the pick-up, there was something wrong with the Lyft app on my phone. It located our pick-up point and I input the destination. When I tapped the “Request Lyft” button, it said “Busy” and went back to the previous screen. I tried it a couple of times with the same result. It never showed a car or driver or the wait time.

Donna opened the app on her phone and it worked fine. It showed a driver available with an ETA of four minutes. The driver picked us up and we were on our way. About half way to Sheila’s house, my phone rang. It was a Lyft driver telling me he was looking for us. I told him my app malfunctioned and didn’t confirm him coming, so we took another ride. A few minutes later, I received a text from Lyft saying they charged my credit card five dollars for a no show. How about that – a no show message as I was riding in a Lyft car. I sent an explanation to their customer service – we’ll see how that works out.

Sheila’s Halloween party is two parties at once. There are a number school kids – friends of her 12-year-old son Connor making up half of the party. Then there are the adults – parents of the kids and friends that make up the other half. We had an enjoyable evening with good food, drinks and lots of interesting conversations.

A little past 9pm, I tried to schedule another Lyft ride. My app had the same result – it said “Busy” next to the pick-up address and never showed a car or driver in the area. This time I waited to see what would happen.

After touching the "Schedule" button it shows "Busy"

After touching the “Request Lyft” button it shows “Busy”

After several minutes, my phone rang. It was a Lyft driver telling me he was in front of the house to pick us up. I had to break Donna away from a conversation she was having. We left in such a hurry we forgot to bring home leftover food and a package of pulled pork that one of the guests had smoked and given to us.

Sunday morning we woke up to a passing rain shower. It passed, leaving a thin overcast sky behind. Things quickly dried. Donna went out for a run – she ran along the Bayshore Walk path around Crown Point. Her plan was to pick up a City DecoBike near the Catamaran Hotel at the end of her run and ride the bike back to the RV park. There’s a City Bike station right in front of the RV park. She didn’t find the station she expected to find near the Catamaran. She had to walk past Mission Boulevard where she eventually found a bike station at Mission Beach.

Meanwhile I was absorbed in NFL games. The Chargers won a thriller in overtime. They came back from a second-half 17-point deficit to win 33-30 over the Falcons in Atlanta.

Today we have overcast skies this morning – it’s supposed to clear up by the afternoon and reach a high temperature in the low 70s. Sounds good to me.

Run, Donna, Run

We had a fairly quiet weekend as we settled in at Mission Bay RV Resort.

Donna went to an office in Mission Valley Friday morning. She volunteered to do some data entry for an organization called Girls on the Run. I took a couple of walks around the RV park and mostly read a book on my Kindle. I retrieved the Weber Q grill and stand from our trailer in the storage lot so we could grill steak for dinner. Then I went to the Offshore Tavern and Grill for happy hour and met up with my pals there – Bob, Tye and Tim. We caught up and of course I entered the football pool.

On Saturday morning, Donna and I rode the Spyder downtown to the Little Italy District for the farmers’ market. We always enjoy farmers’ markets and the San Diego Saturday market is a good one.

Farmers’ market on Cedar Street

We strolled through the four-block section of Cedar Street and had food samples. We weren’t really shopping for anything, but we ended up buying a Greek-style eggplant and yogurt dip, baguette, smoked gouda cheese, uncured salami and two kinds of sausages from The Meatmen, a bomber bottle of Modern Times blood orange gose beer (brewed in Point Loma), plus pomegranates and kale. We like the smaller Tuesday farmers’ market in Pacific Beach too.

Ozark the cat has really taken to her window mounted bed. She slept Saturday afternoon in it, but the sunshine must have bothered her eyes.

Ozark the cat shielding her eyes

Donna had volunteered to work from 2-4pm at the Girls on the Run booth that was set up for the Esprit de She race on Sunday so she rode her bike over there. While she was out, I made a run to the store. One of things I like about the west coast is the availability and large selection of craft beer in 22-ounce bomber bottles. We found plenty of craft beer in New Mexico, Colorado and even Wyoming but you had to look for it and generally it was only available in six-packs of 12-ounce bottles. In California, Oregon and Washington you’ll find good selections in just about every grocery store.

Islander IPA from Coronado Brewing Company.

We snacked on the food we bought at the farmers’ market for happy hour, then Donna made turmeric chicken with bone-in chicken thighs. She served it with Israeli couscous and steamed green beans.

Turmeric chicken thighs

Donna had her alarm set for 5:30am Sunday morning. She was entered in a 5k race at South Shores Park on the south side of Mission Bay, just east of Sea World. Her plan was to use a City Bike to ride to South Shores Park – the race was scheduled to start at 7:15am. City Bikes are rental bicycles found in various locations in San Diego. The bikes are electronically locked in bike racks. You pay five dollars for half an hour – the machine will release the bike and record the time. When you return the bike at any City Bike rack, it locks in the rack and records the return time. There’s a rack of bikes just outside Mission Bay RV Resort, about a quarter mile from our site.

It had rained overnight, but no rain was falling when Donna left just after 6am. She had to take a towel along to wipe down the City Bike seat – and my headlamp as it was still dark. She was able to ride a bike path all the way to the bike drop-off, then walked another 1/2 mile or so to South Shores Park.

The start of the race was delayed until 7:45am. Donna ran a good pace – 9:48/mile and nearly met her goal of finishing in under 30 minutes. She finished in 30:25 and won the woman’s 50-59 age group.

I spent most of the day watching football. I was getting excited about my chances in the football pool. I picked winners in 10 out of 13 games played on Sunday. I ended up in second place though – the winner also picked 10 out of 13 but he ended up with 84 points to my 80. Oh well, there’s always next week.

Wipe Out IPA from Port Brewing Company

On Sunday evening, Donna made a marinara sauce from scratch and served sweet Italian sausage with marinara over goat cheese ravioli – we bought the sausage and the ravioli at the farmers’ market.

Swwet Italian sausage with marinara over goat cheese raviola

Sweet Italian sausage with marinara over goat cheese ravioli

I have a few errands to run today and I need to get cracking on next year’s health insurance plan. This afternoon I’ll probably play pickleball at the Pacific Beach Recreation Center. Donna is working on a new book project that will occupy much of her time as she needs to meet a mid-December deadline.

*Just so you know, if you follow one of my links to Amazon and decide to make a purchase, you pay the same price as usual and I’ll earn a few pennies for the referral. It’ll go into the beer fund. Thanks!

Eagle Nest Lake Trail

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that Donna hiked to the bakery at Eagle Nest village. She had an interesting early morning hike. The water in the lake was glassy. She took several pictures – I like this one from a high vantage point on the trail looking north toward the village.

Glassy water with reflections of the mountains

Looking at this photo of the trail, you can see the variety of terrain in the area. There’s sage covered flatland favored by the prairie dogs, large meadows with rolling hills, pine covered mountainsides and bare peaks above the tree line.

Terrain varies

Our neighbor told me he spotted elk in the meadow across the lake from us. I’m guessing they are bedded down in the shade of the trees on the mountainside in the afternoon and come out into the meadow in the evening. I haven’t heard any bulls bugling though.

On Donna’s hike she encountered deer – a young buck and a couple of does. She also saw a flock of white pelicans on the lake, but they were too far away to capture a good photo.

Deer by the trail

After breakfast, I had work to do. The night before, while I was watching the Broncos-Panthers NFL game, our generator hour meter turned over 1,000 hours.

Generator panel inside the coach

That meant it was time for service. I like to perform preventive maintenance on a regular schedule. Onan recommends oil and filter changes every 150 hours and air and fuel filter changes every 500 hours. I had a gallon jug of Chevron Delo 400LE 15w-40 oil in the trailer and I had oil, air and fuel filters as well.

I figured it would be best to get the job done here in the park where there aren’t any rules against it. Many private RV parks prohibit working on your rig in the park. Draining the oil is easy, but removing the oil filter is always a chore. It’s hidden behind a trap door, mounted horizontally behind the generator shroud. I can’t see the filter – I have to remove it by feel. Of course, it was too tight to remove by hand. Every time I do this, I tell myself I need to buy a new oil filter wrench. The strap wrench I have is a real pain to fit into the small area where the filter is.

Onan doesn’t make it any easier with their filter design. Most oil filters are dimpled around the cap of the filter housing. This allows a cap-type filter wrench to grip it. The Onan filter is smooth – no dimples for a wrench to grip.

Cummins – Onan oil filter

I wrestled with the oil filter for half an hour before I got it off. Installing the new filter was fairly easy – again I was working blind and had to screw it on by feel. After re-installing the drain plug though, I discovered a problem. The gallon jug of oil I had in the trailer was only half full. I’d forgotten that I used it to top off the oil in our Cummins ISL diesel engine. I needed three quarts of oil for the generator, but I only had two. I carried on and changed the air filter element. The old element did its job well – the intake tract was clean as a whistle.

Old and new air filter elements

I poured the two quarts of oil into the generator, then filled the empty jug with the waste oil. After a quick clean-up, I took the waste oil to recycle and rode the Spyder to the NAPA store in Angel Fire. They didn’t have Delo 400 oil in quart containers, only gallon jugs. I thought I would be paying too much for the oil, but I didn’t have a choice. I got lucky – the gallon of Delo 400LE 15w-40 was on sale and I bought it for $14.00 including tax!

After I returned, I topped off the oil level and fired the generator to check for leaks. Job done and now we’re good for another 150 hours of run time. I didn’t change the fuel filter – I made the mistake of trying that once before and ended up with diesel fuel running down my arms all the way to my shoulders. I’ll have it done next time we have the engine serviced at Speedco.

After cleaning up, I rode my mountain bike over the same trail Donna hiked. I took a picture of the lake from the same high vantage point, but I was looking east across the lake.

View from the trail

I rode to the far side of the village and back – about four miles. The trail was fairly treacherous on a mountain bike – I had to keep a constant watch for prairie dog holes. Some of them were up to a foot in diameter – dropping a front wheel into one of these wouldn’t be fun.

I’ll end this post on a sad note. On September 6th, I lost another friend. Andy Sigler died suddenly and unexpectedly. Andy was the bass player in my friend Gerhard Rauch’s band, Backtrack. I spent many hours in Gerhard’s basement learning songs with Andy, Gerhard and the rest of the band. Andy was truly a kind and gentle person. I can’t recall one instance of him losing his temper or even getting the slightest bit angry at all. I’m glad I had the chance to meet and get to know Andy. I learned about Parrot Heads from him – he was an active member and attended many Parrot Head events. He’ll be missed by many for sure.

I need to get out and do my usual pre-road checks. We’ll kick the tires and light the fires later this morning and head over to Taos, New Mexico for a few nights.

By the way – there’s glitch in the latest WordPress update that’s not allowing e-mail notifications to go through. I’m hoping we can get it fixed soon.

Stealth Parking in Denver

I didn’t post over the weekend, so I have some catching up to do. Friday was our last full day in Greeley, Colorado. We decided to take our chances on getting caught out by an afternoon thundershower and rode the Spyder into town. Our first stop was the WeldWerks Brewery on the corner of 8th Avenue and 5th Street. It’s a very nice taproom and the beer is brewed on site.

I started with a West Coast-style IPA, then followed up with an IPA called Juicy Bits which is a little sweeter, almost fruity. Donna had an apricot gose, then had a five-ounce pour of a beer called Berlinerita. Berliner is a beer style, in this case lime was added thus the ‘rita name.

Donna’s little Berlinerita next to a full size glass

At WeldWerks they have something I haven’t seen before – they call it a crowler. If you’ve been to brew pubs, you’re probably familiar with growlers, which are usually 32- to 64-ounce refillable glass jugs. The crowler is a 32-ounce can of beer canned on site – it isn’t refillable though. This was a very popular take-out item!

WeldWerks crowler

After trying a couple of beers, we moved a few blocks away to Santeramo’s Italian Restaurant on the corner of 10th Avenue and 13th Street. This is a family-owned restaurant opened by second-generation immigrants, Lawrence and June Santeramo. Lawrence died in 1968 and June kept the restaurant going until she retired in 1987 and then the restaurant closed. A son and grandson bought the original building in the 2008 and reopened the place. It’s an old house on the corner. The ambiance was casual and very homey. The service was great and we enjoyed the food – Donna had lasagna with a big meatball and I had linguini with marinara and Italian sausage. The pasta was made in-house.

Donna enjoyed the lasagna

On Saturday morning, we made a quick run into town again for the Farmers’ Market next to the Chamber of Commerce on 7th Avenue. We bought some honey, elk sausages and Cajun andouille sausages. We also had Philly cheesesteak-style breakfast sandwiches made with thin sliced steak, cheese and eggs on a soft hoagie roll.

We came back to the RV park, I loaded the Spyder and dumped our tanks. I also filled the freshwater tank – that’s how we like to roll – fresh water full, holding tanks empty. We exited the park just after 11am.

Our first destination was the Blue Beacon Truck and RV Wash in Denver. There are only two Blue Beacons in Colorado. We were badly in need of a wash. The thundershowers while we were set up in a dirt/gravel site splashed dirt up the sides of the coach. Runoff from the roof also left streaks. I had a coupon from FMCA for a free Rain-X treatment at Blue Beacon, so we went there by driving down US85 to I-70. Getting in and out of the place was a little tricky. It’s in a lot behind a Pilot/Flying J Travel Center. You have to drive through the travel center and follow signs to find the entry to the wash bay. I figured it out without too much trouble. But when we left, I made two laps of the travel center lot trying to find the exit. The signage pointed me back to the Blue Beacon. Donna asked a trucker walking by and he explained we had to exit next to the Blue Beacon under the elevated freeway onto an access road. It looked like the entrance to a warehouse to me, but it worked.

Our next stop in Denver was an area called Englewood where Donna’s friend, Ann Koerner, lives with her husband Jim. We planned to park in front of her house for the night so Donna and Ann could spend some time catching up. The last time she saw Ann was in 2006 when we visited her in Santa Barbara while we were touring on our motorcycles.

Ann lives on a fairly wide street and there was plenty of room to park without blocking her or her neighbor’s driveway. Her neighbor is an RVer and didn’t have any problem with us spending the night there. Some people refer to street camping as stealth parking. But we aren’t exactly stealthy at 64 feet long. Getting us level wasn’t entirely possible with the slope and road crown, but I got it close enough. I waited until after dark to put out the passenger side bedroom slide. I left the other slides in – they would have extended into the road too much. The passenger side bedroom slide allows us enough room to walk around the foot of the bed, which is oriented east-west in the bedroom.

Traffic cones out to prevent anyone from accidentally walking into the bedroom slide

Traffic cones on sidewalk to prevent anyone from accidentally walking into the bedroom slide

Ann made a delicious grilled lemon-chicken dinner for us with a fresh salad from her garden, corn on the cob, quinoa salad, roasted broccolini and brownies. Thanks, Ann!

On Sunday morning, Ann and Donna loaded their bicycles in Ann’s SUV and went to the South Platte River Trail for a bike ride. Meanwhile I watched the Formula One race from Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium. There was a horrific high-speed crash at the Eau Rouge corner that Kevin Magnussen thankfully walked away from. Later I caught the first half of the Chargers – Vikings game before it was time for us to move on.

We headed south on I-25. The portion of I-25 from Cheyenne, Wyoming to Puebla, Colorado runs just east of the Rocky Mountain Front Range. As we drove along heading south, towering mountains were on our right side and endless plains to the horizon on our left. We had a few slow-downs where I-25 squeezes down from four lanes to three, then to two. The high point between Denver and Colorado Springs is Monument Summit – also called Black Forest Divide Pass at more than 7,300 feet above sea level.

We arrived at the Elks Lodge in Colorado Springs a little after 3pm. This Elks Lodge has RV sites with hook-ups for Elks members and also allows dry camping. I checked in at the lodge and found all of the first-come first-served RV sites were occupied. We joined a few other rigs in the back of the parking lot and we are dry-camped with them. To the west of we see fresh snow on Pikes Peak.

A thundershower arrived in the evening and grew to a large storm after dark. The street behind us flowed like a river and the parking lot had a couple of inches of standing water as it came down faster than it could drain. Our smartphones had severe weather alerts beeping. Lucky for us, it didn’t get very windy and there wasn’t any hail involved. Late afternoon passing thundershowers are common in this area at this time of year. We’ll have to do our sightseeing and shopping earlier in the day to avoid them.

Today we have partly cloudy skies and expect a high temperature in the mid-70s. Although we’re at an elevation of over 6,100 feet above sea level, the overnight low will be in the mid-50s. Perfect for us.

Rodeo Mystery

It seems like we’ve had our share of wet weather in the second half of summer. Rain found us here in Greeley, Colorado first thing Wednesday morning. Showers continued on and off all day long. We decided to forego Wednesday’s senior rodeo and hoped we could catch the second day of the event on Thursday. I shouldn’t complain too much about the weather – I heard that US212 was closed yesterday where it enters Wyoming from Montana due to snow!

Donna used the time indoors on Wednesday to catch up on a couple of proposals she’s writing. I finished another novel – The Hit by David Baldacci. It was a thriller with a decent plot and held my interest, but sometimes these authors make mis-statements that peeve me. Early in the story, Baldacci writes about a long-range sniper shot. He claims that the bullet actually increases its kinetic energy over the distance of the shot. What? The kinetic energy of the projectile is a product of mass and velocity. The bullet doesn’t gain mass as it flies along and velocity begins to decay almost immediately due to aerodynamic drag. Kinetic energy is continually reduced over the entire flight path of the bullet. It’s a small thing, but how does a best-selling author get away with such a statement? End of rant.

On Thursday morning, we had a few high, thin clouds and the weather looked promising. Donna wanted to go for a long bike ride. I wanted to check out the rodeo. So Donna headed out on her bicycle and I rode the Spyder to Island Grove Regional Park on the north side of Greeley to the Pro Rodeo Arena. Donna met me there on her bicycle. But, there wasn’t a rodeo – in fact, the arena had bulldozers converting it to a motocross track for an event.

When I read about the National Senior Professional Rodeo Association (NSPRA) event in Greeley, I assumed it would be held at the Pro Rodeo Arena. I looked it up again on my smartphone and found sketchy directions to a rodeo arena northeast of town on the NSPRA site. In fact, I think this was the old Greeley Rodeo Arena where I rode a bull in 1976.

Donna continued her bike ride – she wanted to ride the Poudre River Trail to the town of Windsor. It’s about a 20-mile ride on a paved trail heading west from Greeley. I was on a mission to find the rodeo. After a few false turns, I finally found my way to the area where the NSPRA site said the arena was. Except I was looking at corn fields. I got my phone out again and looked up another page on the site with a map to the arena. It showed the arena in the cornfield I was looking at. Something was clearly wrong here. It’s a rural area, so I couldn’t ask anyone for directions. I rode the Spyder a few miles in every direction looking for an arena, cars or a sign – anything that might mean a rodeo was going on. No luck.

I gave up and rode about 15 miles west from the location to Windsor. I met Donna at Sol De Jalisco Mexican Restaurant for lunch. We locked up her bicycle and went inside. The food was outstanding and the service was good. I’d definitely recommend this place if you’re ever in the area and have a hankering for Mexican cuisine.

After lunch, Donna got back on her bike to make the 20-mile ride back. On my way back, I stopped at a liquor store near Greeley RV Park. I had gone there on Tuesday and asked about Blue Ice vodka. Blue Ice is a potato vodka made in Idaho and is one of my favorites for martinis. They ordered it for me and told me I could pick it up on Thursday. I was standing there holding the bottle when another customer looked at me, then looked at the bottle, then looked at me again. He said, “I get it, you’re Heisenberg, right?” If you watched the series Breaking Bad, you’ll know what he was talking about. With my shaved head and goatee, I’ve been told I look like the character Walter White aka Heisenberg. Heisenberg cooked a special crystal meth called Blue Ice.

This makes a nice martini

Donna made it home about an hour after I arrived. We planned to go to the WeldWerks brewery in Greeley around 4pm. I looked at the weather radar app and saw a thunderstorm approaching from the west. We decided to head over earlier to beat the storm and were getting ready to leave at 3:30pm when the rain started. Looking at the radar app again, it looked like we would have rain for the next couple of hours. That nixed our plan – neither of us wanted to ride into town during a thunderstorm. We had a quiet evening.

Today we had a few rain drops early but it’s sunny with a few clouds at 10am. The forecast looks promising with the high temperature reaching the mid-70s and a slight chance of a passing shower later. Maybe we can make it to the Weldwerks brewery this afternoon. Meanwhile I need to organize the trailer and begin preparations for the road. We’ll pull out of here tomorrow.

Poudre River Trail

The first white men to explore some of the places in and around the Rocky Mountains were fur trappers. Many of them were French and gave French names to places such as rivers, lakes and trading posts. This being the wild west, the pronunciation of these French names were often changed from the proper French name to something else altogether.

Donna went for a bike ride yesterday. She’s been looking forward to riding the Poudre River Trail. Donna studied French in high school and college, so she pronounced the Cache la Poudre River with a proper French accent. I told her it’s locally pronounced Poo-der. While riding what she thought might be the beginning of the trail, she stopped to ask a couple of women if this was the trail to Windsor. They weren’t sure about that but they did say that it was the Poo-der River Trail.

Here are a few pictures of informative kiosks and views from the trail. The paved trail is multi-use for hiking and biking and runs from Greeley to Windsor. A short ride through Windsor will get you to another trail and you can ride to Fort Collins.

You can see the river water level is quite low – not unusual for this time of year.

While Donna was out on her ride, I rode the Spyder to King Soopers to buy a rack of babyback ribs. I set up the Treager wood pellet fired smoker/grill and prepped the ribs. I always remove the tough, thin membrane from the bone side of the ribs first. The membrane can be tough and chewy – also it blocks the spices in the rub from contact with the meat. I dry rubbed the ribs with a mixture of two parts Pappy’s Choice seasoning and one part Lambert’s Sweet Rub O’Mine.

It was hot out and unusually humid again. The temperature was in the upper 80s when I fired up the Traeger. After the first half hour, I lowered the temperature setting on the Traeger and went inside to read a book. I checked the grill a couple of times without opening the lid by peering through the smoke vents. I also stirred the wood pellets in the hopper to keep them feeding smoothly through the auger.

The wind kicked up during the cook and the outside temperature dropped. When I estimated about 30 minutes of cooking time remaining, I decided to raise the temperature setting of the Traeger to compensate for the cooling effect of the wind. In the end, I wish I hadn’t done that. The ribs were slightly overcooked and not as moist as I would have liked. I’m also going to modify my rub to a 3:2 ratio of Pappy’s to Lambert’s to reduce the salt content.

Rack of ribs hot off the Traeger

Meanwhile, Donna prepared a potato salad and steamed green beans for a complete meal.

A yummy meal

The windy conditions persisted well into the night. This morning we woke to the sound of rain drops on the roof of our coach. The weather almanac shows an inch of rain for the month to date in Greeley – but that usually comes in the form of an afternoon thundershower. Overcast skies and rain in the morning seems unusual to me for this time of year.

We had planned to go to a National Senior Professional Rodeo Association event this morning, but the rain shower put a damper on that plan. Senior professionals are pro rodeo cowboys over 40 years old. They compete in age groups of 40 and over, 50 and over and 60 and over. The event continues tomorrow at the Greeley Pro Rodeo Arena, so maybe we’ll attend tomorrow. I rode in a rodeo once – it was held right here in Greeley – I wrote about that in this post.

The temperature is supposed to be cooler for the next few days with highs in the upper 70s. Sounds good to me.

Can’t Hold a Site

Yesterday was a travel day so I didn’t post. On Wednesday, Donna rode her bike from Pine Near RV Park in Winthrop down the Twisp-Winthrop Eastside Road to Twisp and back – about a 20-mile ride. The road doesn’t have any shoulder but the traffic is so light it was okay. The weather was nice – around 80 degrees and sunny. I wanted to check out the campgrounds at Pearrygin Lake State Park, so I took ride on the Spyder.

The state park has two campgrounds right on the lake. The road takes you to the west campground first. I stopped there and was surprised at how small the lake looked. I thought it was much larger as people water ski on it.

Pearrygin Lake at west campground

Most of the campsites here appeared to be dry camping areas although I saw a few with electric and water. I rode over to the east campground. As I descended from the road down to the lake level campground, I saw the lake was larger than it appeared from the west campground.

View of west Pearrygin Lake from above east campground

A portion of east Pearrygin Lake

The lake extends well to the east of the east campground. The east campground had a mix of sites and I saw some with full hook-ups. There were a few big rigs there. The website says there are 76 standard sites – dry camping – and a few with electricity and water and 50 sites with full hook-ups.

That evening, we walked to downtown Winthrop and had drinks and dinner at Copper Glance. This is a bar that features a wide variety of top-shelf liquor and an eclectic menu. I enjoyed a martini made with Chopin potato vodka while Donna sipped a Gose beer. Donna ordered an Asian cabbage salad that was excellent and followed it up with chicken satay skewers. I had the Reuben sandwich with house-made sauerkraut and dressing. It was tasty.

Thursday morning we were ready for the road by 10am. Rather than go through the busy Main Street in Winthrop, I followed Donna’s bike route on the eastside road to Twisp. We hit WA20 there and followed it to WA153. This route took us south along the Methow River. The traffic was light and it was easy going except for two bridges that were single-lane due to road work. We hit US97 at Pateros and followed it south along the Columbia River. The source of the Columbia is in the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, Canada. It flows through Washington then forms the border between Washington and Oregon before it empties into the Pacific Ocean. The Klamath and the Columbia are the only rivers east of the Cascade Mountains to flow directly into the Pacific Ocean.

We reached our destination, Crescent Bar RV Resort, on the east bank of the Columbia River (map) at 12:45 PM. I’d already booked our reservation through the Thousand Trails website. While we were waiting to check in, our friend TJ Muller was pulling out of the park in his truck. He stopped to say hi. Then his wife Julie and our friends Lance and Boni pulled up and welcomed us to the park. They were on their way to the post office in Quincy. Lance and Boni suggested we check out site 43. They said it was a long back-in site that would fit our rig. Thousand Trails RV Parks are usually first-come first-served for site selection. You can book a number of days in advance, but it doesn’t allow you to hold a specific site. The host checking us in told us how to get to site 43 and said she thought it was our best choice.

There were a number of other sites that could fit or length, but they were 30 amp electric service. We wanted a 50 amp site. The forecast calls for temperatures in the 90s during our stay so we want to be able to run both roof air conditioners.

When we pulled up to site 43 we saw a sign that said it was reserved for a group. What? The host not only told us to go to 43, she handed us a sheet of paper with a list of park rules. Rule #18 said no sites could be held or reserved. I called the welcome center and asked what the deal was. The woman said she would check into it. We made a couple of laps of the park – the only other 50 amp site that was large enough was closed due to a problem with the electrical panel.

Eventually the woman from the welcome center and the park manager arrived at site 43. They removed the sign and said the reserved sign wasn’t authorized and we were free to take the site. We backed in and set up.

Set up in site 43

On either side of site 43 are sites that are privately owned. Thousand Trails sells a portion of their sites for private use. Apparently the two owners of these sites often invite friends to spend the weekend with them and try to block site 43 for their friends. It may get interesting when they show up.

The park is right on the bank of the river. We took a walk in the evening and checked it out. Donna had already walked down once and saw a beach area. She also stopped at the club house and met the owners of an Alpine Coach two sites down from us – Dewey and Doris from Nebraska.

Columbia River view from the RV park

Basalt cliffs south of the park

We walked back to our site along a paved path. Sometimes I have to wonder who planned the park’s layout. The path led us to steps that ended in the back of someone’s site! Walking through an occupied site is poor etiquette, but other than backtracking to the beginning of the path, there wasn’t any way out.

Path leads to the rear of a camp site

Back at the coach, Donna prepared panko-crusted fresh rock fish filets we picked up at the IGA in Winthrop. One of the filets formed the outline of a fish.

Fish shaped rock fish filet

The pan-fried fish was delicious served with steamed broccoli.

Pan-fried panko-crusted rock fish

This morning we plan to play pickleball with TJ, Julie, Lance and Boni. We haven’t played since we last saw them in Bend, Oregon.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Category Archives: Bicycle

Enormous Pot Pie

Keep an Eye On My Bike

A Nice Walk

I Am Just a Cowboy

Run, Donna, Run

Eagle Nest Lake Trail

Stealth Parking in Denver

Rodeo Mystery

Poudre River Trail

Can’t Hold a Site

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: