Sunday, July 31, 2022   Colorado, Transfer Campground

Woke up at McPhee.  Packed up to leave, then hiked the “Overlook Trail” that could be accessed from the campground loop.  That was fun.  From the overlook we could see the small reservoir below.

Left the campground and drove down to Cortez, a nice little town, then on to Mancos, CO, and north from there to the Transfer Campground.  This campground is on a high plateau, elevation 8925, in a grove of quacking aspens.  Lovely.  When we first got here a thunderstorm let loose.  It was very cozy sitting out the storm in the van.  We ate lunch from odds and ends in the cooler.  The thunder was long, rolling thunder, but not too loud and percussive.  Since it is not raining now (we still hear relatively nearby thunder) we are going to install black adhesive sealant to our side door weather stripping (it keeps falling down).  Turns out it was a bad tube of sealant, wouldn’t come out of the tube, so we didn’t get to do the project yet.  

Rain stopped before nightfall.  We walked a very short ways from our campsite to join the “Rim” Trail.  There was a great overlook at the trail head–straight down to a river gorge below–it was an amazing narrow canyon with Mt. Hesperus (the North Mountain according to the Dine ) in the background.  We could hear but not see the West Mancos River at the bottom of the gorge.

Monday, August 1, 2022

Woke up to overcast sky at Transfer Campground.  Dave saw three young bucks and a doe nibbling in our campsite.    He also heard coyotes yelping in the box canyon.  It was either a lot of coyotes, or the canyon was echoing back their calls to them.  

The high altitude here has me huffing and puffing when I move around, but the aspen grove we are in is a delightful change from the pine forest, and my allergy symptoms seem better.  The drawback to this campground is that it is sandwiched between two roads and there are trails nearby specifically for ATVs and dirt bikes, so there’s a noise factor during the day that is a bit annoying.  We will sleep here again tonight.  Then tomorrow we will head back to Cortez to do a few housekeeping chores.

Tuesday, August 2, 2022

We decided to stay at this campground one more day.  This morning we watched two eagles dive bombing each other.  I guess one was in the other’s territory.  Dave is using the solar panels to recharge the Goal Zero.  When the clouds part and we get full sun, we have good solar energy gain, but when the clouds slide shut again, the input drops to zero.  Luckily the clouds keep moving pretty fast, so it goes from shadows to sun over and over again.

I am having trouble sleeping at this high altitude (gulping for breath), so tonight I will dig out my CPAP machine and use it to see if it helps my night time breathing.  

We are trying to be inventive with our canned food supply.  We had Bush’s baked beans and canned tamales one night (while it was raining), then ate the left over beans as part of an egg and sausage breakfast.  Yesterday I combined Hot and Sour Soup mix with packages of ramen and an egg.  That was filling and tasty.  Tonight I will make cheese polenta and top it with canned chicken fried with bell pepper and onion and mixed with alfredo sauce.  It’s hard to keep any fresh veggies happening because the fridge is tiny and also because it runs a little colder than we want and tends to damage the vegetables.  I’m planning to keep fresh spinach around to put in our morning scrambled eggs, plus buy packaged lunch salads to eat on travel days instead of other fast food like fries and burgers.  

So far I love South-western Colorado.  There are incredible cloud formations happening ALL THE TIME (maybe because it’s now monsoon season here??)  The land in this area, before you climb into higher altitude places, is rolling high plains interspersed with pine and aspen thickets.  Lots of big farming-type meadows.  I imagine it is stunning here with snow cover.  Mesa Verde National Park is about 30 miles away.