Leslie and David's Wanderings: 11 May 2019 Mosca to Estes Park, CO

Well, we finished up Friday evening with 34 gallons of fresh water left after 4 days and four nights. So we used roughly 17 gallons a day. Not bad when the average US usage is over 200 gallons a day! (baths, showers, hot water, thirsty?) So with that much left, David allowed us to take really nice showers so we would not have to dump extra fresh water on the ground in the morning (Cottonell wipies are our new best friend!). The weather was sunny and generally cool. We had two 6% climbs on the way north, and with the weather being cool, the truck did just fine. The drive was going to be around 7.5 hours. We took the same road back to I-25 north, went through Pueblo and Colorado Springs on the way to Denver. We ran into a little traffic here and there, it was really disconcerting the number of people who cut very close in front of us, causing us to break hard at least twice. They just don’t seem to think about 36,000Lbs takes longer to stop than their little 2,000lb mini cars! On advice of our friends Bill and Anne, we decided to take the E-470 loop around Denver to avoid the Denver traffic. Then I-25 again until US34 at Loveland.

The really stressful part of the drive was after we got off the freeway at Loveland. David had planned to fill up in Loveland before we headed up to Estes Park. We were at a little below ¼ tank when we exited I-25. We planned on there being a truck stop station at the freeway exit but were surprised to not find one. So we head through Loveland expecting to find a diesel station that we could get into with a 43 foot trailer. But we found ourselves on the outskirts of Loveland without finding a gas station with Diesel that we could fit into. They all had very little room for maneuvering. We considered pulling into a parking lot and dropping off the Wanderer and going to a gas station.

But the truck said we had 85 miles of range left and it was only 28 miles to Estes park. So we decided to chance it. What we did not take into account was it was uphill most of the way to Estes Park and the fuel mileage dropped rapidly. As we headed up, the road went into a beautiful narrow winding gorge. But as we climbed, the remaining miles to empty was going down faster than the remaining mileage to our destination was. First the truck warned us we had less than 50 miles to empty with 18 miles to go, then it warned us we only had 25 miles before we hit empty with 10 miles still to go. Our teeth were grinding. The thought of running out of gas on that little two-lane road in that gorge was heavy on our minds. So as we pulled into Estes Park we headed for the first diesel station we came too.

Unfortunately, the entrance was not made for long vehicle combinations and David ran the Wanderer up the curb to get in. What we did not know at the time was that we had knocked the foot off the right rear stabilizer dropping off that curb. Then we found all the diesel pumps (they are always on the end pumps) had people filling up with Gas. There was very little room to maneuver, and we could not get close enough to a pump to get fuel. The station attendant came out and suggested an approach and after much backing and maneuvering we were finally able to get fuel. David pumped in 39 gallons (tank holds 48) before the pump maxed out at $125 and halted (we had not hit full). Whew! We then proceed to Elk Meadows RV Park ($72 per night with GSC), which is just outside the east entrance to Smoky Mountains National Park.

As we were setting up the Wanderer, Leslie noticed we were missing the right rear foot of the Big Foot stabilizer system (David can you come help me? I can’t find that pad thing.). David immediately knew what had happened. After setting up the Wanderer (with out using the right rear stabilizer), David drove back to the gas station and found the foot sitting on the curb we had run over. So he picked it up and also found the nut that held it on. On inspection, we did not find any other damage to the Wanderer. After this day, we just poured ourselves a couple whiskies on the rocks and plopped down in our recliners! We decided we were not in a mood to cook so we drove down 34 to Smokin Dave’s BBQ and Tap Room for dinner. We were glad we did! The food was great, the beer was great and we finally stopped vibrating from the drive!

Critter sighting: As we pulled into the RV park, we found a herd, as in many, Elk wandering through the RV park! Males have white butts!