James M. Robb Colorado River State Park Fruita Section - Colorado (June 2018)

We have camped in many state parks over the years. Our early visits were using tents. Now we camp in Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer.

We have come to expect certain standards from state parks. For example, state parks tend to have a natural feature that shows off one of the state's wonders. Many of these parks are best described as “rugged” and have only water and electrical connections.

Sign  at the campground

There are exceptions and this park is one. 

The natural feature in this park was the river that flowed through it. Contrary to many state parks, this park wasn’t rugged and had paved roads and our site had full hookups.

Rosie in the campground

Another anomaly with this park was its location. Most state parks seem to be located in the country. This park was just off the Interstate. Directions to the park include “turn at the Dairy Queen.” As expected, you heard road noises and passing trains while camping here. 

There was a long hiking/biking trail along the river. Both campers and local people seemed to enjoy this path.

The river

Trail  along the river

The river

Colorado State Parks do a couple of things that annoyed us. For example, you have to pay for a daily pass after paying a premium for your campsite. Another “nickel-and-dime” deal was the shower. For four quarters, you received four minutes of water. The sign in the shower said they charged to encourage water conservation. If water conservation was an issue, they should try turning the water sprinklers off. They appeared to cycle on and off all day. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site was a pull-thru. Some sites in this park were back-ins
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had water and sewer connections. Not all sites had sewer connections 
• The park had a clean and well maintained bathroom and showers. Bring four quarters if you want a four minute shower 
• The park did not provide WiFi service 
• AT&T provided three bars of 4G service over our site. This signal worked well for voice and so-so for data
•  Rosie's TV antenna picked up ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC. We also saw digital channels Antenna, Escape, Grit, ME-TV and THiS. 

This was a very pleasant park to camp in for a few days. 

Colorado National Monument

The Colorado National Monument

The Colorado National Monument

The Colorado National Monument

Sunset over the campground

Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch- Gunnison, Colorado (May 2018)

This is the first time we camped in a place that billed itself as a ranch. Our mental vision of the Cartwright boys on the Ponderosa Ranch was very different from what we encountered at this RV ranch. For example, I don’t remember seeing Hoss or Little Joe Cartwright having to contend with blowing dust. But, the reality at the RV ranch was that dust was a way of life.

Blue Mesa Recreational Ranch

First, this is a membership type park. You are supposed to buy something similar to a timeshare to camp in this park. Unsold and unused sites are rented out on a day-by-day basis.

Sign at the entrance to the campground

As with most campgrounds, there are positives and negatives about this park. I’ll start by pointing out some of the positives I noticed. 

• The park had a nice swimming pool
• The park had a hot tub
• The park had a good clubhouse 
• The park's chef cooked huge cinnamon rolls ($1.50) and biscuts with sausage gravy ($2.50) one morning while we were there

Some of the “not so positive” things I noticed:

• Our site was mostly dirt with a few stones thrown in
• Some people in our caravan were unable to level their trailers and had to be reassigned to a different site
• Utility connections were a distance from the trailers. We ended up with a 20+ foot run to the sewer connection. Several Airstreamers in our group ended up having to use the dump station because they could not reach the sewer connection 
• Our water connection was in a deep trench. To make things worse, the trench was on a hill. This made working with the water both scary and dangerous 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site had 20 and 30 amp electrical service. According to AllStays, the park does not have 50 amp service 
• Our site was one of the few in our caravan group that approached level
• We had no service from AT&T at our site
• You could purchase WiFi service from the park. Several of our friends said the purchased WiFi was terrible. 
• Our site had a cable TV connection that brought in ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC from Denver
• The park had clean and up-to-date restrooms and showers. An annoyance was that the showers operated by pushing a button that would give you about 30 seconds of water at a temperature set by the park. 
• The park had a nice laundry facility 

The big draw for the timeshare was the watershed lake created by the dam about a mile down the road. Many of the people camping here brought their boats and spent their days on the lake.

The park a few miles from the campground

Our group at Black Canyon National Park

Garden of the Gods RV Resort- Colorado Springs, Colorado (May 2018)

The ride between Estes Park and Colorado Springs was eventful. Our caravan took the backroads so that we could enjoy the scenery and avoid Colorado's Memorial Day traffic. What should have been a two hour trip turned into a six hour drive because the holiday traffic was heavy and there were too many easy-to-miss turns. On a more positive note, we learned that we can pull Rosie, out 25 foot Airstream trailer, through the Rocky Mountains and turn around when we need to.

Looking at the side mirrors while on the way to Colorado Springs

Our first impression of Colorado Springs was tainted by a major road construction project that engulfed the park's entrance. We had to squeeze Rosie between concrete barriers and clouds of dust to navigate into the park.

Arriving at the campground

We were escorted to our site by someone from the park. Our site was short. Very short. Too short. Rosie barely fit in it and we had to park our truck across the street. We weren’t alone as all of the campers on our row also barely fit into their sites. 

Rosie parked in the Garden of the Gods RV Resort

The campground staff was impatient and kept trying to hurry us as we unhitched since we were partiality blocking the road. I’m not sure why we were being hurried because everyone on our row was also blocking the road while disconnecting.

We arrived on a holiday weekend and the park was full with families kicking off their camping season after a long winter. Needless to say, there were many excited children in the park and that made it very festive. 

The view outside our panaramic window was of a retaining wall about a foot behind Rosie. Instead of looking at concrete, we simply kept the curtains closed on that window.

There are some amazing natural sights to see around this park. Weather and time have worked together to sculpt some breathtaking rock formations. 

Garden of the Gods

Helping with the Balanced Rock

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had both water and sewer connections 
• Our site was gravel and not level
• The park provided WiFi, but it was terrible. It was annoyingly slow and required you to constantly keep logging back in with their passcode. 
• We had no AT&T phone or data service from our site
• The park provided a cable TV connection. We only saw one station using their cable. 
• We raised Rosie’s TV antenna and saw ABC, CBS, FOX, PBS and NBC. We also saw digital channels Antenna, Escape, Grit, ME-TV and THiS
• The park had two swimming pools 
• The park had a nice laundry room. 

One of the drawbacks to this park was the sketchy looking people outside the park who would occasionally drift through the campsites. We felt we needed to be very diligent in making sure nothing was left outside and that everything was constantly locked away. Our instincts may have been on-track since a bicycle was stolen from one member of our caravan.

Enjoying a Native American dance at the Garden of the Gods

Riding on the Royal Gorge Route Railroad

Elk Meadow Lodge and RV Resort - Estes Park, Colorado (May 2018)

Before starting our Airstream Springtime in the Rockies Caravan adventure, we knew we needed some time to get used to the altitude in the mountains. After all, going from an elevation of 221 feet to nearly 8,000 can cause physical problems for some people. We arrived at the caravan's rendezvous location five days early to make sure we were ready to participate once the other 25 Airstream trailers and motor homes arrived.

Elk Meadow Lodge and RV Resort

Better make that before 24 Airstreams arrived because one from our group was already set up in the park when we backed in to our site. We were not the only people thinking we needed some time to adjust to the altitude!

Rosie in the campground

We were not surprised when other members of our group started arriving early. Nearly half of the rigs in our caravan were in the park three days before our official start date. This gave us an opportunity to meet some of our fellow campers who would be with us on this adventure.

Other Airstream trailers arrive

The views outside Rosie’s windows were breathtaking. (Rosie is our 25 foot Airstream trailer.) We were staring at the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Google Maps helped us figure out that Long's Peak was framed in Rosie’s panoramic window. This is the tallest peak in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Long's Peak

The temperatures dipped below freezing several times during our visit to this campground. Rosie’s heaters were up to the task and kept us warm during these times. 

Watching out for elk grazing on the vegetation became one of our favorite pastimes in Estes Park.

Elk in the campground

It was amazing how this campground changed as Memorial Day Weekend approached. It was about one-third full on Friday morning. The park approached capacity by that afternoon. This placed a strain on the campground's facilities. Of course, the staff didn’t help the situation by locking the bathhouse and restroom that served our area from 8 p.m. until 8 a.m. every day. To make matters worse, the staff usually unlocked the bathhouse then immediately closed it for another 30-45 minutes for cleaning. We were puzzled by this policy as to how it served their paying customers. 

Of course, the real star of this area was Rocky Mountain National Park. One of the roads leading into the park ran parallel to one side of the campground. That meant we were close to some of the hiking trails and sights of this incredible national park.

Rocky Mountain National Park

There were water issues while we were in this campground. Water was suddenly turned off for an hour at a time to repair the water connection at one site and the water to the entire campground was turned off for about three hours when a water main broke. We felt sorry for anyone who may have been caught in the showers when the water was turned off. 

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• This is a large campground with approximately 200 sites
• Our site had 20, 30 and 50 amp electrical service 
• Our site had water and sewer connections 
• Our site had a basic TV cable connection that delivered 36 channels 
• We were unable to pick up over-the-air TV stations
• The park provided a decent WiFi signal over the park 
• AT&T placed two bars of 4G voice and data service over our campsite 
• The park had a good laundry room
• The park had clean and well maintained restrooms and showers. We discussed earlier in this posting the park's practice of closing the restroom serving more than a third of the park after dark and until 8 a.m. This didn’t make sense to us. 

We enjoyed watching the critters in the campground. It was full of what we think were uinta ground squirrels. They were interesting to watch as they scurried around the many campsites. 

It was fun to watch the elk that roamed the campground in the evenings. We got the feeling that the elk actually owned the place and we were in their backyard. 

We were surprised at how fast the weather changed while we were camping in Estes Park. It would be cold in the mornings and warm in the afternoons. Thunderstorms were common in the afternoons. In fact, we had a hail storm on Tuesday. Moments later, the ground squirrels and the elk were grazing by the empty campsites.

Snow in the Rockes

Heavy Duty Snow Plow

Church near the campground

Rainbow over Rosie

Limon KOA Campground- Limon, Colorado (May 2018)

We needed a rest.  After four long days of dragging Rosie, our 25 foot Airstream trailer, across America, we needed a day off to do laundry, wash Suzy, our Yorkie, and to clean both our truck and trailer.

There was another reason for wanting to take a day off. We started this trip at 221 feet above sea level and were climbing in altitude ever since we left the Deep South. Limon was a little more than 5,300 feet and our next stop would top out at about 8,000 feet. We needed an extra day to adjust to the altitude.

Altitude reading from our iPhone

After looking at Rosie and our truck, I decided that there could not be a bug left alive on I-70. They were all smashed on the front of our vehicles. A bucket of clean water, some microfiber cloths and  “elbow grease” removed the bug graveyards.

Campground sign

We were told when we made our two day reservation that there isn’t anything to do in Limon. That may have been an understatement because we discovered there is NOTHING to do in Limon. We didn’t even unhitch Rosie from our truck because there was nowhere we wanted to go. Nothing, nada, zilch.

If you want a day off from driving to rest, having nothing to do is music to your ears. 

OK, there were a couple of things to do in the park. It was fun watching the many rabbits hop around the park. This was also a golden opportunity to catch up on the laundry. Then you could watch the rabbits. Did I mention that rabbit watching was about the most exciting thing to do here?

A rabbit

Another rabbit

More rabbits

We noticed in the morning that the park quickly cleared out. I guess it isn’t common for people to stay more than one night in this park. In other words, this is an overnight stay park and not a destination. The park started to fill up again the second afternoon.

Rosie in the campground

Here are some specifics about this campground:

• Our site had a 30 and 20 amp electrical connection. You can pay extra for 50 amp service 
• Our site had a water connection. We were warned to use a pressure regulator because of the high water pressure 
• Our site had a sewer connection. The park designer knew enough about physics to place the sewer connection lower to the ground than the sewer connection on most RVs 
• The park had one dump station 
• The park had a clean and well maintained bathhouse 
• The park had a laundry 
• The park provided WiFi service. The connection's speed was decent enough to actually use your wireless devices
• AT&T provided between one and two bars of 4G voice and data service over our site. This wasn’t reliable enough to depend on for anything 
• The park offered 24 channels of cable TV. The stations were the usual ones you would find on a basic tier of cable service 
• We were able to find eight stations using Rosie's TV antenna. The wind was strong enough that we lowered the antenna and simply watched the cable stations 
• This was a pet friendly park 

There was a big wind storm during our second day in this park. The weather apps on our iPhones said that we saw sustained winds of 25 mph with gusts to 30. We were safe and comfortable inside Rosie.

Rosie in the campground

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