Going up to Cripple Creek

Lake Pueblo State Park, Colorado

  

After seeing the works of M. T. Liggett in Kansas, we drive west all day and spend a night in Lamar, Colorado. We finally find some propane there. Lamar has the world's oldest building. It's a gas station constructed of 175 million year old petrified wood.

The next day we drive west again on US 50 to the Lake Pueblo State Park just outside Pueblo, Colorado. West Pueblo has seven cannabis shops, which Mrs. Phred directs me to bypass.

 In the morning I take a seven mile stroll along a paved park trail starting at 5:40 AM Mountain time. I see a mule deer, some rabbits and lots of desert wildflowers. It's harder than walking in Sarasota because of the constant elevation changes and high altitude.

 

The park has a marina, a big dam, a swimming area and a very fast-flowing river exiting the dam.

 The Arkansas river flows though Lake Pueblo and traverses the states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas before dumping into the Mississippi 1497 miles from its headwaters in the Rocky Mountains.

 We decide to drive up to Cripple Creek, which was once a big gold mining area.

 Up on Cripple Creek she sends me
If I spring a leak she mends me
I don't have to speak, she defends me
A drunkard's dream if I ever did see one

-The Band

  

The route we take includes 27 miles of unpaved, one-lane road that drops off into steep canyons. The sign says four wheel drive and high clearance vehicles recommended. We decide that the people who make these signs are afraid of lawsuits from idiots.... It's an exciting drive and we are fortunate not to meet any traffic from the other direction or lose focus and drive into the abyss.

Cripple Creek is up about 10,000 feet. It's full of old casinos. We manage to find one with a grill and have lunch. Cripple Creek and the surrounding area was once a boom gold mining area.

Taos or Bust

 Mountain Home, Arkansas

We're camped in an Army Corps of Engineers campground on Lake Norfork in northern Arkansas.

I can hardly believe we've spent eight nights here. We'll wait one more than to let tropical storm "Bill" amble out of our way.  It's dumped a pile of rain here and a lot more on our path west though Oklahoma.

We go down to Conway with Paul and Diane and help Jason and Caroline a little with the remodeling projects. They've found some amazing stuff on Craig's List including a deeply discounted $8,000 bathtub that looks like a futuristic giant egg, a stove, a refrigerator and an entire unused gym basketball court floor.

One day Mrs. Phred and I drive up to see the little known Bull Shoals Cavern. It has been inhabited by Indians, Confederate soldiers, moonshiners and trout farmers...the trout farming thing flopped because nobody wanted to eat eyeless, albino rainbow trout.

Paul, Dianne and Chris running hard oak pieces though a planing machine.

You can see the seam where the basketball court floor is joined together...it's a really nice floor, new since we were here last June...

The kitchen we were working on last year is mostly done except for a couple of minor trim items.

Jason at work.

The Bull Shoals cavern has every type of limestone formation found in any cave in America including the rare "boxwork" formation which is only found in one other cave in the U.S. (the Wind Cave in South Dakota)...we've been there too...I forgot to get a picture but here's a hyperlink

More cave pix....

Mr. Phred making blueberry pies....

On the Road to Nowhere

Holly Point State Park, North Carolina

Not really nowhere....Taos, New Mexico, Seattle and Anchorage  are waypoints....but..It's great to spend a week camping with the grandchildren. Here are number six and number seven sitting outside our RV.

Number four and five like to start fires and cook marsh mellows.

We spend a lot of time playing Uno and Mexican Train dominoes...

The week sees a lot of days swimming with the four youngest grandchildren. Number six makes us a nice note.

We hit Target the first day and load up on water toys: beach balls, water guns, splash toys of all kinds. Here are number six and seven....

Some nights number four and five spend with us.  One night all four of the youngest sleep over...

 We have epic battles....

Alliances shift by the minute...

 Number five and seven....on the beach

They grow up so fast...

Great Smoky Mountain National Park

Pigeon Forge, Tennessee

We pick an RV park on the Pigeon River about four miles off I-40 on State Highway 66....It's another 17 miles south to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

View from our campground.

Pigeon Forge is on the way to the National Park on 66...A lot of tourist trap stuff for the kids....

We drive a loop in the National Park and do some whitewater rafting before resuming the quest on the road west....

A strange and twisted place....

Pigeon River Whitewater Rafting

Hartford, Tennessee

 They advertise this raft trip as class III and IV rapids. It's about an hour and a half. I haven't smelled so much raw armpit BO in years, but the raft trip was lovely and exciting anyway.

100 feet after we put in, we hit a rock sideways and the girl next to me went into the river. It's a strange crew of five young overweight young women, Mrs. Phred, myself and an overweight female guide.

Our guide does a terrible job of giving rowing directions. We spend most of the trip floating backwards and sideways, getting stuck on rocks and losing people overboard.

 About 15 minutes downriver we hit a class IV rapid sideways and four of our seven rafters end up in the river. I extend a paddle to Mrs. Phred and pull her back on board. She loses one of her new tennis shoes.

 It's a wonderful hour and a half...very beautiful and full of excitement.

It takes an hour to drive back to the RV over remote rustic roads. We stop at a graveyard to eat the lunch I packed and listen to The Platters, Dave Bruebeck, Lightning Hopkins, Blind Mellon and the Doors....life is good...