Back in Colorado

After a lot of talking back and forth between visiting Dee in Illinois or Lisa in Green River, UT, we chose Utah for economic reasons. Not only was it less miles to drive but it’s still within close proximity to the gas fields in Wyoming and Colorado, and we wanted to be in a good position when they finally kick back off. Plus we spent April last year in Utah and absolutely fell in love with the Canyonlands so not only would we get to explore the areas we missed, but this time I get to see Lisa, too. Win, win.

So as we’re at the gas station, literally filling up to head east to Colorado, Joey got a call asking him to come to Colorado to help out with a couple drilling station moves, lasting probably a couple of weeks. yee haw…can’t ask for much better than that. A slow, easy start back to work after a whole year off with a broken arm and leg, plus no set schedule.

We pulled over at The Truck Stop and consulted with the cows

 

Of course we were going to go, we just couldn’t believe we got the call….right when we really needed it. We just had to pull over to convince ourselves it was real. But…are we really going to go back to the mountain that almost killed him?? Yep!

We took the same route down from Rawlins as we did last week, but this time we stopped and had a roadside lunch, this time stopping at Fortification Rocks instead of just cruising by.

I couldn’t believe it when I saw a FOR SALE SIGN! This gorgeous chunk of land with it’s volcanic uplift of rocks on it, that were used by several Indian tribes for fortification before battle…is for sale to the public! You’ll have to fight the rattlesnakes for it, but it could be yours.

We’ve stayed in three different RV Parks on the Western Slope of the Rockies in Colorado, so we decided to try out a fourth one. We cruised through it a couple years ago and I swore I would never stay here, but seeing as they’re the only one with a spot available we really had no choice. Luckily for us, it was under new management and had been much improved. We got an end spot, at the very back of the park, just yards from the Colorado River.

We were just in time to watch the leaves change, and our site happened to be the only one that had flowers still in bloom. The flowers were on a weed, but a flowers a flower to me. I took it as a sign we were meant to be there. Then this amazing rainbow appeared. Colorado was welcoming us back! :)

Another good sign was the on site chicken coop. The coop is nestled in the trees at the end of the rainbow, and houses eight chickens, three ducks and a huge white turkey. They belonged to another family but Jonas and Jewel visited them almost daily and Jewel caught this funny picture of the turkey!

While we were still playing in Nebraska Joey expressed his concern about staying in the bus. He was tired of the cramped corners, of dealing with water pipe issues, having to dump the sewer, lack of privacy, and so on, so we agreed when he went back to work we would get a house to rent. But by the time we got to Colorado and we were happy enough with our RV park, instead of moving out we redesigned our bedroom in order to get more space and stretching room. When we first moved in it was a small full size half way walk around bed. We then made the entire space a platform and put a queen size bed on it, where we had to crawl in and out of it. The crawling got real old so now we turned the bed 180 degrees so our feet are pointing out the back door instead, and cut out the platform. Now we have lots of walking space, even room for Joey to do sit ups and push ups, and easy access to all the cupboards. We also moved the TV to under the rear cabinets, so now I can watch TV and watch the river flow by at the same time! What a difference a little shifting can make, and I’m thinking now maybe we can stay in the bus all winter.

Then two weeks later I get a call from Joey, “I found this great house……………..!”