Today was the quite the adventure on our road trip, following the route in Going with the flow. This was probably the longest leg of our trip at 3 hours, 45 minutes. At least, it should have been 3 hours, 45 minutes. With the stops and delays, it took almost 6 hours.
We stopped briefly at a parking rest area – basically a pulloff area with no services.
So far, so good. But as we got further down the road, we looked at the weather radar, which showed a fast moving storm about to hit.
We were 2 miles from a rest area, so we pulled into the rest area just ahead of the storm and waited. Sure enough, we got settled just in time. Heavy rain, hail, and wind buffeted the RV.
The storm lasted about 30 minutes. As we started up the RV again, we noticed police cars streaming by. At the end of the road ramp out of the rest area, a cop directed us over to the far left lane. About a 1/2 mile down the road, heading north on I-25, a car had flipped over and come to rest on its passenger side. Lots of debris on the road.
Continuing on the down the road, it was quite windy, especially as we entered Colorado from New Mexico. We were just past Walsenberg when we heard a noise we couldn’t identify. It sounded like the awning fabric, but our slides were in. Bob looked at the driver’s side mirror and realized that one of our window awnings was no longer there.
We took the next exit and pulled over to the shoulder safely. Bob got out our ladder and determined that we did not lose the most important part: the awning assembly.
From the quick look, we determined that we must have lost one or more screws. And as you can tell from Bob’s hair, it was pretty windy while he was doing this.
That problem fixed (we removed the awning assembly and taped down the awning arms), we headed to our final destination for the day, the RV campground. Getting to this campground presented an obstacle we’ve never encountered before: a one lane underpass.
If you look very closely, you’ll see that the height of this underpass is 13 feet, 3 inches. Our RV height is 12 feet, 10 inches. We had to enter this underpass straight on. Unfortunately, there was no indication until we got to the end of the exit ramp. By then, it was too late. We ended up having to pull over (safely), unhook the Jeep Wrangler, and figure it out. First, I went through the tunnel with the Jeep and pulled over to the side of the road, so I could see traffic from both directions. We have walkie talkies, and were within range, so I gave Bob the all clear when it was okay to come through. Phew!
Finally, we get to the campground, and it’s a deluxe patio site. Spacious, even without the patio, and nice space overall.
Time to rest for tomorrow’s leg of the trip: Pueblo, CO to Golden, CO. And hopefully, less adventure getting there!
