Dash AC fixed

We got the RV back from the shop. For $1471 we got the dash AC system pretty much replaced (new compressor, receive dryer, expansion valve, cooling fan clutch, flush and replace our old style coolant with the new stuff), the cruise control fixed (broken vac line) and the ground wire on the blower motor secured as it was loose. Seemed a little bit cheaper than what I saw on the web as far as what others paid. When I was as the shop I saw a much newer RV getting worked on so I guess were lucky ours lasted as long as it did.

If you are in CO these are the folks who did it. They were friendly and easy to work with. We got a recommendation for them from our regular car mechanic who has treated us right also.
http://www.maxaircolorado.com/locations.html

We had a garage try to fix the cruise control before and they said it couldn't be done. These guys fixed it for $40 labor as part of the whole AC package. So that was a big win for us.

The evening at Broken Arrow

We spent our evening enjoying the fish jumping and admiring the various birds.

We saw many fish jump and actually caught one on camera.

I think these are pelicans. We saw one flying low over the water also.

Before driving to Broken Arrow we had to decide whether to drive back from Sandy Beach to Two Moon to dump. Our 50 gallon fresh water tank and associated black and gray tanks can get us through three nights, but the last one is tight on black or gray water space. We decided not to make the 20 mile round trip because the road wasn't great and we had another 3.5 or so to Broken Arrow over unknown rough road. I was worried that if we went back to dump we might not want to repeat the drive to come back to Broken Arrow. The result was, we for the first time, filled up our shower tank and it flowed into the base. We have two grey tanks, the other one being the bathroom vanity, so the dust pan and trash can were utilized to scoop out the excess water and dump it down the vanity sink. We covered the shower drain with plastic cling wrap, a towel and put the bin of water bottles on top of it. As a result there was no splash out when we drove out the next day.

The black tank, which in our RV is for the kitchen and toilet, was dangerously close to full. We had filled it before and wanted to avoid doing it again. So we stopped using the kitchen sink, and switched to the bathroom vanity for all hand washing or dish washing. We also made use of the vault toilets at the campground. In the end we didn't fill it and were glad that we took the precautions early.

We didn't run out of fresh water but the sensor showed we were empty so we were probably pretty close. However, I was relieved to get to the dump, empty the tanks and get a refill on our fresh water.

Thus ended our second trip of the season where we had several adverse occurrences which turned into fortuitous events.

Broken Arrow Campground

Wyoming, being the wild west that it is, has state parks with campgrounds just here and there. It is much like camping at dispersed sites in the national forest. You just drive along, see a fire ring or picnic table with a place to park and stop. But we were headed to an official campground called Broken Arrow so we passed by many potential places. When we got there the very widely spaces sites were unoccupied. As we drove it we saw one last car leaving. We had the place to ourselves. We picked a great, level site on the beach.

Our perfect campsite.

A view to the left.

A view to the right.

The view out to the water.

Our RV through the trees.

Many of the trees were out in the water.

We really wanted a view out across the reservoir and we got it.

Our picnic table.

This looks interesting says Blossom.

 

Blossom exploring in the trees.

Our private beach at our private campground on a private peninsula.

I'm a real stickler for having my dogs on leash. Blossom the light colored larger dog has excellent recall.

With no one else in the campground and it being on a peninsula we let the dog off leash.

She is a trained agility dog and when she is off leash she is working. When I swatted a bug and said 'a bug' she looked at me to see if I was giving her a command and if there was something she was supposed to be doing. Being off leash made her very uncomfortable at first because she pays strict attention to me and pretty much stays at my side. I called her off a mouse and squirrel she wanted to chase with no problem. But I wasn't comfortable with her recall if she should see a deer so we kept a sharp eye out toward the grassy field at the entrance to the campground. Eventually she loosened up and played with her ball, our other dog and went swimming to chase the tennis ball. Then disaster happened. The two dogs were chasing each other and she took off out of the trees toward the grassy field and the entrance to the campground. I shouted at her and called her back as I could only see the top of her head receding in the distance and barely see they boy at all because of the high grass. She stopped on a dime turned around, looked at me, and then bolted in my direction. I cheered and complimented her as she raced my way with our boy dog running behind. She ran straight passed me to the metal wire pen, got inside and did an executive sit. Phew, all that recall work paid off. We complimented her up a storm and she soaked it all up because she knew she did well. The boy who was chasing just stood outside the pen wondering what all the fuss was.

What do we do with all this freedom???

Letting the boy off leash was a questionable decision. He has what we can only think of as post traumatic stress syndrome from a bad hoarding situation and sometimes seems to not recognize or trust us. So when we let him off leash I told him, this was his chance. If he wanted to get away from us now was the opportunity. He sort of wandered away and when he got to a set distance I called him back and he came. We did this a number of times but he was quite determined to visit the fish skeleton on one shore and when I called him back from there he came! The girl came also as she loves her compliments. I don't trust that he has any type of reliable recall but was pleased he didn't run away and hide as he as done in the past when he got loose. He also seemed a little surprised to be off leash and wasn't sure how to handle it but eventually loosened up.

Blossom loves to swim.

And she loves her tennis ball.

Sunshine plays with a stick while Blossom brings back the ball.

She is eager to go out again.

She is a strong swimmer.

There were many stumps to investigate.

Blossom is one wet dog!

Sunshine is feeling playful.

Trying to decide whether to hide the ball under a stump or give it to us to throw again.

Glamor photo, returning her ball.

Sunshine is a dirt digger dog.

He likes to explore the stumps looking for vermin.

Stuck in the sand

On Sun. everyone cleared out and many sites were available. We selected an unoccupied one with a gorgeous view across the reservoir. We registered for it and moved our RV. Except we got stuck in the sand. Luckily a guy nearby offered a shovel so my husband shoveled out the rear wheels where we put boards down and back out onto the road.I didn't get a picture of us stuck there but this is what the sand looked like after we backed out. When your contemplating how to get 14,000 lbs out of deep soft sand the last thing you think of is taking a picture of your predicament.

In the background you can see the site we were planning to get to.

This would have been the view from the new site.

We returned to the booth to release this site. The guard pulled the card and showed us the sticker that said 4 wheel drive only for this site. That is the sort of information you would like before you attempt to enter the site. But much like the AC going out and delaying our trip so we were forced to go to this camp ground, this turned out to be a fortuitous event. In fact we said, maybe this is a good thing as we will now go and look at some of the less developed campgrounds. So off we drove to Broken Arrow after checking with the state park employee and being reassured that it was OK for us to take our RV.

Sandy Beach Campground

How did I live this long and not know about this campground? It is a wonderful spot but I don't think RVs often make the road trip. There were some like ours there in the sub 30ft range and of the older vintage but not alot. Surprisingly at one site in another much more undeveloped campground called Cottonwood there was a huge newer 40fter parked in the grass that we questioned taking our older high clearance one in, so those folks were adventurous. They also had a big boat and a huge truck so my guess is they could use the truck to help them out if they got stuck.

We loved walking along the sand beach. The reservoir was flooded by using a dam in an area with sand dunes which is why the beach is so sandy.

The campground is true to its name, many sites back to the beach.

Strolling on the beach.

Sunshine enjoys exploring.

Could it get any prettier?

Sometimes the waves kicked up.

We go to check out a beach.

One of the beautiful sand beaches - completely empty.

Blossom goes for a swim.

We hated walking in the campground. We are spoiled by all the well behaved unleashed dogs in the national forest and the enforcement of leashing at national forest campgrounds. In this campground we had between 15 and 20 dogs, maybe more, come charging out of their site at us. One was a 100+ lb pit bull. We had everything from a snarling schnauzer, terriers, retriever puppy (the least scary because he was super cute), several cattle dogs, a bully bread of some sort and many more get caught by us before their owners came to get them. We put trash bags between them and us, had one of us run interference and tried to reroute to avoid them but there were so many there was no getting away from them. My little dog was so fearful he didn't want to go out at all. We intercepted them all except the pit bull who actually got to my dog. She got in a tussle with him, causing my heart to stop before he backed out of the fight. He then turned toward my smaller dog before his owner appeared around the camper to get him back. I think he was expecting a friendlier reaction but neither of my dogs appreciates a dog charging right at them. Thankfully he was a friendly pit but it could have been disastrous if he wasn't. The owner even inquired if he had started it and I said no my dog doesn't react well to being charged at and he backed out of the tussle first. The owner then apologized for the charge which was more than most people did. However to give them credit several other people also apologized for their dogs charging out. The snarling growling Schnauzer lady said her dog was friendly as the dog stood there bristling and growling. I had to ask her to hold on to him as she was just going to let us take our chances. One cattle dog came from two sites down and stood at our site barking at us and our dogs for 5 minutes while I tried to chase him back. Eventually a kid from his site yelled for him to get back and he went but still, really? The campground says leashes are required but clearly there wasn't an ounce of enforcement.

The other downside of this campground is that some sites seemed to be occupied by huge number of people. I didn't count the people but I would say it was between 15-40 people, mostly kids at some single sites. We were lucky in that our area only had regular camping groups and families. Where there seemed to be multiple family groups that knew each other they all had their own sites so it wasn't abnormal. And the sites were generally nicely spaced with trees so you didn't feel crowded. Here are pictures of our second site that we moved to Sat. morning.

Our beach front site

We selected the site next to this one at first  because it was unoccupied but when we went to register for it we were told it was occupied. Except it wasn't. The entire time were were there it wasn't occupied. There were other sites like this through out the campground. As we explored I think I figured out why. When people showed up they registered for a site but then went off to the less developed campgrounds and found sites they preferred but never returned to release their site. As a result many prime sites at Sandy Beach were not occupied. I think the only way to solve this is to computerize the registration where they can check the license plate when they patrol the less developed campgrounds to see if they have registered for a site at the more developed ones and then free up the site when they find duplicates.

For this site we had hard packed sand and only had to level one wheel. I don't think you could use levelers you need the old style wood boards like we have because of the sand. The site next door that we originally selected was completely flat and required no leveling. The one next to that had a mini-Winnie in it but the sand was deep and loose. However those folks went in and out a number of times and did not get stuck.

We had plenty of room around us.

My crew resting in the dog pen.

Loved all the trees for shade.

We had our own private sandy beach (once some branches were cleared off of it) for water recreation and dog swimming.

Finally we get to use the float toy we carry around with us.

Lots of people had water toys, kayaks, jet skis and boats.

This is the view of our chairs on the beach where we enjoyed our evening.

The reservoir in the evening.

Glendo reservoir - a revisit

We over nighted at Glendo reservoir in Wyoming on our way to Mount Rushmore one time. Due to our schedule we didn't have time to explore the state park so had determined we would return to check things out. We decided that a 4 day weekend was the perfect opportunity.

As usual we launched our vacation with no reservations. However Glendo is only about 4 hrs from our house so we decided that leaving mid-day on Fri. would allow us ample opportunity to beat the crowds for the many first come first serve sites.

As we started off on a 90 degree day we noticed that the RV wasn't cooling down very quickly. Turns out the dash air wasn't working. It was fine last weekend when we went to the Great Sand Dunes. We decided it must be a leak since the blower and compressor were working so we turned around to refill it with some refrigerant with leak sealant. Got home and found out that we had the old style of refrigerant and needed to get the system converted. No one could do it that day so we had to decide whether to attempt the trip with just the roof air conditioner.

A quick check of the weather at our destination showed a mild 70s for the weekend with some storms anticipated so we decided to go any ways. By the time we left the RV was at 99 degrees. In normal conditions with the roof air and dash air working this is no problem and things cool down quickly in to the 70s (we also use the foil insulation over all back windows, roof vents and shower dome to help keep things cool). The roof air took almost 2 hours to get it to 84. I was really worried about the dogs. Eventually I took them out of the crates and put them on the back bed which tends to be the coolest area of the RV. We also carry a cigarette lighter clip fan for emergencies such as this so first trained this on the dogs and then my husband while he was driving. I really questioned the decision to continue with this vacation.

As a result of our delay we got to the park at about 8. We had planned to stay at Two Moons campground because we liked it so much last time and they were supposed to have put in new hiking trails that we wanted to explore. However there were no RV sized sites available at that late hour. I called the camp office and they indicated that there were sites at Sandy Beach Campground. I had read that RVs weren't allowed on the beach so asked if our 30 ft RV could camp there. They said there were 44 sites available at last count and yes they could do RVs.

Elated we headed toward Sandy Beach over a not bad but yet not great road. I think they said it was 10 miles or so. We got there and the camp check in guy said they just released the ADA sites and would we like a nice concrete pad. Remembering the sand warning we gratefully accepted and asked for one with shade. We went to the assigned spot and found it out in the open. With many shade or partial shade sites available we returned to the booth and got one with partial shade.

1st night spot

The two sited next to us were unoccupied and some across the way in the trees were unoccupied. We were thrilled with the level of isolation.

That night a big storm blew through with lots of rain. We found we had a leak in the shower dome and the front windshield light. Luckily we travel with eternabond caulk and eternabond tape so my husband got on the roof the next day when it was dry and took care of it.

Stormy drive and Joyful Journey Hot Springs

I confess that we went back to Alamosa for their event which was some art booths, music and such. Enjoyable but simple.

On our way out of town a dust storm blew up.

Made me think of the dust bowl.

Against my better judgement we drove right into it.

I felt bad for the peoples houses that were caught in it.

 We then proceeded through a very windy hard driving rain storm. There was even some lightening and after seeing video last week of a pick up truck that was struck I have to admit I was nervous. But there was no where to hide. The area was flat and the cars and RVs were the only things crossing. After we crossed through we spotted the Joyful Journey Hot Springs Spa where we stopped for a $15 soak and ate lunch in the camper. It was cloudy and cool so we could leave the dogs in the RV with the roof vents open. They also had shaded dog kennels for those coming in a car or on a hot day.

But I made a very novice mistake. Because it was cloudy I assumed I couldn't get sun burned. The sun weakly came out at the end of our time there and I did get burned.