River Rafting on the Arkansas River

Dean (the husband)
Shalane (the wife)
There is something to be said for the sound formed by a roaring river as the water flows over and around the rocks and boulders.  This beautiful melody is exactly what we heard day and night.  It was another perfect day to be alive in the Rocky Mountains! 

We checked into Echo Canyon Rafting near Canon City, Colorado at about 12:35 p.m..  After filling out a few forms and getting our life jackets fitted, we boarded a bus bound for the river.  Dean and I had rafted separately before but never together, so we were really excited to share this experience. The head rafting guide stood up on the bus and gave us a few instructions during the 20 minute ride to the “put in.”  When we arrived, we anxiously waded into the water with our raft, a family from Iowa and our 20 year old guide, Derrick.  For the next hour and a half we drifted through the Bighorn Sheep Canyon.  It is aptly named, as, while adrift, we saw a Bighorn sheep atop a high mountain.  There were a couple of class III rapids to get our heart rates up, but, for the most part, it was just a matter of taking in all the beauty around us.  It was an unforgettable journey along the Arkansas River.  Several times we were doused with some pretty big waves, and, at one point, even got out of the raft and played in the water.  The mountain water was cold, but felt wonderful!

At about 4:30 pm we arrived back at Echo Canyon River Expeditions.  We then had to decide if we would spend a third night at the campground near the Royal Gorge or drive up the road a little bit.  After checking freecampgrounds.com we decided to drive on towards Salida, Colorado.  We made camp about an hour later on some BLM land right next to the Arkansas River.  Of all the roads we’ve traveled so far, this stretch from Canon City to Salida, Colorado, if not my favorite, has to be in the top five.  Words can not describe how beautiful the river/mountain combination is on this winding highway.

We’ve met some wonderful people here, many were interested in our solar generator.  We learned from them as well, as one gentleman described how to make dehydrated food in the window on his RV.  I can’t wait to try this when I get back home.  For our Midwest and East coast readers, I’m afraid you have too much humidity to try this little trick, but if you have any others, we love to hear them!

All night long we heard the river as we slumbered.  Before drifting off to sleep we even watched the beginning of a John Wayne movie on the laptop.  Today we will drive to Moab, Utah.  We are expecting more beautiful scenery as we cross the Continental Divide at Monarch Pass  (elevation 11,300 feet).  I’ll have the camera in hand!   Happy Trails!

Sledding on Snow in July! Day 4

I know a lot of my friends in the Mid-West will not believe this, but we witnessed a young man sledding on a snow bank in Colorado yesterday.  Okay, we had to drove to the top of the world to find it but it was great to be able to throw snowballs in July!   Today, we have come down about 8,000 feet in elevation.  The current temperature here in Noble, Oklahoma is 100+ degrees F.  I think our bodies are going to go into shock. 

Yes, we did drive a long way today.  Last night we stayed at a truck stop near the small town of Wiley, Colorado.  That was about 2 hours farther down the road than we thought that we were going to stop for the night.   When we got up this morning, we noticed that we were only about 8 hours away from my mother-in-laws house.  We decided to wait to see what we would do after driving 4 hours.  After driving that amount of time, the small SW Kansas town that we were at had a temperature of 100 degrees and it wasn't even noon yet!  We decided that rather than boondock near a lake, we would just drive to Shalane's mom's house and get into some air conditioning!  We have been so spoiled by the cool, dry mountain air that we didn't know if we could survive a hot, humid night on the Kansas plains.

Now to fill in the gaps of our journey yesterday .  Thursday morning, we left our beautiful forest  setting just west of Durango, Colorado.   We took US Hwy 160 over Wolf Creek Pass (elevation 10,000+ ft).  As I mentioned earlier, we stopped at the top to give our truck a much needed break and to give us an opportunity to play in the snow.  We stayed for about 30 minutes and then finished driving through the rest of the mountains of southern Colorado.  It was beautiful, AGAIN!

We had planned to stop at the east edge of the Rocky Mountains in a town called Walsenburg.  However, neither of us were tired of driving so we decided to continue down the road.  By the time, we hit La Junta about an hour later, we started our search for a good place to boondock.  The problem is that at that time we were in the open prairie and it is much harder to find a free stop to camp.  I checked on a favorite website www.freecampgrounds.com and noticed that a truck stop in Wiley allowed RVers to stay the night.  We arrived there at about 9 pm.  We noticed a couple of trucks had their generators on and they appeared to be parked for the night.  The parking lot was big enough to find a spot away from these slightly noisy trucks, so we went to the opposite side to set up camp.  It was a little warm at the beginning of the night but with the help of our fan plugged into our solar generator we survived just fine.  In fact, it was a little bit chilly when we got up this morning!

We discovered a great thing about our solar generator.  It seems that it will recharge itself without the help of the sun by plugging it into our inverter which in turn is plugged into the cigaretter lighter in our truck.  We only did this while the truck was moving.  We didn't want to drain one battery to charge the other. 

Tomorrow in our blog, I will mention the highlight of today's journey.  I  will be writing about our visit to a small Kansas town completely wiped off the face of the earth by a F5 tornado in 2007.  It was amazing to see how this town has recovered from that awful disaster.  Until then, Happy Trails to all! 

By the way, Shalane is off with her mom and may not be with us for a couple of days to add to the blog.  Do not fear, she will be back!