Heading North Again 7/ 26-28/2007

7/26/2007
I think this is the first time I have added to the blog without pictures. On the 26th we left the Golden Eagle Ranch Campground heading for Gunnison National Park. We had a paid reservation there for four days. We are going on route 50 which we had been on before to as far as Salida. Beyond that we still had about 60 miles to go to get to the national park. The part we had been on before was a beautiful drive mostly through the Big Horn Sheep Canyon and along the Arkansas River. As we drove through the second time it was a lovely day and there were even more rafters on the river this time than the last time. They were coming in groups of six and eight rafts at a time, with six to eight people in each raft. After we passed Salida the road started up. At first gradually then steeper and steeper. The motorhome started over heating. I pulled off the road three times to let it cool down. On the second time I even unhooked the car to see if that would help. It did for a little while but it over heated again. When I pulled off each time I would gun the motor and it would gradually cool enough to go again. Finally at about 9,000 feet with the road still going up, I decided to give up before I burned up the engine. We turned around an went back to the Wal-mart at Salida. I put up the satellite and searched for a Cummings repair shop. The closest one I could find was in Henderson, Co. which is a suburb of Denver. It was about 125 miles away. Fortunately the engine didn't over heat as long as we weren't going up steep grades. I made an appointment for 11:30 the next day (Friday). We drove on from Salida to Canon City and spent the night in the Wal-mart in Canon City. I also had to call and cancel my reservations at the national park. They did give me a partial refund. I knew even if they didn't give me any of the money back it would be cheaper than burning up the engine.
7/27/2007
We got up early Friday, had breakfast as McDonald's and then left for the repair shop. We drove back up route 115 passed our old campground to route 25 through Colorado Springs to Denver. We got to the Cummings Rocky Mountain repair shop in Henderson about 10:30. We wanted to get there early because we had to take our bikes off the back of the RV and remove the bike rack to give the repair man access to the engine. The pull in at the shop was one of the best I have seen. They even had a place for three RVs to plug in if they had to spend the night. The area was not junked up with trucks or trash all over the place. The service areas were neat and clean. They had a lounge that had two couches and two recliners along with a large screen TV. While you waited in the lounge there was a window which you could look out onto the work area and see the men working on the RVs and trucks. While waiting I met a gentleman from Louisiana who had just bought a new Allegro Bay. This was his first trip in it. He was having generator problems. Seems it didn't have enough power to run both his air conditioners. At 11:30 as scheduled they pulled my RV in to check it. At 1 o'clock they told me they had steam cleaned the radiators and washed out the trash between the two radiators. They charged for two hours service for a total of $240.00. I doubt that will fix the problem. I'm sure I will find out soon enough. We left there after putting the bikes and rack back on at about 1:30 with no idea where we were going. We just hadn't made any plans past getting the motorhome repaired. Since we were headed north on interstate route 76 we decided to go to Greeley for the night and make plans there. We spent the night in the Wal-mart parking lot in Greeley. I decided we would go to Devils Tower in Wyoming from there.
The Wal-mart parking lot is right beside a Golden Corral, so we had dinner there.
7/28/2007
On weekends the Golden Corral has a great breakfast buffet. Peggy isn't much for breakfast so I had the buffet myself. From Greeley we are heading north on interstate 25 on our way to Devil's Tower. Maybe I'll get some pictures there. Peggy has never been to Devil's Tower, I have, about 40 years ago.