Monday, June 30, 2025

James M Robb Colorado River State Park - Fruita

When making plans for this summer, I didn't have specific plans for Fruita, but it seemed a logical place to stop between Dinosaur and Gunnison, Colorado -- two other places where I had plans to stop. I found the state park and made reservations -- I don't honestly remember much other about it. I couldn't get a full hookup, but we'd be okay on electric/water. Either I didn't notice that the electric/water sites were 30A, or I thought that the weather would be cool enough that we'd be okay without 50A service. I wasn't anticipating temperatures in the upper 90s and near 100 -- this is Colorado! Oh well... it is pleasant early in the day!

Our first morning, we walked around a little in the campground -- beautiful view of the mountains that make up the Colorado National Monument (of which I had never heard before booking our camping in this location!).

Naturally, the Colorado River flows right by the campground. There is a boat ramp and bike/walking paths and day-use areas available as well.

We can survive with just 30A service. We need to consider how many things can be running at the same time -- our general rule is that each heating/cooling appliance takes ~10A, and the refrigerator can kick into its defrost cycle at any time, usually the worst possible time -- so that's 10A that could hit at any moment. When an air conditioner starts, it starts with a large draw, so we don't figure that we can run more than one at a time. So, refrigerator + one air conditioner takes 20A -- so one other appliance for cooking. Keep the water heater off except when we want to take showers, and then use the diesel burner. 

Meanwhile, see what we can see here -- trying to do things in the early morning and stay cool in the afternoons!

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Over Douglas Pass to Fruita

Leaving Rangely on Tuesday, we headed south toward Fruita, Colorado, where we had reservations at the James M Robb Colorado River State Park.

Heading up to Douglas Pass

As we crossed over Douglas Pass, the view down...

The arrow is pointing to where the road is going...

The arrow is pointing to the area by Douglas Pass where we had just been, as we were now on the road executing a number of tight switchbacks...

A doe deer by the side of the road -- Carl saw two fawns beyond her as we passed.

Meanwhile, Miss Kitty was in exhibitionist mode, bathing in the front window!

The road gradually got less curvy...

... less elevation drop...

... as we got closer...

... to the plains by Fruita.

In the distance, we could see red cliffs on the other side of the Colorado River...

... as we were coming through farmland that probably hark back to the source of Fruita's name.

As we got close to the campground, this art in the center of a traffic circle recognizes the physical activities enjoyed in this area.

We got to the campground, and it seemed that our network connectivity was pretty slow -- Carl did a speed test and found Kbps speeds -- wow... we aren't used to internet that slow! Regardless, it seems that we are able to stream videos and blog and upload pictures -- all that we've needed to do!

We are excited to see what we can enjoy while in Fruita (though they are experiencing very high temperatures too!).

Saturday, June 28, 2025

Silver Sage RV Park

When we made the decision that boondocking at Dinosaur National Monument wasn't going to work for the days we had planned, I was concerned about whether we could find a campground with hookups that would have space for us (we would be arriving on a Friday -- and often weekends are difficult to get reservations). But, I checked on RV Life Tripwizard and found Silver Sage RV Park in Rangely -- on our way from Dinosaur to Fruita -- where we had reservations next. They had full hookup 50A sites, so we decided that would work for the four nights that we needed accommodation.

It wasn't a scenic campground -- gravel sites with a few trees. 

But the sites were large and the power was reliable, which was great since we needed to run the air conditioner a lot!

We chose a site facing east which happened to be their more premium sites (very wide) -- but all the other sites face west, which is awfully hot with the sun coming in our big windshield.

We have pretty much given up finding available sites without making reservations far in advance, so it was an unexpected gift to find this RV park that could accommodate us!

Friday, June 27, 2025

Rangely Rock Crawling Park

When looking for things of interest around Rangely, I also found mention of a Rock Crawling Park (https://townofrangely.colorado.gov/about-rangely/parks-recreation/rangely-rock-crawling-park-ohv-trails):

Just a few miles southwest of the Town of Rangely is the only designated natural rock crawling park in the state of Colorado. With more than 560 acres of natural terrain designated by the Bureau of Land Management as a four-wheel drive park, the Rangely Rock Crawling Club has one of the largest areas in the country to climb.  Among this vast terrain of rocks is a well-designed OHV Trail system. You can spend a day exploring and never see the same country twice. Check out our OHV Trail Guide for maps of the terrain. 

I was imagining being able to see things (and hoping to take pictures) like I saw on the Rangely municipal code documentation or from the pictures on the Rangely OHV Adventure Rally Facebook page:



Alas! It seems that (1) those types of rocks are not near the public roadways (and our Jeep, while having a "Trail Rated" marker on its front, is *not* an off highway vehicle and we weren't going to drive off road to try to locate them) and (2) this is not the time of year when the events are scheduled which would bring the OHV folks to be participate in using the trails in great numbers (though we did have a few folks in our campground with real OHVs).

We got to the parking area for Rangely Rock Crawling Park, and I studied the map in vain to see if I could find where the bare rocks might be...

... we could see off road trails, but no bare rock areas were visible from where we could park.

Regardless, it's an interesting activity that Rangely can support to bring visitors to town!

The major industry in Rangely is oil. If you're interested in a bit of history about Rangely, check out: https://townofrangely.colorado.gov/about-rangely/history

Thursday, June 26, 2025

The TANK

Since we had not been planning to visit Rangely, we looked up to see what kinds of things were available to do -- and one thing we found was The TANK (https://tanksounds.org/).

It seems that a steel water tank was moved to a new location, where the base was not appropriately supported by the underlying rock, causing the base to bow up in a parabolic shape. It could not be used as a water tank, but was found to have amazing acoustic properties. 

A CBS This Morning show was done on The TANK: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/reverberations-a-water-tanks-sonic-splendors/ 

It is open to the public on Saturday mornings, so we decided to visit...

It is up on a hill near town -- the drive way was a one lane steep dirt road curving around the side of the hill and we were hoping that no one would be driving down as we drove up!

Inside The TANK, musicians were setting up for a concert to be held that evening.

A view up from the parabolic base up to the vent fan far above

A short video of some of the sounds we heard while we were in there:  https://youtu.be/C92XK1-pBpk

Brief video history of The TANK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gngb5TsyVI 

A group of musicians joined together to play "Slow Beethoven" (https://tanksounds.org/roundsound-latest) -- due to the reverberations of sound, they played the 7 minute piece in 45 minutes to allow the sound to develop. Watch the video with information about making of the piece: https://roundsound1.bandcamp.com/album/slow-beethoven

I haven't listened to the whole work, but it appears that you don't need to buy it to listen, as it is on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHq_hK5BY3M&list=RDoHq_hK5BY3M&start_radio=1), if any of my readers would like to listen to the whole thing!

It is fun to discover things in a town that you weren't even planning to stop in!

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Dinosaur to Rangely

Due to the high temperatures and winds, we decided to leave our boondocking spot just outside Dinosaur National Monument and headed to a full hookup campground in Rangely, Colorado.

We enjoyed the views as we descended down toward the town of Dinosaur...

Still beautiful views

When we were checking in to the campground, there was a flyer in the office about an event happening that evening, Main Street Revival. 

We decided to check it out -- it was held in front of the Rangely Automotive Museum...

One of the vehicles that, I guess, is parked permanently at the museum...

... note that it is towing an RV!

The Revival was not very well attended and there weren't a lot of things to do there -- I don't know whether some vendors pulled out due to the wind and heat -- they delayed the start of the event by two hours hoping that the winds would die down, and the winds may have been a little lighter, but it was still pretty windy. We stayed for 15-20 minutes, listened to a fellow playing a guitar and singing, and then walked back to the RV park.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Friday morning just outside Dinosaur National Monument

Friday morning was not so windy, so Carl got the drone out to take some pictures... they may help you get an idea of what the site was like where we parked...

Looking toward the north...

... east (note that the county road goes kind of around and past the camping location).

Toward the south...

... south west and County Road 16.

Gracie and the Jee-rage from way up high!

We were having our breakfast outside.

Looking over Gracie toward the south

Gracie in the spot -- we would normally like to have our big front window facing the view, but it was so warm, and the view would have us facing south or southwest, and that would give us so much heat gain in the rig.

I drove a little ways down the county road to look at some other locations that were documented in the Days End Directory. This directory is "crowd-sourced" meaning that the users of it produce and maintain the information (it has a fabulous editor, Guy, who keeps everything straight). Users provide input on locations, whether the description is still valid, any updates required, sometimes that a location needs to be deleted (if there are now "no overnight parking" signs), and sometimes providing information on new locations. Guy takes all that information and produces nearly constant updates to the directory. Contributing to the information in the directory gives us, as users, points -- 1 point for identifying the information is correct, 2 points for any update, and 4 points for a brand new location. The cost to access the directory is $24/year, but users can "cash in" 24 points to pay the fee. I paid money for the directory my first year, and every year since, I have had enough points to not have to pay anything additional. Last year in Alaska, we made an effort to view every Days End Directory location that we passed, providing updates to the listings (we were able to provide the GPS coordinates for many listings) -- netting us 120 points, which has us now paid up for 5 years!

I looked at the information in the directory about some additional listings near Dinosaur National Monument, traveled to the location and identified some updates which I sent in to Guy later on Friday.

On my way back on the county road, I could see Gracie up at the top of the plateau... 

Can you see Gracie way up there on the top of the plateau?

We had planned to stay a week at the boondocking location, but we had shortened it by a couple of days because we stayed at Strawberry Bay Campground for a longer time. Then, when we got there, with the heat and the wind, we decided that we had enjoyed visiting this location, but that this was not an ideal time to be here -- so we found a full hookup campground at a reasonable cost in Rangely, Colorado, and headed out before the winds got too high to impact our ability to travel. Winds of 20-25MPH with gusts up to 45MPH were predicted, and, when you're driving a vehicle that is built somewhat like a billboard, windy weather is not your friend!
 
I'm grateful that Carl got to see this place that I have loved, and he loved it too. Maybe we'll be back sometime, when the weather is cooler and the winds are not blowing so strongly! 

Monday, June 23, 2025

Boondocking just outside Dinosaur National Monument

Back in 2018, Dwayne and I found this boondocking spot through the Escapees Days End Directory. We were coming across Colorado, and the description of this spot sounded good, so we headed there. It is not possible to boondock on National Park (or National Monument) land unless you are within an organized campground, but, for Dinosaur National Monument - Canyons, the only part of the land that is national monument is the road into the canyons for about 19 miles -- then it extends out to views of the canyons. The land on either side of the road is managed by BLM (Bureau of Land Management) and is used for grazing cattle and boondocking is allowed. The particular spot that Dwayne and I found is about 12 miles in along the National Monument road, going just a short distance off, across a cattle guard on a county road:

Harper's Corner Road is the National Monument road leading back to the canyons. Blue Mountain Road is the county road that intersects with Harper's Corner. Google maps access here

On Friday, in my Facebook memories, it just so happened that a post that Dwayne made in 2018 came up...

Dwayne's post and pictures from 2018

I had wanted to share this special place with Carl, and that's the spot that Carl and I got to on Thursday afternoon (I didn't realize until Friday that we were going to be there on the same days as those that Dwayne and I were there seven years previously)...

View off toward the southwest from the plateau boondocking location

Sun setting in the west

Gracie and the Jee-rage in the boondocking spot

Gracie and the Jee-rage with the sun setting

Carl got a picture of me coming towards him - if you click on the picture, you might see that my hair is very bushy -- it was quite windy when we got there.

Sunset

Sunset view

Gracie with me beside the rig

When we got to the boondocking spot, it was quite warm (high 80s) and very windy -- so we ran the generator for a few hours to be able to cool the rig down, not wanting to open the windows with all the dust blowing. By sunset, the wind had moderated some, and once the sun went down, the temperature cooled considerably and we were able to enjoy a cool breeze coming through our bedroom window for a good night's sleep.