Saturday 5/14....Crested Butte, Lake Taylor, and North Bank

Awoke to another cloudless sky after a really good night's sleep on toutou....decided to take a short hike, the Neversink Trail, before heading to Crested Butte....it's about an hour's drive east through Gunnison....there you turn north towards the big mountains - where you hit Crested Butte, then - if you were a crow and flying - to Aspen and on towards Vail....

We hadn't been in CB for quite awhile and we both loved it....the town is very old and authentic (some of it a little dilapidated), dating back to the 19th century. But plenty has been updated, there is a lively local population, and there is a very developed main street with good shopping, nice coffee houses (Peak 4 Coffee is highly recommended) and restaurants. We've decided to rent a house here for a week next winter and ski CB, which has an excellent rep for the type of skiing we enjoy.....I'm already looking at houses on the Internet!

After a lovely lunch along the creek that runs through the middle of town, we discussed staying up this way this night rather than driving back west to Curecanti NRA - one of the joys of traveling in a self-contained motor home like we do is that you have  the ultimate freedom to go where you want, when you want, since you have everything with you! I had noticed a turn off towards Taylor Reservoir, and we took it. How fortuitous! A lovely drive along the river up to the magnificent lake. But there was a campground, "North Bank", that caught our eye along the way, and we ended up there for the night. No cell service, but we are fifty feet from a river that is somewhere between babbling and violently rushing. Very peaceful! Lots of pine trees and abrupt rock walls surround the camp - along with the river - and it is as nice a place to camp as one can imagine. No electric or water service for the RV, so we'll have to run off toutou's batteries - it is called boondocking, something we have never done before. The RV was designed to do this type of camping, with its rooftop solar panels and large lithium batteries.....and we have wanted to try it, so here we are! I'll let you know how it works out.....

Tonight we'll dine on ragu bolognese, fresh greens and cucumber salad, and a yummy-looking French loaf we picked up at the organic baker in CB...

Writing this update now, Sunday morning: all went well last night. We drew our batteries down to about 45% of capacity. Dinner was a bit energy-intensive, as I used the convection oven to crisp up the loaf of bread, and the cooktop to boil water for the pasta. Both drew significant energy - while warming up the ragu via microwave used little at all. The moral is, if you know you cannot hook up to electric power, plan a dinner utilizing the microwave as much as you can. But, of course, each day we will be generating and storing power in our batteries as we drive and as the solar panels kick in. If they get back up to 100% as expected, we could cook the same type of dinner tonight and still have plenty of power in reserve. And boondocking gives you a huge amount of options where you can spend the night: many of the most charming, beautiful campsites are small ones along a river like ours was last night - too small for the park system to build infrastructure within. So we now have the confidence to do this more in the future!

Molly has begun to compete for the passenger's seat - as soon as she hears me start the engine, if Amy isn't sitting in the passenger seat, Molly makes a mad dash to beat her to it! I indulge her her for a mile or two....

Raining at the campsite as we awoke, so we headed back towards Gunnison and home....stopped here in Gunnison for a coffee - try The Bean - great spot, and it has the added benefit of being across the street from High Alpine Brewery, so you can fill your empty gallon bottle of beer up with IPA after breakfast!

Friday, 5/13....Dillon Pinnacles and Lake City

Beautiful morning today, not a cloud in the sky. I slept well, considering  the two-inch incision I have on my left shoulder, which means I have to sleep on my right shoulder all night...Amy thought the rig was too cold, so I'll adjust the heat a bit tonight....got moving around 9AM, and drove a few minutes to the trailhead leading to the Dillon Pinnacles, a way-cool rock formation a little north of the main bridge over the Blue Mesa Reservoir. It's a wonderful 5 mile hike up to the top of a ridge where there are great views of the Reservoir and the Pinnacles....

And, if you look closely, the Blue River Dam in the distance...

After that, the Gunnison River cuts through the Black Canton of the Gunnison into the national park of  the same name....

Had a picnic lunch along the beach of the lake, and then a little siesta....finally got moving and drove about an hour to Lake City, a very old Colorado town, which still looks as if time stopped a hundred years ago. Complete with wood sidewalks....

OK, I'm the antique, Molly's only five.....

Amy found a seat at the general store where I bought a baguette (ok, so the town isn't completely lost in time)....

After a walk around town, talking to some shopkeepers who are waiting for the busier summer season to begin, headed back to our campsite....the drive is back beautiful, with snow-capped peaks looming over the horizon - the Collegiate Peaks....

We're now sitting outside in our chairs, in the sun as it begins to set, listening to some jazz turned up high on the sound system of our rig, drinking some more of that High Alpine Brewery IPA - good thing  I bought a gallon the other day....dinner tonight is roast pork and mashed potatoes (prepared last Tuesday at home, so it simply needs reheating), with some fresh green beans....we have one more beautiful day forecast, and we might drive to Crested Butte, we'll see how we feel in the AM....Sunday's forecast is a bit iffy, so we may head home then - or not! One good thing about an RV is that you can always adjust your schedule!

Thursday, 5/12...To Blue Mesa Reservoir....

Loaded up toutou and departed by 10AM - I wanted to have lunch in the great little town of Salida. The drive through Leadville and Buena Vista is really beautiful.....stopped at the Little Red Hen Bakery in Salida and they were baking bread in their outdoor, wood-fired oven...today's breads included ciabatta, baguette, and a few others. The ciabatta was still warm when we arrived (the baguettes were in the oven!), and I made roast pork sandwiches for us (Dijon mustard, sliced pickles, salt and pepper) - incredibly delicious!

Then off towards Gunnison....the mountain peaks from Vail to here - the President Peaks, and others, many over 14,000 feet - were totally covered in snow, a result of the late Spring snowstorms that we've been having. They are our reservoirs of water.....

Gunnison's a funky little town, and we found what we wanted - a really nice brewery, High Alpine Brewery. Bought a gallon of their hoppy IPA for later.....then on to Curecanti National Rec Area.....beautiful landscape....a little bare, not many trees at all, but mesas surrounding the reservoirs....

We found a great campsite, a few hundred yards from Blue Mesa Reservoir, the largest body of water in Colorado.

Molly loved it, as it probably reminded her of the beach in Carmel, but the water tasted better....

We had a lovely walk from the campsite to the beach, and back.....t-shirt weather and I couldn't wait to get back and try a glass of the IPA! It is really, really, good.....

Relaxing in our beach chairs aside toutou as I write this.....not a cloud in the sky, a deliciously-warm breeze cooling us off..... Molly asleep in the shade, jazz playing on the rig....sipping the IPA, the sun beginning its descent for the day...life is good...in a bit, I'll start heating up the chicken stew that I prepared a few nights ago for this dinner....and crack open an '06 Gevry Chambertin...the stew with the baguette we bought after lunch should be perfect! Along with a salad of  fresh greens from Simple Foods in Salida (a great spot)....

Tomorrow morning we have a hike we want to do, and not much else planned....I can see a petite sieste in my future....

May 11, 2016.....Off to Curecanti National Recreation Area

Having had some minor surgery and not allowed to play golf for a bit, I decided it was a good time to hit the road! So Amy, Molly and I are packing up toutou (our RV - "puppy" in French) tonight and leave for Curecanti National Recreation Area in the morning. Named after an Indian chief, it is a large area in central Colorado, just west of Gunnison. It straddles the Gunnison River - which is impressively long, running east-to-west, meeting the Colorado River in Grand Junction - and has within its boundaries three dams, the largest of which creates the Blue Mesa Reservoir - the largest body of water in Colorado. The rec area is east of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, which we visited last year - it's a fantastically beautiful canyon. I've heard the Curecanti is equally impressive. Good camping, hiking, and a great place to laze around for a few days. The weather forecast, thankfully, is excellent.

Our drive will take us from Vail through Leadville, and eventually to our first stop, for lunch and shopping, to the lovely little city of Salida. There is a wonderful bakery there, and a fabulous organic grocer (Ploughboy) where you can buy eggs from local ranchers/farmers that have yolks that are almost orange! That means the chickens are eating naturally and well.....and some cute restaurants - I'm sure we'll find one where we can eat outside and n the sun along with Molly.

An hour or so further on will find us at the park....pics to follow!