Friday, August 19, 2016

Well, here we are in Durango, Colorado.  Arrived yesterday after a long day of travel from Flagstaff.  Came through some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen along the way.  But first, let me describe the departure process.  Some of my readers might remember how much I always enjoyed the arrival and departure procedures associated with the RV--NOT!  So, I was not looking forward yesterday morning to all the tasks involved with this process.  Much to my surprise, tho, I remembered much more about the various procedures than I would have ever guessed I would.  Things like making sure everything inside is stowed or secured so that nothing inside is flying around while the Catfish is being towed down the road.  Also, which buttons to use to pull in the pushouts.  After a short refresher from Oz, I was off and running.  Got the inside job done and actually went out and volunteered to help with the outside chores.  Again, I was quite impressed with my memory from two years ago regarding how to do what.  Needless to say, Glamgirl does not handle the sewer  disconnection.  But, I perfectly remembered those pesky leveler thingees and how to remove the boards under them.  Actually, thinking about it now, I probably wasn't that much help.  But, the good news is that the entire leaving process wasn't as onerous as I was thinking it would be.

Soooo, not long after we got on the road, Bob had reason to pull off and go inside the RV (I won't elaborate on his reason).  When he came back to the truck (which is named "Mr. Jaws"--don't ask), he informed me that "someone" had not clicked the refrigerator door shut (RV'ers will understand), resulting in him finding the butter dish upside-down on the floor!  Hmmmm. . . . who could that "someone" be?  I would have sworn on a stack of bibles that I had clicked that door shut!!  Dang!!  Good thing only the butter dish fell out.  Oh well--moving on.

But first, let's return to Flagstaff for a moment.  I think I mentioned in the last blog about our visit to the farmer's market.  No?  Fabulous market!  Lots of produce (tho not as fab as what I see at the Central Coast farmers markets) and crafts and honey and even Mead (a type of horrible sweet wine that I once gave to Greg Morrow's mom with disastrous results).  I even bought some freshly harvested okra.  But the very best thing I saw that morning--a beautiful black dog named Mandy.  Her owner told me that she was an "Aussie-Poo" that he had rescued from a shelter.  She was a year old and VERY active--like he could barely control her.  And, she was HUGE!  Needless to say, I adored her!  She would not have been a good dog to have in an RV, tho!

Now back to the trip to Durango.  Tooling down the road around lunchtime--saw a cute restaurant in a little town called Kayenta.  The restaurant was called The Blue Coffee Pot.  Their parking lot was jammed with cars (with a large dirt area that worked for parking our 30-foot behemoth).  All those cars--must be a good place, right?  Wrongo-bongo!  We went in and first thing we noticed was that we were the only non-Indian face in the place.  Well, that might be good--a nice authentic place--certainly not one of the usual fastfood places we saw all along the highway coming into town.  Let's see the menu.  Hmmmm. . . .the special of the day was mutton stew with Indian fry bread.  Mutton stew--think I will pass.  The Indian fry bread sounded good, but I opted for a cheeseburger.  Bob, being a little more adventurous than I, ordered Indian tacos.  Food comes out--my cheeseburger was very typical--meat, cheese, pickles, tomato, and lettuce.   French fries were homemade but not crisp. Not bad/not great.  However, Bob's tacos were atrocious.  They had a mystery meat (my guess would be mutton), no cheese or lettuce or even taco sauce--just Tabasco.  But, after eating them (Bob will eat almost anything except what he terms "stinky" cheese), he said that at least he was not hungry anymore.

I wish I had photos of the gorgeous scenery we saw during the 7-hour drive from Flag to Durango.  Unfortunately, it was raining off and on during the trip plus my phone battery died along the way.    Also, because we have an awful computer connection at this RV park (where we will be for the next 5 weeks!), making downloading photos very tedious.  Bad phone connection, too.  Despite being on the park's WiFi.  This blog might not be able to be published due to these problems.  If you are reading the blog, you will know that I overcame all the connection issues.

Now, back to that "faulty" refrigerator latch.  Upon arriving at our destination (the United Campgrounds), we began the set up process.  After completing my inside duties (which include pushing the various switches for the living room and bedroom pushouts), I discovered further refrigerator door-related issues.   A wine bottle with a decorative cork had been stored on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator when we left Flag.  Somewhere along the way, the cork was dislodged.  When I opened the refrigerator, the bottle fell out.  Not too much problem, tho, since most of the wine had already spilled all over the fridge shelf and into two storage bins below--which were full of various items of food.  Cleanup on aisle 4!!  What a giant mess!!  Two lessons learned here--store opened wine bottles on the fridge door and MAKE SURE the door is latched tight!

Thankfully, the rest of the evening was peaceful.  Well, almost.  We are parked about 50 yards from the Durango to Silverton railroad tracks.  That train (or trains) goes by several times a day and returns.  As it is approaching the RV park, it blasts its whistle twice.  Loud and piercing!  Thank goodness it does not run at night!!!  Oh yeah--we also discovered that our sewer hose was not long enough to reach the connection designated for our site.  First time that has ever happened.  Will have to solve that problem ASAP!  And, as I mentioned above, the internet connection is awful.  Can't get satellite TV because of a large tree next to us but thankfully the roof antenna works.  Go figure!

Lots to do here and in the surrounding areas over the next 5 weeks--Silverton being one.  Also, plan to drive back to Mesa Verde National Park and tour that area.  Plus, Cortez looked interesting as we drove through yesterday.  I was last in Cortez in 1967!

Glamgirl closing for now.  Wish me luck in getting this tome posted.