I will admit to being a little spooked when parked in a pine forest so thick the moonlight fails to shed much light on the ground. I like to turn on the GANNET2’s porch light before I step out to water a shrub in the midnight darkness, not to see where I’m going but to allay the woodland spookiness, and Layne thinks I’m an idiot as she has no such fears of the night. However waking up to the sounds of Rusty moaning to be let out into the early dawn light is a reminder of how deep and soundly I sleep in the silence of the wilderness. The spooky darkness also cradles me to sleep.
If it’s not too cold we sleep with the doors open so Rusty comes and goes as he pleases and I get to sleep a little longer until daylight cannot be denied. But when it’s cold we button up our Promaster van and sleep cradled in our steel cocoon.
But these places are utterly gorgeous spots in which to awake to the sounds of birds and nothing else. Rusty stops whining after I open the sliding door for him.
An early morning wander outside you in the mood to take to the road after a cup of tea and some exercise. But there are also reminders public lands are also used for commerce. Cow pats and cattle guards are a reminder these places can be rented for a nominal fee to ranchers for their herds. And not all of the cattle apparently make it out.
Layne tapped the horn: she was ready to go. I whistled once for Rusty passing the message down the line and we trudged up the hill, my dog showing some reluctance to leave this magical place.
The plan was to drive east toward Gunnison some fifty miles away but well before the town we were going to turn right on a small windy road whose true nature was unknown to me. Our target was Creede,Colorado where iOverlander led me to believe there was dispersed camping worth a look, a campsite labeled Rio Grande Valley Overlook.
All very well and good but as usual we had to go there to get there. And as we left our site we passed another Ram Promaster tucked into a boondocking site. I called out as we passed and we thus met Vince and Michelle who travel and work in a self built camper so my hat is definitely off to them. They expressed an interest in Mexico so we tried to give them useful advice and I showed Vince in my manly wilderness expert way the two life saver buttons on the Promaster dashboard for driving hills (Tow/Haul) and getting through dirt (ESC) which I discovered because I am a nerd and I read the manual. I live front wheel drive and after negotiating narrow Mexican streets and innumerable dirt tracks and tight turning spaces I remain convinced this workhorse is the best van for a camper. I kind of talked Vince’s ear off while Layne did the same to Michelle consequently we have no photos. Here are some Alpine flowers instead to break up this long paragraph:
Edward Weston eat your heart out:
This one with my phone:
Anyway we got our early start around 10:15 and set out to look for Colorado Highway 149. After three quarters of an hour Layne asked: would you like a tuna fish wrap? Only with a cup of tea naturally so we stopped to break our fast.
It’s just how your day unravels when you are retired in a van feeling no pressure to hurry. Rusty took off to explore and I stood in the shrubbery admiring the lake and the hills and pondering my good fortune getting paid every month to do nothing.
Eventually we got into gear and made a serious effort to cover some ground with 80 miles to go and the hope that we might get to relax a little after all this wild exertion.
A road I had seen on the map was a squiggly line which looked promising. 75 miles of something good. What the scenery might be I had no idea.
Naturally we ended up enjoying the ride very much, with straight stretches through ranches and agricultural fields alternating with winding mountain roads once again with the highest pass at 11,500 feet, some Colorado height requirement apparently. The highest pass every day we drove seemed to be 11,500 feet above sea level.
Another pause to read roadside information. We really aren’t in a hurry…
A Sunday morning ride:
A high pass per day keeps the doctor away. I went to get a bottle of sunscreen lotion when we were down at Creede and the second I took the lid off, my palm was filled with coils of sunscreen pushed out by the pressure of the day’s high mountain passes. I was rubbing lotion in all over the place in an effort to get rid of it.
And then there was the informal sheep crossing. Hundreds of them got it into their wooly heads to cross the road. The eternal question is why but I can’t answer that. There was no shepherd in sight and the urban drivers ahead of me sat frozen either entranced or afraid to ford the wooly stream. I got bored and went ahead.
No sheep were harmed in my crossing as they aren’t as stupid as they are reputed to be. They gave way to my insistence and I stopped when they insisted. In a couple of minutes I was through. At last my lonely childhood in the mountains of Umbria paid off. My buddy Fausto herded flocks of sheep and when I was a child I got my education about their behavior in the Italian hills fifty years ago. Finally my awareness of sheep psychology paid off and we got ahead of the traffic jam leaving the other cars to sit and stare at passing sheep bottoms.
You turn up the hill on BLM road 504 which takes off-road vehicles to a playground at the top of the mountain above Creede.
We crawled a long way up to 10,000 feet to check it out but the camping areas were 700 feet below us so we went back down and settled in.
Some of it was steep enough our 9300 pound van crawled up at walking pace and no more, no matter how hard I pressed the accelerator!
Another lovely spot. 9300 feet, 85 degrees and fifty by night with a cooling fresh breeze.
We are all rapidly getting used to this.
Our route roughly, from Clarkdale Arizona to Creede Colorado.
