Catching up

6-23-09, Saxon Mountain

We were looking for a leisure drive up into the mountains and my 4 wheel drive book rated this one as easy. In fact it was rated for stock SUV’s. Wrong!!!! My book is a 2005 edition and it was clear the road had definitely changed. The start of the trail was in Georgetown which is only 12 miles west on I-70 from Idaho Springs so we didn’t get in any hurry to get there, the book said the trail would take an hour to drive the 7 miles to the top. The book said the road would be “bone jarring” but we always go real slow and rough is not uncommon. An hour and a half later we were half way up and it was getting worse so we turned around and came back down. We had several areas where we were dragging slightly but not too bad, but it was not an easy road. This is first time my book has been wrong.

6-27-09, Peru Creek

This was a nice trip and a very pretty one. It was a nice drive west on I-70 to exit 216, 24 miles from Idaho Springs, then over Loveland Pass on Hi way 6 to almost Keystone, then another 5 miles to the start of the trail a little before Montezuma, Colorado. This trail was rated as easy and it was but it was also pretty with lots of old mining sites along the way. There was also a short side trip that was rated Moderate which was a little more exciting. The easy part of the trail was 4.6 miles and then the book described a moderate section of the trail which ended at 6.3 miles; however this portion of the trail has been closed. The side trip I mentioned above was only 1.1 miles long but it passed by 2 different old mining sites where the wooden structures were still partially standing. The road crossed 2 creeks, one very easy and the other much more interesting with larger rocks entering and exiting the creek. A very nice trip and one that could be traveled by most SUV’s without 4 wheel drive on the easy section.

6-29-09

We have some RV neighbors that are different than any we have ever had before. Not bad different just different. Rob is into what I guess I would call Earth Spirit or Great Spirit religion. His companion, Jennifer, seems to have the same beliefs but is not as vocal as Rob. Anyway, he has done a lot of panning for gold and he offered to show me how so we took a back road out of Idaho Springs towards Central City that passes through some of the major gold field in the 1800’s. There weren’t creeks on the road but there were several dry gulch’s where water ran during rains. We collected several “baggies” of dirt and small rocks that we, mainly he, panned as soon as we found water. We found some very small “flour” gold but not much. I did find a small bottle that someone had dropped that had a couple of small flakes of gold. Rob said that was a sign that I would someday find gold. Sounds good to me!!! We came back to the campground and I fixed some New York Strip Steaks that I had bought in Cushing. They were really good, even if I have to say so my self.

6-30-09, Idaho Springs and Peru Creek

We met Scott and his 2 girls (Alex & Lucy) and Angie and her boyfriend Rob at Beau Jo’s Pizza here in Idaho Springs for lunch and then we went to the Peru Creek trail to show them an off road Colorado trail. We also took Rob’s Volkswagen SUV which is an all wheel drive. They really enjoyed the drive although Rob decided not to go past the last mine up to the last creek crossing. He probably could have done it but he wasn’t sure how to put the vehicle into low range and he would have needed it. He also didn’t have but 4000 mile on the SUV so I thought he made the right decision. I took Scott , Alex & Lucy up and then came back down and took Angie and Rob up. As we were coming back to the main trail Scott saw a mountain sheep that had come down off the mountain and then we saw 4 deer on the trip back down. They all said they had a good time.

After the trip we all decided to go to Silverthorne for supper and a movie. We ate at “Smash Burger”. I had never heard of it but it was good. We went to see “The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock. It was a cute comedy with a predictable outcome but it was good. There were 3 deer standing by the entrance to the RV park as we pulled in about 10:00 p.m.