May is the month of mays: It may rain, it may snow, it may be sunny, it may be cloudy but we knew it was going to be an adventure. Hang on for the ride.

We got up in the morning all set to roll out of Peacock Meadows RV park in South Fork, CO with resolution to return. It was a great visit. Everything was put away and locked up, the slides were retracted, the leveling jacks were in the travel position, the Jeep was connected, Teri was in her seat and I was in mine, the only thing missing was Sarge. He was too far away for the tracker to register his location or for us to hear the musical tune it plays. 2 hours later, we found him. He had wandered further than normal and we think he was a bit anxious because when he saw me and realized it was me, he came running. Finally on the road. We took the San Juan Skyway into Silverton and then the Million Dollar Highway into Ouray as our next stop. Both of these have some amazing views but as the driver, you had better keep your eyes on the road. The road is a narrow 2 lane road with tight switchbacks. We could not find a definitive source for how the Million Dollar Highway was named although there are several suggestions such as the cost to build, the amount of gold found in the hills are just 2 of them. As we came around 1 particular corner, there was a CO State Patrol vehicle on the right shoulder with emergency lights flashing. We slowed and rounded the corner. A passenger car had veered into the canyon wall on the opposite side of the road. How it missed any oncoming traffic and didn’t flip over is a miracle. I didn’t see anything in the way of tire marks, debris or other marks on the road to suggest what happened, the old traffic/motor cop in me coming out, but then I wasn’t able to study it as there was oncoming traffic and the road was down to 1 lane at this point. The damage to the car didn’t seem severe so I am of the assumption there were no serious injuries and the Trooper was just waiting for the tow truck.

As we dropped into Ouray we were presented with a beautiful sight although I couldn’t look much, remember what I said about switchbacks. Yeah, there are several just as you come off the mountain into town. The town sits in a valley with the canyon walls towering several hundred feet above. The canyon can’t be more than a mile wide at this point. As you look through the valley you can see the snow capped mountains in the distance. Ouray is called the Switzerland of America for the way it sits in the valley. As there had been a late snow melt, there were waterfalls cascading off the canyon walls to feed into the Uncompaghre river that flows through the town and the valley. Our campsite was within 100 feet of the river in downtown.

We took a day drive into Telluride. Again, a wonderful little town that has grown from when I visited as a high schooler to ski there. As we drove into town, I could see the ski slopes dropping off the mountain into town. It used to be called The Plunge and as I recall was a black diamond run. I never skied it and haven’t been on skis since high school. It was obvious the town is built for tourism as many of the shops were closed since it was a weekday. We found this to be the norm in many small tourist driven towns. They gear up for the weekend and then take Monday and Tuesday to recover.

Back in Ouray we walked the town. We tried to hike to Box Canyon Falls, but it was closed for maintenance. Again, they are gearing up for the summer stampede. As we were standing in one of the stores, we heard a loud siren emitting from the center of town. It reminded me of an avalanche warning that I’ve seen/heard in tv movies. The business owner smiled and said it was just the 12 noon notification and test. He then proceeded to tell us that 1 siren was 12 noon and a test. 3 sirens were an indication of a traffic collision. I don’t remember what 2 sirens were. This was the emergency paging system for the volunteer fire department. We learned that cell coverage can be spotty so the siren is used along with more current technology to summon emergency services. We heard the 3 siren a couple more times during the days we stayed. Before we left we took a drive to the Ridgway Reservoir and spent a couple hours fishing. We kept 4 trout and threw twice that many back.

Next up was Denver, CO. We stayed at the Denver West KOA which is west of the metropolitan area, still in the mountains. Our campsite was on the edge of the mountain with a view into the valley where Central City and Black Hawk were nestled. The road from the KOA down into the valley was a steep twisting road that I had no desire to try and ride on the bike. The 2 towns are tourist towns and are primarily casino driven. It looked like a Las Vegas strip with all the casinos, except the roads are narrow and steep. The towns are remnants of the mining days. They are the only towns with casinos in CO that are not on an Native Indian reservation. The town leadership had petitioned the Governor decades ago to grant them the opportunity to run the casinos as a source of revenue and now you see the results of that.

We ran into Golden and spent the afternoon with Teri’s nephew Bill. His wife Holly had just graduated with her PhD in pharmaceuticals and was off visiting and relaxing with her mom before she got back to the grind so we missed seeing her.

The old fashioned train ride in Georgetown sounded like a fun afternoon so off we went. The train is a narrow gauge so the rails are 3 ft wide instead of the standard 4ft 8in. This is due to the steepness of the mountains and the sharpness of the curves as the train lumbers up the mountainside. The engine was steam operated so as we started up the mountain you could actually hear the chug-a-chug-a as the power was applied. The whistle could be heard throughout the valley and there are a sequence of whistle blows as various indicators such as starting, crossing a road, rounding a blind bend, etc. The train started in Georgetown, a small mining town that again, is tourist driven as there is no mining any longer. The ride ends about 1 hour up the mountain at the Silver Plume development. This was the origination of the Silver Plume Mine. Can you guess what they pulled out of that mine? Yep, silver along with some other minerals. There is an opportunity to do a mine tour that we declined as we have toured several mines over the last couple of years.

Throughout our travels, Kevin keeps us on target with our workouts and nutrition. In my dreams I can hear him saying “Come on John, only 3 more, you got this, what do you mean you can’t do a pushup, you ate WHAT?!” We do 2 workouts per week with 1 of them a Zoom and the nutrition discussion is Zoom so he can closely monitor our progress. He says “that’s what you pay me for…”. It’s working because we are getting stronger and slimming down.

Clear Creek runs through the mountains above Golden so we took a day to fish. We walked a lot, lost a lot of flys in the trees and marveled at the beauty. We didn’t catch any fish as the runoff is still too strong. We gaped at the rock climbers as they worked their way up the cliff walls like a lizard climbing a rock. There are several popular spots along the river in this area for rock climbing. We watched as 1 young lady was trying to climb up to her partner but was having trouble. There was a rock outcropping that forced her to lean out away from the wall while hanging on over head to pull herself up. She tried for about 20 minutes and called it a day and worked her way back down about 50 feet to the landing. I’ve got nothing but admiration for her efforts, as you wouldn’t find me even putting the harness on much less trying to climb.

We next connected with Les and Marlene. I had met Marlene when I started working at Phoenix College in 2006. Les, her husband was also a police officer with the District at a different college. Shortly after I was promoted to Commander at GateWay Community College, Les was promoted to Commander at Scottsdale Community College. When it was appropriate for them, they retired from the District and moved to Broomfield, CO. The Denver metropolitan area is very similar to the Phoenix metro area in that there are cities all connected with only an invisible line separating them. Broomfield is one of those cities similar to a Goodyear or Chandler. Les and Marlene cleared their schedules to show us around. Downtown Golden, Red Rock Park, the amphitheater and Lookout Mountain were all on the agenda. Lookout Mountain is the gravesite of Buffalo Bill Cody, and I’m going to assume the Wanted sign was his. It was a fantastic day. The following day Les and I had plans to go a bike ride on the paved multi-use trail that winds it’s way through the metro area. Teri had decided to stay home and relax. Unfortunately it started to rain and was too much to ride. We spent the day visiting and just enjoying conversation. That afternoon I stopped off to visit Megan at the Fire Station. I met her several years ago at The Cactus Cup race and we have stayed in touch. It was interesting to catch up albeit a short time. It rained all day, into the evening and into the night. The next morning we woke to several inches of snow. We were scheduled to spend 1 more night at the KOA but with the temps and the snow, we decided to get off the mountain. I was concerned the roads would be icy in the morning and I did not look forward to driving down the mountain in a motorhome on icy roads. We packed up and headed down the mountain. It was a slow drive with the rain and snow. We pulled into Cabela’s in Broomfield for the night and had an impromptu dinner with Les and Marlene. The next morning we were saying goodbye to Colorado and hello to Nebraska.

We hit the road to Big Springs, NE where we spent the night. We endured 48+ hours of rain. I kept looking for Noah and his Ark. The sky started to lighten and we thought there might be light at the end of the tunnel when we had an hour of sunlight, but it turned out to be a train. The rain continued with 30 mph crosswinds.

The next morning we woke to sunshine and no rain or wind. It was going to be a glorious day but here came that train again. We got ready for an early start. Everything was hooked up, I put the motorhome in Drive and we started forward, for about 10 feet. Everything stopped and the left rear was tilting downward. I tried reverse, forward, reverse, forward to rock it but nothing worked. As I surveyed the situation from outside, we had buried the left rear dual tires in the mud and were sitting on the frame. A phone call to Nadia (owner) resulted in Mark (her husband) showing up in about 15 minutes. After discussing options, he called a friend who showed up about 30 minutes later. During that time I received an education on Nebraska farming and ranching. George (I think that was his name) showed up with a heavy duty wrecker with Amy’s Towing Service listed on the side. He hooked up a chain to the receiver hitch and pulled us out in 5 minutes, with no damage. It took longer to hook everything up than it did to pull us out. Off we went.

As we moved our way east on I-80 we came across the Archway spanning the freeway. We decided to stop and be a tourist. The Archway is in Kearney, NE. Say Kearney with me, it’s not like Kearney, AZ. This is the Archway for the start of the trek west in the 1800’s. The California Trail, The Oregon Trail all started from here as well as the railroad which I-80 now generally follows. There is a wonderful audio tour with lifelike models in the Archway that depict the travels and the move westward of the settlers by wagon, railroad and cars through the 1960’s. I caught Teri in an awkward moment. There is a model of a young man coaxing the animal team pulling the wagon up a hill while a young woman is pushing to assist the animals. Teri is standing alongside looking at her phone and listening to the audio tour. It smacks of irony.

We arrived in Spirit Lake, IA and parked at the Cenla RV Park. Spirit Lake, Okoboji and a few other towns all make up the Iowa Great Lakes area. It was explained that there are about 8 lakes in the area. Our primary reason for being there was to hang out with Megan and Devin. You’ve heard of them if you’ve been following the blog. We met them in AJ last year and we all went to Tombstone and Bisbee together to cause trouble back in December. We spent just shy of 2 weeks with them. They introduced us to more of their crazy friends, to include Sandy and Curt, Tami, Adam, and several others who we unfortunately don’t remember the names. If you’re reading this, we’re sorry and we’ll have to reintroduce ourselves when we roll through there again. Many of the evenings were spent sitting on the patio playing cards and watching the turkeys and deer in the meadow. We did spend 1 evening boating on the lake. Teri and I tried fishing various streams and lakes without any luck.

The Tulip Festival was being held in Orange City that weekend so we took a drive over. Was I ever in for a surprise. My thought was that there would be street vendors in the center park with displays of Tulips much like a farmer’s market. Was I ever wrong. As we rolled into town I was astonished to see people of all ages wearing Dutch clothing and wooden shoes. There were no tulip vendors in site. The town square had a large windmill reminiscent of the windmills in Holland. The streets were closed and filled with people sitting in lawn chairs along the street and an announcers booth announcing the parade participants. It was a heritage parade. The Tulip Festival commemorates the Dutch heritage of Orange City. The building facades are Dutch in design and the costumes were elaborate. The parade also had huge demonstrations of dancers of all ages participating in heritage dances. One of the acts was the street washing so the street would be clean enough for the queen. In this case it was an opportunity for the young people to throw water on each other as they walked the parade route.

During our time there we reached the end of our 3 week detox cleanse that was suggested/required by Kevin. The goal was to give the kidneys a rest from the toxins we consume everyday. It wasn’t nearly as hard as I had expected when he first explained it. No dairy, low protein but same amount of food. Damn, it was hard giving up ice cream and coffee. But we got through it and felt great. Fortunately we were able to complete it in time to have some nice dinners with our friends. The Little Swan Lake Winery was an exceptional favorite. A 3 piece band sang for us, Megan and I killed a wonderful bottle of wine (I’m not a wine drinker) and the food was very good. Watching the bison in the fields was special.

We fished the area and thanks to Adam and Tami, we used their boat dock and caught several sunfish. Teri tied on to a large fish that dived under the dock but it was able to get away before we could see it. Yes, it really was the one that got away. We spent a day at Arnolds Park which is a city operated amusement park. The marine museum was especially interesting as the stories and photos go back to the 30’s. There are a couple of boats that had been recovered from the bottom of the lakes after having been sunken since the 30’s. We took a walk through the Tilting House. None of the floors are level and it requires hand holds to navigate. We continued to ride and hike and complete our workouts with Kevin. When I started working with Kevin, I had an issue with my right leg. It felt weak. We worked on strengthening it before we hit the road and it was feeling great through the races in NM. But it finally started being an issue. I went to Dixon Family Chiropractic on a reference. I met with Dr Adelee Dixon who owns the practice with her husband, Walt and is also a bike rider and personal coach. She understood my mental anguish although I was able to ride without much issue. I was able to get 4 visits. Each time I felt great when she finished working on me, but the discomfort would not go away. On the last visit she took X-rays and suggested that I potentially had a degenerative hip joint. She said it might require a hip replacement. That was not what I wanted to hear. I contacted my Dr in Chandler and we made plans to see an orthopedic when we return in the fall. On a side note, Adelee said she had overheard I was a police officer and asked where. Chandler, of course. She said she knew a police officer from Chandler who had been killed in the line of duty. Of course I asked who and she said it was Carlos Ledesma. I didn’t know Carlos personally but I know of him and his sacrifice. As we talked we both started to tear up as she told stories of meeting Carlos and his wife Sherrie. It always amazes me at how small the world can be.

As we prepared to leave, we asked about staying longer but we were told that there was no vacancy. The summer season was starting and all the RV parks and campgrounds were filled up. It surprised me but so many of the folks who came to the Iowa Great Lakes area rent the RV space for the summer, park their RV and only use it on weekends as they return to their homes to work for the week.

So the month of May has ended. It rained, it snowed, it was sunny, it was cloudy, it was calm and it was windy. The month lived up to it’s name and we had a great time. Thanks for traveling with us. See you next month as we travel to Arkansas and Tennessee.

Stay Safe.