Ron Corbin – Page 29 – RV Travels in Europe and North America

April 26, 2022 Paimpol FR

Today we started our exploration of Brittany in earnest. To help guide us we are using the Backroads France book published by DK books. These guides are Ton’s favorite guidebook that she uses to do her planning as we move around.

While driving we came across this bay at low tide with really cool mud flats and boats sitting around on the mud. It was too good of a photo opportunity for Ton to pass on.

We are still a little slow getting going in the mornings, but as Ton said today we are not in a hurry so who cares. Our first planned stop for the day was the village of Saint Cast-Le Guido. It is a pretty beach town with a nice view and a small but lively promenade. We didn’t linger long as we had a lot of ground to cover and while pretty it didn’t tempt us to linger.

We really liked this house at Saint Cast-Le Guido.

We had seen a picture of Fort La Latte. It is an old castle that was turned into a coastal fort later in its life. It is everything Hollywood has taught us to expect of a a castle on the coast, and in fact it has been used a few times in movies. It is perched on some rocks not quite attached to the main land with two drawbridges to enter it. A central tower dominates the grounds of the castle. We spent a couple of hours exploring and climbing up and down the stairs. We were surprised to find out it was privately owned and that the family still stays there sometimes in one building that is not open to the public.

The view as you walk up to Fort La Latte, right out of the movies but real.

The inner courtyard of the castle taken from the watch tower. The building in the center with the tower attached is the home of the family that owns the castle.

The watch tower at the fort, you can see people at the top, which is where we took the previous picture from.

We had planned on stopping at Cap Finistere which is the point of land next to the Fort. It is a French national park and billed as one of the largest moorlands on the continent. But, by the time we finished with the Fort and had lunch it was getting late so we decided to push on to our final stop for the day the port town of Paimpol.

We pulled into the aire next to the train station about 3:30 and got one of the last sights away from the main road with electricity. The aire was fuller than we expected as so far most of the places we have stayed have been pretty empty. By the time we settled in for the night there were 22 RV’s in the aire with a nominal capacity of 28. It is a good deal for €6.90 with electricity, a dump station and very close to the waterfront.

Paimpol is a very pretty seaside town with a great waterfront promenade. So we promenaded for a couple of hours, people watching and poking around in cute shops that weren’t too touristy. Ton took a ton of pictures as we walked around and thoroughly enjoyed herself.

Street scene in Paimpol, with the locals and tourists out for their evening stroll.

April 25, 2022 Dinard FR

We began the day with an excellent breakfast from Ton. It was Khao Tom which is a kind of rice gruel. Going thru François the night before she came across a bag of rice that neither of us remember buying. Last night it was a Rissoto to accompany our pork chops, and this morning with some spice and water it became Khao Tom.

St. Malo, our visit there 4 years ago motivated us to spend more time in Brittany.

After breakfast we had a long but uneventful drive to get us to the Northern base of the Brittany Peninsula, the total drive was 305 km’s which is roughly 200 miles. Brittany has been on our list of places we wanted to visit since we swung by St. Malo and Dinan on our second trip to France. We really liked the feel of both places and the mix of French and Celtic culture.

Brittany is famous for its rugged coast line.

Once we were settled into our campground, it was time for our first day of walking. It was about 2 miles to the main beach in town. But the walk was pleasant with lots of interesting old homes to look at as we went. The main beach and promenade came into view suddenly and despite the blustery day was full of people.

People enjoying the waterfront promenade in Dinard.

Nice sand castle, the architect was not in site.

The coast here is full of rocky headlands with relatively small beaches in between. They have done an incredible job of cutting a walking path thru and over the headlands between the beaches. It is one of the most spectacular walks we have done, and interestingly it does not even get a mention in any of the guidebooks about the area. All together we spent about 3 hours walking the beaches and the trails between the beaches. When we returned we were both a little tired and felt like we had earned our supper.

Some really beautiful homes perched on a headland looking over the harbor of Dinard and St. Malo.

Part of the walking path carved out of the rocks of the headlands.

April 24, 2022, Vendome FR

We were excited because last night when we were walking around town we saw them setting up the market for today. We woke up earlier as the jet lag is finally starting to wear off and headed into town to visit the market. When we got there it turned out to be a swap meet and not a market. We are not swap meet people but decided to take a pass thru to see if swap meets are different in France than the US, and the answer is nope, it is still other peoples junk.

The old city gate to Vendome, on the facade you can see bullet holes from WWII.

Above the town is the remains of a 9th century castle, so we headed up there. The view of the town was nice, but not too spectacular. They did have a pretty garden that we poked around in for a few minutes before heading back into town. By this time it was about 11 am so we decided to take another walk thru the city center to see if any of the restaurants or coffee shops got our attention, but unfortunately none did.

By this time the clouds were threatening a bit so we decided to head back to François for lunch and to make plans for tomorrow. We have three main regions we want to explore this trip, Brittany in France, Galicia in Spain, and the entire country of Portugal. Tomorrow we are heading to Brittany.

The statue to Marshal Rochambeau who helped defeat the British at Yorktown to end the American Revolution.

We spent the rest of the day watching the coming and going of other campers. This is always good entertainment for us. Unlike yesterday where we had the place to ourselves, today there are about 14 other vans here, the majority form the Netherlands.

April 23, 2022 Vendome FR

We are finally on the move. After some discussion we decided to head to Vendome in the Loire Valley. It is 200 km’s in the right direction, and had a nice campground we can relax in for a couple of days as the weather is supposed to be poor on Sunday.

We needed to add our first fuel of the trip and just like at home fuel has shot up over here. Today we paid €1.87 per liter for diesel, which is roughly $7.90 per gallon the price is helped by the best exchange rate we have ever had over here between the euro and the dollar.

The drive was uneventful even though I managed to get us lost in the end by punching the gps coordinates for the campground in wrong and we ended up in a nice little village about 15km’s from Vendome. After some figuring I got the right information into the GPS and Gretta Garmin got us to the campground.

One of Ton’s favorite things about driving around France in the spring are the fields of canola everywhere. The bright yellow fields are really pretty and it is always a highlight for her as we are driving. They were at their peak today.

One of Tons favorite things about the French countryside in the spring.

It is shoulder season and we like traveling now because things are less hectic though the weather is a little unpredictable. Today we are at a very nice campground right on the Loire River within walking distance of a nice castle and cathedral and we almost have the place to ourselves. There is only one other RV in a campground with a capacity of 160.

Vendome is a nice little city with the aforementioned castle and cathedral. It is the home of Marshal Rochambeau who was the commander of the French forces that helped George Washington defeat the British at the battle of Yorktown. They are very proud of his role in helping us gain our independence. The French take great pride in the close relationship between our countries whether it is them helping us win our revolution, or our helping them during the world wars. The reality we keep coming across really goes against the stereotype of the ungrateful French.

April 22, 2022 Sens FR

If we were younger today would have probably been more interesting. Last night we had plans of moving off towards the coast and beginning our new exploration of France. But jet lag and age won out and we did not wake up until nearly 11am, so those plans were put on hold another day.

Today consisted of taking care of one chore, a couple of visits to grocery stores and a nap. Sorry if anyone is looking for something interesting, but today is not the day. Please check in tomorrow as we are planning to begin exploring.

April 21, 2022 Sens FR

The jet lag kicked in and we ended up sleeping until after 10 am. Yesterday when I opened the door to the service area for François the handle came off in my hand. We had planned on spending the day in Sens to recover, get our shopping done, and get our shots loaded into the French government health system so we could get a QR code with our shot information on it. Not an exciting day but a necessary one.

The first stop was back to Eurocamping cars to show them the broken handle. I told Ton that we would probably have to come back in a couple of days after they ordered the part and it came in. But, much to our surprise they had one in stock, so we were on our way in less than an hour.

Our next stop was Auchan for a first pass at groceries. Ton had already planned on a stop at Auchan and Lidl as she has learned what she likes to buy from each one.

After Auchan we headed over to a pharmacy to get our Contolle´Sanitaire´. This is a QR code built into an app which Europe uses in place of the shot cards we use in the US. While there are currently no restrictions in place in France and the Contolle´ Sanitaire´is not being used we are not sure what the future might bring so we decided to get enrolled. The other advantage is the QR code is recognized thru out Europe so we do not have to deal with the different rules from country to country on the US shot cards.

The pharmacist told us it would take an hour so we headed off to Lidl to complete our shopping. When we went back to the pharmacy the Shot passports were waiting and the pharmacist walked us thru downloading the app.

Our not very exciting day ended up back at the Aire in Sens where Ton prepared a nice meal, followed by a short walk to check out the other RV’s. Some days are full of exciting places, and others are days where you buy food and get enrolled in government programs!

April 20, 2022 Sens Fr

We finally made it back to France. We spent the last two weeks making sure that all of the paperwork was perfect, expecting that the immigration process would be very strict. When we arrived the line was pretty long but we have seen it longer. But, much to our surprise the immigration process was not any stricter than in the past. The only delay was a new automatic process where you scan your own passport and stand in front of a screen to have your picture taken. No one even wanted to see our vaccine cards, or the QR code we had downloaded from the French government. After all of the worry and stress about the new Covid requirements we were kind of disappointed.

The ride to Sens was uneventful. Since we were last in France the company where we store François was bought by a French company and they have relocated from the old farm compound that used to serve as our base to a proper garage and store building. They are also acting as a RV dealer for the French population of the town and not just overseas customers. I asked if they had seen a large downturn in overseas customers and they said no. While we were picking up we met an Australian couple, a South African couple and another American couple to prove their point.

The water pump was found to be defective while we were picking up François so we had a little delay while it was fixed. We were worried about the effect of having an unexpected two years of idleness and the water pump seems to have been the victim. After they repaired the water pump they also apologized and said that the starter battery had run down and not to let the van stop running for awhile.

After we settled the bills we headed off to the gas station to fill our LP gas. Knowing that the battery was low we debated whether we should leave François running while we filled, but when we had returned from our last trip in François we had an extra LP bottle installed for our system and this would be the first time filling, so we decided to shut him down to prevent having François go up in a fire ball if we had a gas leak.

After completing the fill and finding no gas leaks from the LP system it was time to move on. Unfortunately, the time we had let François run and the short drive to the gas station had not been enough to restore the battery, so when we went to start him up the battery was dead. The clerk at the gas station had already been really fun as she broke out her high school English when I purchased the the gas, now I got to test her language skills further when I asked for her help to reach Eurocamping cars. She stayed past the end of her shift and insisted on giving Ton and me a free cup of coffee while we waited. Eventually we got hold of Eurocamping cars and they sent one of the mechanics to give us a jump.

It is always amazing how when we run into problems the most unexpected people come to the rescue. The clerk was our guardian angel and like usual I forgot to ask her name but I will always remember her kindness. She turned a potential bad day into a good day.

Our next stop was the Aire in Sens and after hooking up the electricity to charge our battery we headed out, grabbed some food and turned in for a well earned sleep. We had been up for about 26 hours straight minus a couple of cat naps on the plane.

October 31, 2021 Seattle WA

After a quiet nights sleep in Dylan’s driveway, we woke up and joined him for a cup of coffee. We need to get back to Portland, so unfortunately so our day was going to be short.

Dylan lives in the Ballard section of Seattle, which used to be its own town. Interestingly it had to join Seattle because it did not have enough water, even though it is located in one of the wettest parts of the US. Ballard has a Sunday market, so we decided to head down there and take a look, before going for a big American breakfast.

After enjoying our meal we headed back to Dylan’s house to finish packing up Scout. After saying goodby to Dylan and Dottie the cat we headed off to Portland. The drive home was uneventful and quick, which is all you can ask for when driving from Seattle to Portland.

October 30, 2021 Seattle WA

We started the day with a final catch up with Ovi and Cory before heading off to Seattle to spend a couple of days with our son Dylan. We spent a couple of hours in the morning enjoying coffee and chatting with Ovi and Cory before heading off. It was nice catching up with them and we are hoping that they will be able to swing by Portland before heading home to Florida and on to Macedonia to reunite with their boat which has been stored there since the pandemic set in.

Dylan had some social obligations that meant he could not meet up with us until later in the day so we had some time to kill. Sequim has a Costco, so we headed over there to see if they had diesel and to have a walk around. After killing an hour or so window shopping we decided to get on the road for Seattle. As we were pulling out of Costco we saw Cory and Ovi pulling in and gave them a final wave.

The drive over to Seattle was pretty uneventful, except for some typical heavy traffic around Tacoma and downtown Seattle. We arrived at Dylan’s house a little before he did so we got settled in his drive way and met one of his house mates. He shares a nice house with a ocean view with two other people.

After Dylan arrived he recommended an Italian restaurant in his neighborhood. It was only a couple of blocks from his house and had one of the most elaborate outdoor dining areas we have ever seen, with awnings, curtains, and a fire pit at every table. The food was quite good and we had a nice catch up.

We spent the rest of the evening catching up and playing with Dylan’s cat Dottie.

October 29 2021, Sequim Washington

We spent the night before at an Indian Casino near Sequim which is pronounced Squim. The set up was very much like an aire in Europe and included electricity and water. The best part was that it was free.

Cory and Ovi had a place they were staying at in Port Townsend and joined late in the morning. While we were waiting Ton and I decided to to take a walk up to the casino to take a look. As casinos go it was a nice one with two gaming floors separated by a lobby, one was smoking and one was non-smoking. We would have appreciated it if we were gamblers, though we did notice that the smoking casino was much busier than the non-smoking one.

Fall colors near our “Aire” at the Indian Casino.

They had a nice native American store in the lobby and we payed for our free night by picking up a couple of things from the store. Ton likes native American art and she thought the prices here were very fair.

When Cory and Ovi arrived we spent some time chatting and doing some maintenance on the trucks. One of our neighbors was from Sequim and spent some time giving Ovi some ideas for their stay on the Olympic peninsula.

One of the Totems produced by the artists at the Jamestown S’kallam tribe.

Ovi and Cory had noticed a Native Art store just before the casino so we decided to walk down there. The store was run by the same tribe that owned the casino and was located in the tribal village of the Jamestown S’kallam tribe. The store was nice and Ton was very tempted by several of the pieces of art. The village had a lot of very nice Totems that we all admired. Ton and I were very impressed with the casino and the village, the local guy we met earlier had also said how positive the relationship was between the tribe and the local community.

We finished the day up with a nice meal in Cory and Ovi’s Tiger.

October 28, 2021 Port Townsend WA

We have not been out in quite a while. Covid restrictions and life have kept us at home. But our good friends Cory and Ovi have been moving around the Pacific Northwest in their Tiger so we decided we needed to get out and see them. We have been keeping track of them as they have moved around and when they landed in one of our favorite areas and the weeks of rain we have been getting was forecast to change to sun for a few days, we decided to go and see them in Scout.

The drive north was in a torrential rain fall as the sun is not going to arrive until tomorrow. The only thing interesting on the drive was me getting in a fight with Greta Garmin as she decided to route us on a 15 mile country road side trip only to put us back on the freeway we had been happily going down for the previous 150 miles.

We met Cory and Ovi at a nice beach side park with great views of the Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains, except with the rain the visibility was only a couple of miles. But since the point was to catch up with them the rain did not matter. After a nice lunch and a bottle of wine and a lot of catching up Ovi and I decided to take a quick walk up into an old coast defense fort despite the rain. We returned soaked through much to the amusement of Cory and Ton who had continued their talk in the warm and dry Tiger while we were gone.

June 22, 2021 Portland OR

Today was the final day of our trip. In 38 days we covered 6579 miles averaging 13.8 mpg. We made four new friends and had a great time with six of our old friends. It was nice being out again without worrying too much about Covid. Scout behaved herself very well with only the weird event with the abs computer having a temporary glitch causing us any concern.

The drive home was uneventful. Though it being Oregon we did have about 100 miles of pretty heavy rain as we left Burns in the morning. Other than that, there is nothing much to report today as we drove straight thru to home.

June 21, 2021 Burns OR

Today was a another relatively long bound towards home. The most direct route from Las Vegas to Portland is thru the Great Basin, and it may be the least populated part of the lower 48 states. Today we wanted a commercial campground because we want to give Scout a good scrubbing and dump and clean the tanks. The options were Winnemuca Nevada which was only about 100 miles from Austin, or drive another 200 miles past Winnemuca to Burns. We always opt for Burns.

While traversing the appropriately named Big Smokey Valley in Nevada we came across a natural phenomenon we have never seen. We began to notice that there were a lot of bugs on the road. As we drove the number of bugs increased and we encountered tens of thousands of these things on the road over the next 60 miles or so. As we were driving I had Ton Google “lots of bugs on the road in Nevada”. It turns out that periodically in the west there is an infestation of Mormon Crickets. During periods of drought they hatch in the millions. They can cause havoc if they get into an agricultural area as they will eat everything. The reason we were seeing so many on the roads is they are also Cannibalistic, so as they are crossing roads when one is squished others will stop to feed on the dead cricket, they are then squished by another car, and the cycle continues. We passed one section of the road where there were so many dead crickets that it looked like brown tire tracks. In fact the article we read said they can cause traffic hazards because so many get killed that they cause the road to become slick.

There is not a lot of human activity in the Big Smokey Valley, just a few ranches scattered over 75 miles of road, but we always seem to have something interesting happen here. This time it was crickets and last time we were buzzed by a F-35 fighter jet twice.

All of the spots are Mormon Crickets. I wanted to get out to take a better picture but Ton wouldn’t let me because it was gross.

When we stopped at Winnemuca for gas, all of the surfaces behind the tires were covered with chunks of hundreds of cricket carcasses. Our first stop before checking in at the RV park was a carwash to de-cricket the exterior of Scout.

June 20, 2021 Austin NV

It is time to head home. The heat wave makes it difficult to enjoy camping right now. Last night I was looking for a place where we could cover a good deal of distance towards home and end up somewhere with a reasonable high temperature. Along the route Austin is at a high point, and the high here was projected to be a relatively chilly 91 degrees. So today we are in our second Austin of the trip the much less known Austin Nevada.

As we were loading Scout up it was 111 degrees at 9:45 am. Our poor refrigerator has been putting up a good fight but has been steadily losing ground. Despite us doing everything we could I guess the interior temperature of Scout was around 125 degrees at times. We moved as much of our food as possible into the room, but we still had to throw a couple of things out. The good news as we sit here in Austin at a mere 88 degrees the refrigerator is recovering and things are getting cold again.

When we were at the Tiger rally we had told Kathy Howe that we had come from Austin. She told us about a great forest service campground just outside Austin and told us we should stay there next time we were there. Later it came out we were talking about Austin Texas, and she was talking about Austin Nevada. But Kathy is right the campground outside Austin Nevada is awesome. Thanks Kathy for the tip.

June 19, 2021 Las Vegas NV

Alex wanted to take us around town and show us some sites today. He has been in Las Vegas for 7 years now which pretty much makes him a long term resident in this very transient town. I arranged to meet him at the security gate of the Air Force Base to sponsor him. The last time we tried to get a guest on this base it was a mess, and we failed due to the complexity. I was expecting to have to fill out a bunch of paper work and told him to meet me at the visitors center. Alex and I arrived at the same time and I heard the Airmen guarding the gate telling him the visitors center was closed. I asked the Airmen what I needed to do to get him on the base and he replied, just get in the car with him, sir! What a change a few years makes.

In the Fremont Street area they have this zip line that runs the length of the strip. Some how this young guy got hung up half way and a maintenance guy had to zip out to help him. This must happen relatively frequently as the maintenance guy was quite good at hooking him up and dragging him to the platform.

Despite covid three new casinos have opened in Las Vegas in the last six months. Alex wanted to show us one of them in the Fremont area of town. Ton and I are not gamblers, we enjoy watching the people in the casinos. As usual we were not disappointed, the people watching was superb.

Ton and I enjoy people watching in the casinos. I hope the government is right about vaccinated people not needing masks, as I estimate that less than 10% of the people wore masks. This also means that most of the unvaccinated people were not wearing them either.

Alex also took us to the arena where the Knights play as he shares season tickets with a few friends. Ton was intrigued with the Hersheys Chocolate store and we ended up walking out with a bag full of chocolate bars. Our chore for the rest of the day was to try to keep them from melting in the 112 degree heat, we kind of succeeded.

Alex treating me to a fathers day round at Able Baker brewery. I thought I was smiling, it must be the heat!

Ton and Alex had been cooking up a fathers day outing which was the real reason for going out today. We started out at a very good brewery called Able Baker brewing. The brewery is named after the first two nuclear bombs set off in the Nevada desert. The government used to test nuclear bombs about 70 miles outside of Las Vegas. When a test was scheduled people would gather outside to watch, presumably they made sure the wind was blowing away from town to keep the radioactivity down. Both scarier and simpler times. We ended the day with a delicious Mexican meal in the arts district, which is the old downtown of Las Vegas before the casinos came in the 1950’s

June 18, 2021 Las Vegas NV

We shifted hotels this morning. Vegas is back as hotel availability for the weekend was very limited and the prices were high. Luckily we can stay at the temporary lodging at the Air Force Base. The Air Force has nice facilities compared to the other services and our room here is just as nice as the hotel we spent the last two nights in.

Alex had to work, and today was field day, which includes being able to dunk your teacher so he would have to go home and change out of his wet clothes. We agreed to meet at the same brewery where we had done trivia as their parking lot was very Scout friendly. Also, the beer is good.

Our main purpose was to watch the local hockey team on television. Alex is a die hard Golden Knights fan and lives and dies by their performance. Tonight was the third game of the play off series with Montreal. The Knights dominated the whole game, but Montreal’s goalie kept them in the game, with less than 2 minutes to go the Knights were leading 2-1 and seemed to have the game in the bag. Unfortunately, the Knights goalie committed a giant blunder and allowed the tying goal much to the dismay of Alex and all of the other fans in the bar. Montreal than came out in overtime and quickly scored the winning goal. It was a heartbreaking night for Alex and most of Las Vegas.

During the drive over the thermometer on Scout registered 118 degrees.

June 17, 2021 Las Vegas NV

This one is going to be short and sweet. We spent the day in our room avoiding the heat. We only left once to run to the Costco nearby to see if they had a couple of things we were looking for. At 2pm it was 116 degrees.

Alex joined us when work was over and we headed to a Korean restaurant nearby. The food was delicious and inexpensive. We all ate too much before heading back to the room to watch some TV. We did decide to extend our stay for a couple of days to spend some more time with Alex, so tomorrow we will be shifting to the Air Force Base because the temperatures are not expected to improve.

June 16, 2021 Las Vegas NV

We woke up early after a good nights sleep despite the heat. The southwest is undergoing an unprecedented heat wave. Not only are the high temperatures extreme, but the over night lows are setting records for how high they are. Because of that we booked a hotel for our stay in Las Vegas to see our son Alex.

Right after we left Cedar City we realized that Las Vegas was in the Pacific time zone and it was an hour earlier. To kill some time Ton recommended a stop at the Costco in St. George Utah. After killing about an hour we were off to Las Vegas. When we arrived at the hotel it was 116 degrees Fahrenheit, so we felt good about our choice to pick a hotel.

Alex joined us after school. He is teaching summer school this year to try to help kids overcome the negative effects of Covid. He invited us to join him for trivia night at a local pub with a group of teachers. Ton and I had fun watching the local hockey team in the playoffs and trying to contribute to the trivia contest. Alex’s team won and we felt like we contributed enough to make a difference.

When we left the pub at 10pm it was still 107 degrees, which is incredible.

June 15 2021 Cedar City UT

We were both up early and were on the road before 9am. I slept pretty well last night despite the heat, possibly because I was tired from all of the activity at the Rally.

The agricultural area following the Colorado River.

The begining of our drive was thru a valley irrigated by the Colorado River. It is always a little surreal to see the intense green of the agriculture along the river as you travel thru a vast desert. Right before the Utah line we left the Colorado River valley and were treated to a couple of hundred miles of spectacular Utah vistas.

One of the many amazing views along I-70 in eastern Utah.

As we were driving thru Utah we were discussing the difference between the views in Utah and in Colorado. Both states are justly famous for their natural beauty, and though they are next to each other the difference couldn’t be starker. Colorado is about green snow capped mountains stretching off forever. Utah is about rugged desert mountains with erosion carved pinnacles. After some discussion we both agreed that we preferred Utah.

A man made waterfall above Cedar City designed in the 20’s to reduce the silt in the river.

Tonight we are at a campground in a canyon above Cedar City. When we arrived the outside temperature in Scout showed 104 degrees so we wimped out and are staying in a commercial campground and running our AC.

These teens were beating in the heat by swimming in the pond below the waterfall.

After things cooled down we took a short walk to a man made waterfall near the campground. It is also apparently the local swimming hole as a bunch of teens were cooling off in the water. It was still in the high 80’s so we headed back to Scout to rest for the evening.

June 14, 2021 Colorado National Monument CO

We got off to a very late start as no one wanted to be the first to leave. After multiple good byes and vows to visit each other in the near future, everyone but us were off to Leadville for a couple of days rest after an eventful weekend. We were tempted to stay another night but need to be in Las Vegas on Wednesday to see our son Alex.

The drive over to the Colorado National Monument was relatively short and uneventful. The west is undergoing record heat and when we arrived at the monument there were red flag warnings as even at 7000 feet the temperatures were 100 degrees.

4th of July pinnacle. This is a popular rock climbing route. The tradition is to climb the rock on the 4th and plant an American Flag each year.

The rim drive around the monument was very pretty. We are spoiled for natural beauty in the west, and the park service delivers so many wonderful places that we tend to almost take them for granted. The signage in the pull outs explaining the formation of all of the different types of rock formation as well as the history of the area was as always very well done and enhanced the natural beauty of the area. If you are in the area it is definitely worth a visit, even if it is only a hour or two diversion off of the interstate.

We arrived at the campground around 5pm and it was 98 degrees with a little light wind. We had not reserved a site so we were left with one without much shade. We opened all of the windows, turned on the fantastic fan and sat real still trying not to sweat. The good thing about the desert is that as soon as the sun sets the temperature drops pretty fast. So by the time we are going to sleep the temperature inside should be bearable.