We had good weather coming down, but shortly after getting hooked up in our site the thunder started and the skies darkened. By mid afternoon the rain had started coming down steady and we knew we weren’t going out for any exploring. The rain continued on and off all the rest of the day and evening. No real storms, the wind wasn’t blowing and the thunder and lightening stayed in the distance, but the rain was steady.Thursday, September 15th, we woke up truly cold for the first time since early spring. According to the thermometer in the coach it was 45 degrees outside and 54 degrees inside. Brrrrr. The rain had continued all night and this morning the fog had settled in and we couldn’t see more than a few yards. The weather report said it would be this way all day, so we just planned a stay in day and did a few chores. We got our first mail delivery in almost three weeks so we spent a while sorting and catching up on correspondence. By early evening the fog had cleared some, but it stayed cold and damp all day.
Friday morning we woke up to sunshine! Yea! Still cool, but not quite as bad as yesterday morning. After lunch we headed into Monument to do our laundry. We had 16 days worth of clothes and they were starting to plot a mutiny in the back of the coach, so we decided we needed to take care of it. We found a laundromat in a strip mall in the shopping area that passes for downtown Monument. I would say that Monument exists solely as a bedroom community for Colorado Springs. Lots of houses, a post office, and a few shops. We got the laundry done and were able to pass the time with a very nice local lady who came in to wash her big comforter. We ended up talking to her for the entire 90 minutes or so that it took to do the clothes.
After laundry we headed back to the coach and I had a couple of chores to do. I got one job done and went up on the roof to check out a small leak we had found around one of the waste tank vents. I found that I needed to put some caulk on both of them. By the time I got down, got the tools and stuff I needed it had started to sprinkle. I got the caulking job done just before it started raining pretty hard. I guess this time of year it is common to have afternoon and evening rain even when the day is nice. The rain didn’t last too long, but we stayed in the coach the rest of the afternoon and evening anyway.
Saturday, September 17th we woke up to another cool but fairly clear morning. I spent some time in the morning finishing my setup that I couldn’t do when we got here because of the rain. I washed all the windows, put up the shade screens and flagpole, and got the BBQ set up. Now we are ready for a two week stay. After lunch we headed out with our caching gear to do some local caching. We were able to find eight new caches before the afternoon rain showers started. We quit caching, but we spent about an hour driving around Monument, checking out the area. There is a small, but quaint “original” downtown area about a half mile west of the freeway, near the railroad tracks. We also drove around in the hills to the east of the freeway, where most of the new home construction seems to have taken place in the last few years. There are some huge houses in this area, some of which have killer views of the Rockies to the west, including a very pretty, snow covered Pikes Peak. After our tour we went back to the coach.
Monument has a population of 6,800 and sits at an elevation of 7,135 feet. It was founded in 1872 as a railroad stop on the Rio Grande Railroad and incorporated as Henry’s Station in 1879. The name was later changed to Monument, after the nearby Monument Creek. It is a growing town as a bedroom community for Colorado Springs and is mainly homes and small businesses. There are no large companies or industrial areas in the town, which covers only five square miles.
Sunday, September 18th we had another sunny morning. After lunch we drove into Colorado Springs, about 15 miles south, to Costco to do some bulk shopping. We haven’t had a Costco available since we were in Amarillo back in early August. This Costco even had a liquor store and we were able to pick up a couple of bottles of Absolute for the same price we would pay in California. Yea! Colorado is one of those states where spirits can only be sold in a liquor store, but this Costco had a separate entrance for the liquor store, so it met the legal requirements. We have seen this in other states that have similar laws. Oddly, it is illegal to require a membership to buy liquor, so you don’t need your Costco card to get in the liquor store section. After we got home and put away the Costco stuff we went to the local Walmart to do our regular shopping. We then went home for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Monday, September 19th, another great morning. After lunch we left to do some more geocaching right here in Monument. In the course of about two hours we had gotten fifteen new finds. Not a record day, but a pretty good one. After caching we spent another hour or so going through some of the small shops in old town Monument. One of them was a place called Retrospect Dry Goods, and it was one of the coolest little stores I have been seen in a while. It was all retro kitsch, everything from tee shirts with 50's, 60's and 70's stars and groups, Elvis lamps, and Marilyn stuff, to brand new AMT plastic model kits of 60's cars. When I was a kid AMT was the gold standard for model kits. They had a brand new replica pedal car from the 50's that looked just like one my brother Dennis had when he was three or four years old. They even had “action figures” from Dark Shadows, the late 60's Gothic horror TV series. I ended buying a corduroy newsboy hat and some retro gum. Remember Blackjack, Clove and Beeman.s gum? I got a pack of each. Blackjack was my favorite when I was a kid. After our shopping we headed home for the rest of the evening.
Tuesday, September 20th, another great Colorado late summer morning. Today we left the coach after lunch and went a few miles south to the United States Air Force Academy for a tour. The academy is located on the north edge of Colorado Springs, in the foothills of the Rockies. Getting onto the base is fairly easy, they ask to see your driver’s license and ask if you have any weapons. I knew we were visiting the base today, so I had taken my handgun out of the car. The guard lifted the hatch in back and glanced in, then let us onto the base.
I guess he just looks in back to see if there are large barrels of fertilizer or something in there. Shortly after entering the base we drove past a static display of a B-52 bomber on a pedestal. This was certainly the largest aircraft I have ever seen mounted on a stick, or actually, two sticks.We stopped at the visitor’s center and spent about an hour in there. They have a 15 minute movie and some displays about cadet
life that you can look at. They also have a huge gift shop which we wandered around in for a while. After the visitor’s center I walked the path from the center to the cadet chapel, which is located in the middle of the campus. Jackie didn’t take the hike, she was feeling a little breathy today and the hike was up over a hill. I got some great pictures of the campus and the chapel.
These are really the only two places you can visit on the campus. They don’t have an extensive museum like the Army’s West Point, or the Navy’s Annapolis. Of course, the campus looks much more modern and update than either of the other service academies. The Air Force only became a separate military service in 1947, splitting off from the Army. The USAFA was approved by congress in 1954 and in 1955 the first class of cadets attended classes at Lawery Air Force Base in Denver, the temporary headquarters for the Academy while the permanent facility
was under construction. The current campus opened in 1958 and the architecture on the campus is clearly 1950's modern, especially as compared to the other service academies. There are usually between four and five thousand cadets in the four classes in any given year. I enjoyed the tour and can now say that I have visited all three of the military service academy campuses.After touring the academy we did some geocaching in the area to the east of the freeway, near the base. This would be the north part of Colorado Springs, is was a large high tech business area. I was surprised to see large office buildings for Oracle, a major software design firm, and Lexis-Nexis, the leading legal and public domain on-line research firm in the world. We found some caches in their parking lots. We only cached for about an hour and a half, but we got seven new finds, along with one new DNF.
After caching we drove a little further south into town and visited the Colorado Springs Elks Lodge. This lodge, #309, is an old one, having been chartered in 1896, only a few years after the founding the organization itself. Their current building was opened in 1963 and is a large split level building with a lot of open ballroom space. The lodge has a swimming pool out back, along with RV parking with 13 hookup sites and a big lot for dry camping. The bar is downstairs and is fairly typical 60's design. There were only a couple of people there when we were there a little after 4:00. We had a couple of cocktails, the second of which was on the lodge. We also got a pin for our banner since this was our first visit to this lodge. Both Jackie and I had to chuckle because in the clubroom was an old 50's vintage cigarette machine, they type that had the pull bars to select your brand. I haven’t seen one quite like this one in many years. It was interesting that they had grafted a box to the side of the machine to accept paper money. The old machines only took coins and it would take a lot of coins to get to the $6.25 per pack price on the smokes now. Yikes. I always jokingly tell people that I quit smoking in 1978 when the price of cigarettes went up to a dollar in the machines. After our visit to the lodge we headed back to the coach for the rest of the night.
Wednesday, September 21st, we woke up to a slightly more dreary morning. The weather report told us that today was going to be cool, only in the low 60's, with a pretty good chance of rain. We were not afraid! We went down into north Colorado Springs for lunch at a place called Ted’s Montana Grill which is owned by Ted Turner. We were there to meet our friends, Jim and Pat Goetzinger, for lunch. We first met Jim and Pat back in 2008 when they joined the 100%ers Chapter of FMCA. They are also full time RVers, originally from New Mexico. They are staying at a park in Colorado Springs and when we found we would be in the same area at the same time, we made arrangements to meet for lunch. We had a great time catching up and spent about two hours with lunch. Jim and Pat went back east for all the rallies this summer, so we had to find out how they all went. We will probably see them again in Indio at the Western Area rally in January, although we may cross paths sooner. They belong to some of the same RV park membership affiliations as we do, so we stay in many of the same parks. We last saw them in Indio at Indian Waters RV Resort in January of this year.
By the way, Ted’s Montana Grill was very good, although a little on the pricey side. They specialize in bison dishes, offering their hamburgers, for instance, with either beef or buffalo. I had the beef, Jackie had the buffalo and both were very good. I had never heard of the place, but I have learned that he has 47 restaurants around the country, mostly in the eastern part of the country. There are none in Nevada, California or Arizona, which is where we spend a good deal of our time.
After lunch we had decided that we were going to go see a movie. However, we had about an hour to kill before the movie, so we decided to do a little more caching. We were able to get five new finds in that hour. The exciting part was that, although we didn’t know it at the time, the last cache we got was our number 2,900th find! Yea, another milestone! The next one, the 3,000 mark, will be really special.
The movie we went to see was Contagion, with a lot of good stars, including Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Kate Winslet. The film is based on a book by Robin Cook and is a medical thriller. The basic plot surrounds a new highly contagious and virulent virus appears in China and is quickly spread around the world, ultimately infecting a quarter of the world’s population and killing 65 percent of those who contract the virus. The story is presented from the perspective of the medical investigators with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the U.S. The movie was quite good, and, at least from my viewpoint, scarily accurate. In my opinion, the possibility of this movie “coming true” is at the top of a scale of film plots that starts with alien invasion (highly unlikely), world wide nuclear war (unlikely), and the rapid spread of a new virus (likely).
The movie also emphasized the potential for a complete collapse of the social structure of the world when faced with an unknown, and at first untreatable, disease that spreads at an exponential rate. That was probably the scariest part of the whole movie. All in all, a good movie, well made and easy to follow and understand without being condescending. I enjoyed it. After the movie we headed home for the rest of the evening.
Thursday, September 22nd, we woke to a clear but cool morning with nothing on our agenda. We had decided that today was going to be a stay at home day, and we stuck to it. We did a few little chores around the house, but mainly just relaxed and played on our computers. Very relaxing after many days of scurrying around.
Friday, September 23rd the weather report said it was going to be warm and clear - a great day to go to the top of nearby Pikes Peak. The base of Pikes Peak is only ten miles west of Colorado Springs and is the reason that the area is called the Pikes Peak region of Colorado. The summit of Pikes Peak is at an elevation of 14,116 feet, making it one of the 54 “fourteeners” in Colorado.
It is also the eastern-most of these tall peaks and the only one where the summit can be easily reached by vehicle. The peak was named for Zebulon Pike Jr., an explorer who led an expedition to the southern Colorado area in 1806. He never climbed the mountain to the top, and is credited with stating that he didn’t think any man ever would.In 1915 a roadway was constructed from the town of Cascade, Colorado, to the summit of the mountain. The road is 19 miles long and climbs in a series of switchbacks and grades to the top of the mountain.
The road has been the site of an annual road race to the top, the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb, since 1916, along with other events, including a marathon. For many years the road was gravel and dirt, however, over the years the lower sections were paved. The very last section of original dirt is being paved this year. The road is maintained by the City of Colorado Springs and we had to pay $12 per person to use the road.One can also access the summit via a couple of hiking trails, or on a cog railway. The cog railway actually preceded the road to the summit, having been constructed to the top in 1891. It originally used
steam locomotives but the train now uses diesel driven motorcars. The line runs from Manitou Springs to the summit along a distance of nearly nine miles. The average grade on the line is 16 percent. When we got to the top of the mountain the train was sitting in the summit station.The climb on the road was quite steep as well, much steeper in places than you would see on a public highway through the mountains. There are numerous signs cautioning against overheating and telling you to turn off your air conditioning. I don’t think the Jeep got out of second gear more than a couple of times during the climb. The speed limit is 25 mph, and with some of the hairpin turns it got down to 10. It took almost an hour to get to the top and we were watching the car in front of us, an older Saturn sedan, start to overheat at about the two-thirds mark. The driver seemed oblivious to the steam coming out from under his hood. The air temperature went from 74 when we went through the gate at the bottom to 45 degrees at the summit.
We were greeted to magnificent views, both on the way up and once we reached the top. Jackie, with her altitude issues, was getting lightheaded at the top, so she took one quick look at the scenery and then
she went back to the car and sat down. I did one virtual geocache at the summit, and also tried to look for one of the two conventional caches hidden at the top. Unfortunately, the regular cache was hidden in an open area that was covered with large rocks and about a foot of snow, so I was unable to find it. By the time I got back to the car I was panting like an old locomotive. The altitude wasn’t bothering me too much if I just walked, but struggling through the snow damn near killed me. We also got another virtual cache a few miles down the road from the summit. 
We only spent about a half hour at the summit, I wanted to get Jackie back down to an altitude where she wasn’t dizzy. At least she now has a new personal best, she survived over 14,000 feet. The trip to the top of Pikes Peak is one that I am glad we did, one doesn’t get a chance to drive to those altitudes anywhere else. However, it is pretty much a one time thing - been there, done that. I certainly have no intention of hiking up the mountain!After we got down off the mountain we stopped on the way back in the little mountain community of Manitou Springs. The city of about 5,000 people was incorporated in 1888 and lies on the original road to Pikes Peak. It is also where the lower station of the cog railroad is located. The town’s primary claim to fame is tourism and there is a very quaint main street with numerous shops, inns and restaurants. They are also known for their naturally carbonated spring water, which helped the town grow in the early 1900's as it was touted to have great curative properties. It was late in the afternoon when we came through town, so we didn’t do any shopping. We did get one geocache in town and also stopped at the American Legion for a cocktail. The Legion is in an old gas station on the main street and the folks there were very friendly. We plan on coming back to Manitou for a more extended visit before we leave the area.
After our stop at the American Legion we drove down into Colorado Springs and went back to the Elks Lodge. When we were there earlier in the week we saw that they were having a Friday night dinner, so we came back for that. We had a drink before dinner, and then were served Teriyaki Chicken, a couple of egg rolls, and rice. The dinner was very good and the place seemed to be pretty well packed. We had another drink after dinner and finally left around 7:00 for home. All in all, a very good day of sightseeing.
Saturday, September 24th was another great morning. Or, at least it was until we got into the car after lunch and started driving back to Manitou Springs, the nice town we found yesterday and didn’t have a chance to explore fully. Just after leaving the RV park I noticed that the Jeep’s air conditioning was not putting out any cold air. A little further checking revealed that the compressor was not running - again. We had to repair the A/C back on March 31st, less than six months ago because the condenser coil had sprung a leak. This was done back in Moreno Valley, California. Just a little more than six months prior to that we had the condenser replaced at the Jeep dealership in Pahrump. Needless to say, I was a little pissed off. Now at this moment I don’t know for sure it is the condenser again; there are a number of things that could be wrong, and I won’t know until a dealer can look at it. But if it is, I am going to raise hell with somebody. We probably won’t be able to get it into anyone until we get to Pahrump at the end of October. Fortunately, it is not terribly hot, just in the low 80's today, so we can get by without it. A little uncomfortable, but not overbearing.
We continued on to the town of Manitou Springs, which I talked about in some detail in yesterday’s section, to do some window shopping and geocaching. The town was very crowded, as most quaint mountain towns are on the weekend. We finally found a parking lot just off main street and started
walking around. We ended up spending about three hours walking up and down the main drag, looking in shops and sightseeing. We even tried some of the town’s famous spring water, which they have coming out of a couple of public well sites right on the street. It tastes a lot like seltzer, slightly carbonated, and a little salty tasting. Jackie was even able to find a reputable jewelry repair person
in one of the shops that was able to fix her gold bracelet, which had broken several months ago, for a reasonable price. We spent so much time shopping, but not buying anything, that it was getting late when we finished. We did manage to do four new geocaches before we decided to head for home for the rest of the day. One of the caches was in a cemetery located at the edge of town and we were surprised to see about a half dozen young male Elk just lying on the ground amongst the tombstones. They didn't seem to be bothered by our presence. Sunday, September 25th, we had another great day in the forecast so we headed out after lunch to do some geocaching in Colorado Springs. We headed for the downtown area, figuring that Sunday would be a good day since there would be few workers around. The older area of Colorado Springs, around the downtown, is very picturesque, much like we saw in the older parts of Denver.
Many of the streets are divided parkways, with a wide grass median and lots of trees. Many of the houses are very nice, turn of the century, homes that would have been considered very upscale in their day, even perhaps mansions. We found a dozen new caches, along with one DNF, before we decided it was just too hot. The temperature was only in the low 80's, but with no car air to cool us off between caches it got a little too hot for us. We spent another half hour or so just driving around looking at neighborhoods before heading home for the evening.Colorado Springs was founded in 1871 by William Palmer, one of the founders of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. It was founded primarily as a railroad town and as a tourist stop for the entire Pikes Peak area. It was specifically platted further down in the valley than nearby Colorado City, which had been around since 1859 because Palmer did not like the rough and tumble nature of the older town. He wanted the town built on relatively flat land to make expansion easier than in the more mountainous terrain of the foothills. Colorado Springs is very much a military town today, with the Army’s Fort Carson, the Air Force Academy, Peterson Air Force Base, Schriever Air Force Base, and the Cheyenne Mountain Air Facility, the home of NORAD located deep inside a mountainside.
Monday, September 26th, I decided not to wait a month to see what the problem was with the air conditioning on the Jeep. I decided that if the problem was the condenser again it was covered by a parts and labor warranty and they might not look favorably on my waiting a month to get it looked at. I found that there was a Jeep dealer, Faricy Boys, only about 10 miles from the RV park. I got up early and headed there to see if I could get it looked at. I got there about 8:15 a.m. and they did the write up for the work. After a couple hours or so the service writer told me that it was, indeed, the condenser and that they had the part in stock. The work actually took most of the day, I didn’t get out until almost 3:30, but they took the time to try and find out what was causing the spate of condenser failures. The service guy told me he though that it was the way it was installed the last time and that it had been rubbing on another part, eventually wearing a hole in the part. He said his mechanic shimmed it and put it back in such a way as it shouldn’t be rubbing anymore. Hopefully we won’t face this same issue again another six months from now. Everything was covered under the warranty except for the extra hour it took to remove and replace our tow bar equipment. Ended up just over $100 and we now have cool air again. Yea!
Tuesday, September 27th, another wonderful morning. Today is our last day here in the Colorado Springs area. We decided to go out to lunch at a Mexican restaurant in Monument, close to the RV park. This place was recommended to us by a lady we met in the laundromat shortly after our arrival in Monument. Since she was a local we asked for a recommendation for a Mexican place and she told us that La Casa Fiesta in the Old Town part of Monument was great. We also found a coupon for the place in one of the local newspapers that gave us half off one entree. We finally went there today and the food was great. I had a shredded beef burrito that was huge and packed with meat. More than enough for a meal. Jackie had a taco and a chili rellano and she said they were excellent also. If you ever find yourself driving near Monument, Colorado and want good Mexican food, head down to La Casa Fiesta.
After lunch we drove south to Colorado Springs to an area on the west edge of town that is called Old Colorado City. Although it is now a part of the city of Colorado Springs, at one time it was a town all its own and it predates Colorado Springs. The town was founded as Colorado City on May 22, 1859, when the Colorado Town Company laid claim to two square miles of land. They envisioned that Colorado City would be a major supply hub via the Ute Pass for the new gold mines in South Park and the Blue River, where major strikes in the Pike's Peak Gold Rush had recently been made. The name Colorado was chosen (the area was still part of Kansas Territory) because the Blue River mines were supposed to be on the headwaters of the Colorado River.
Although the town prospered at first, by the summer of 1860, newly built roads from Denver to South Park and the Blue River had diverted most of the traffic to and from the mines, and Colorado City commerce instead shifted towards serving the agriculture of Colorado's eastern plains. Colorado City was the county seat of El Paso County until 1873, when the courthouse moved to Colorado Springs.
By an act passed on November 5, 1861, the first Colorado territorial legislature, meeting in Denver, named Colorado City as the territorial capital. However, Colorado City effectively functioned as the capital for only five days. When the second territorial legislature met at Colorado City on July 7, 1862, in a log cabin that still stands on Colorado Avenue, they found the accommodations
so inadequate that they voted to adjourn on July 11 and reconvene in Denver on July 16. Colorado City was never recognized by the Federal government as the territorial capital. Colorado City was incorporated into Colorado Springs in 1917. The area is called Old Colorado City because another unincorporated area of Pueblo County, south of Colorado Springs, started using the name Colorado City. We did some geocaching in the historic downtown area, including one virtual cache that was located at the log cabin that served as the capital of the Colorado territory for five days. We also spent about an hour walking around some of the shops on the main street. We ended up with six new cache finds. On the way home we stopped at Walmart for some last minute shopping. Once we got home I spent a little time putting stuff away outside so we would be ready to travel in the morning.
Wednesday, September 28th was another travel day. Time to leave Monument and head 150 miles south to Trinidad, Colorado. Since the RV park we were staying in Monument is closing at the end of the month, it is time to move on. The travel route was straight down I-25 and was uneventful. We arrived at the Summit RV park and Budget Motel (yep, that’s the full name) about 1:30 and got settled into a spot. Not much of a spot, but it does have full hookups, 50 amp and cable. The place is a bit of a dump, but there are not a lot of choices here in Trinidad. We will be here for three days, so we can handle it. Trinidad is an old mining town that is supposed to have a very picturesque Old Town, so we are looking forward to some caching there.
Our departure from Monument is the perfect time to publish the blog, so I will close this episode. We are here for three days, then three days in Las Vegas, New Mexico before we move on to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. Until the next time I will leave you with an old proverb I saw on the wall of a restaurant recently. Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction. Good Advice! Bye for now.
