Montrose Livin

We left the Wonderful Dave and Diane Richardson on Sunday and since that time we drove for several hours that afternoon until we made it to National Forest Land just 40 miles or so before Craig, Colorado. We found a nice spot 8 miles into the woods. Getting in as late as we did went right to bed that night. Waking up the next day we found one of those gemstone campsites where you wish you parked but it was night time so we could hardly tell we were on level ground when we parked. Turns out just ahead of us was this split rock that would have been the perfect natural fire pit with a view overlooking the Elkhead Mountain Range! Crazy pretty view! We shoved off quickly the next day though eating miscellaneous foods for breakfast, cereal and cream of wheat. We got to Craig and i had the tires rotated on the van while the guys went off and found some shopping stores to kill 20 minutes. We found a glasses specialist store that helped Adam fit some lenses onto his glasses so that would be both sun and prescription glasses. Andrew found a new pair of Oakleys because his last pair were sucked into the filter at the Lava Hot Springs back in Idaho so he was happy to have some sun glasses again. As for me, the woman took one look at my glasses that had tie-wire and electric sauter on them and said i cant help you! haha. Afterwards the van was finished and we took off south toward Cimarron where the southern road to climb up to the Black Canyons of the Gunnison River National Park was. We made it in the very late afternoon which worked out perfectly because there were not many other tourists checking the park out and the setting sun over the canyon was glorious! We puttered around on top of that mountain taking photos and trying to capture the little Canyon Lizards running around everywhere... our efforts proved unsuccessful in our many attempts to capture one. Afterwards we took off to find camping areas near us as the van wasn't acting so well. A lot of sputtering and skipping going on so we eventually made it to a level camping ground in on the outskirts of Montrose Colorado. This particular campsite was a place where locals throw a lot of road kill, dead cattle, deer and coyotes apparently. The place was littered with dead animal carcasses, but we braved to camp there because the van would take us no further that night so we settled down for the night. We started a fire and cooked up some hot dogs and beans for dinner. The police camp later to tell us to put the fire out on the account of the state raging fires in Colorado. Also none of us had any outstanding warrants for our arrest too haha because he did a back round check on us. All clean records! He quickly became our friend after we put out our fire and he then informed us of the state wide band on small camp fires and said goodnight! We woke in the morning and performed a little trick of Adam's to help clean out engines of carbon build-up to see if that would do anything but we still had a backfiring, jaloppy for an engine! We made it 3 miles into town when we found a river and a free 1 night RV lot with water and a river for bathing so we are rich with resource once again. Not too long after we arranged a mechanic to look at my van starting next week, did another VW Vanagon pull in to chat. Rob was his name and he invited us to park at his 4 acre lot just down the road as well as use his showers and such. Once again another nice local in a small town. He gave us his card and off he went. Throughout the day we met several nice locals. A couple of women who were floating down the river were nice enough to strike up conversations as well as an older man named Barry who entertained us with lots of stories from his life, some good wishes and another parking lot to stay in for free if we needed it. Then late in the afternoon, Rob the other vanagon guy, pulls in nice and quick and his wife hands me a bag with 3 beers in it and says merry christmas! Gotta love generous locals, you really do! After the sun went down we enjoyed our beer and watched a flick and went off to bed! For this morning we spoke with the mechanic and he will have good or bad news by the end of the day so cross your fingers and say some prayers! Thats all for now!