JEEPIN’

Jeepin’ the Rocky mountains is a continuous chain of marvelous sights. Our time off is spent exploring and muttin’ aroun’ in the Jeep. Here is a peek.

This road dropped off down into Idaho Springs. It was a first gear drive, all the way down.

The Bald Mountain Trading Post was closed as we passed through on our way to the parachute steep drop down into Idaho Springs.

This remote, ancient Rocky Mountain mining town had way more to see than we had time for. We will be back to see more of Nevadaville Colorado.

ECHO

Echo Lake campground in Clear Creek Ranger District, is up pretty high, but it is worth every minute  of the very beautiful drive.

Click photos for a better look.

Click the photo for a view that will let you read the sign with all the details about North America’s highest highway.

That is echo lake in the background behind the sign.

So, how high is it, one might ask ? High enough that the University of Denver has a High altitude research laboratory located there !

Betty and I were sight seeing in tee shirts. There was snow under all of the trees. We didn’t tarry outside of the Jeep’s warm interior for very long.

Seven miles of steep and very twisty highway to get back down to Idaho Springs, mostly in second and third gear, with the engine holding back.

I sure do like the jeep’s new five speed automatic transmission that shifts electronicly, making the long descent in lower gears easier.

MICROBURST

It looks good from the front. but        .  .  .   . . . .

The errant microburst has downed timber all over the campground.

A contractor has cut up the timber into  camper manageable lengths for firewood.

And the slash has been stacked out of the way.

Columbine campground, 9200 feet up in the front range of the rocky mountains.

It will be home sweet home as we are off of the grid for a little over one hundred days !

This is our fourth Spring/Summer of getting paid to camp in the Rocky Mountains.

SIGNS

One of the first things that we saw as we arrived at our new campground assignment,

was the signs of off season vandalism.

Guess who’s tax dollars will be spent,

replacing and repairing all

of these signs.

Kind of a sad state of affairs.

BREAM

Bream, a “catch all” term for most species of pan fish. We bait our jug lines with, and trap, smaller bream for that.

However, larger bream are some of the finest lake cuisine that we know of.

We love to fish for large bream during the spawn. Today we did that. And we nearly struck out. Lake Ouachita had changed drasticly !

That means that since the large wide bands of hydrilla are gone, the water near the Housley Point area, is dingy and the old spawning bets we knew in the past, are not there. We had to hunt them up all over again.

Some basic things never seem to change in the bream world. Water depth and temperature, shoreline texture and exposure to sunlight are constants.

Soon we were back on them again ! There is just something about catching a one pound  blue gill, on a ultra light spin cast rig with 4 pound test line. Good fight, good food !

Maybe we will be able to go back again tomorrow !

TARPED

Our notification email that we were to be delayed getting into our campground, up high in the Rocky Mountains, because of preventative spraying for the Pine Bark Beetle, slowed us down. Packing up progress didn’t stop, just slowed down.

We managed to get in a couple of extra trips to the lake

Here we are rounding up our plunder, putting it into storage. The utility trailer has fishing jugs, bait traps, live box, small refrigerator and much more. Though it is tarped down, it will be under a shed, as is the boat.

Betty say’s that she will try to have just one more yard sale, at the old Family house place, down by the highway, before we head out to Colorado.

Looks like some serious farmin’ stuff going up for sale. Tractor, trailer, fuel cans, ect., ect. he, he. Note the antique ironing board and electric hot plate in the background.

All in all, we are on pace to be ready to depart as soon as we are notified.

It won’t be long now before we are blogging about the new campground assignment !

GATHERING

Kinfolks, neighbors, and friends, came down out of the mountains to welcome one of their own back home. It had been in the newspapers and on television as well as flyers posted around towns along the way. There were signs, posters balloon’s and ribbons all along the route. We all gathered at the City Park.

Flags and cold bottled water were passed out. A military and police escort brought Elwood Green from the Airport in Little Rock. Here is a video look as it passed through Norman Arkansas.

Elwood Green returns home

Even the birds in the nearby park seemed overjoyed at the Ouachita Mountain Boy’s return.