2/23-27/17
Current Location: Douglas, WY
Since leaving the comfort of Golden, Co, we have visited Steamboat Springs, Colorado, Glendo, Wyoming and Douglas, Wyoming. The two locales in Wyoming are not very far apart. Steamboat was beautiful as always. We spent Thursday afternoon at the resort skiing, and Friday in the back country. It had snowed overnight leaving a foot of untouched powder over a solid base of icy snow (that Colorado persistent slab ever-persent in the CAIC forecast) We skied a few laps off of Buffalo Pass before heading into town to meet up with friends. The snow was light and fluffy. All 3 of us enjoyed the freshly fallen snow, exhausted from the exertion of climbing and skiing and breathing at altitude. It has been a while since we’ve done both after all. We met up with a friend Friday evening and Saturday morning for brunch.
After a meal and a visit, we headed north into Wyoming. The drive was under clear skies, but very heavy winds. At one point we stopped along the way to switch the hubs to put Hobbes into 4 wheel drive and we made the Wyoming driver rookie mistake of opening 2 car doors at the same time, to almost have them blown off the hinges. We quickly learned that lesson. Glendo State Park was the destination for the evening. We drove in just before sunset and quickly found out that we picked up a broken chain link in our rear tire. We changed out the spare like champs and headed back into town to try and find someone who might be able to fill up the spare which was looking a little tired. Where does one go to to find an air compressor on a Saturday night when the gas station’s is broken? To the local watering hole of course!
In small towns everyone knows everyone. And in small towns at a bar called the Bulldog Tavern you get into some pretty amusing conversations. We had ourselves a beverage while the other patrons called their friends to see if they had air compressors/ were home and willing to help a few “greenies” out (read: ‘you’re a bunch of hippies for living out of your van, visiting national parks and skiing’). To them, Colorado could fall off the map and no one would care, other than the Broncos of course. They also had a difficult time fathoming why, as 33 & 34 year old married folks we didn’t have any kids…unless of course, ‘you’re shooting blanks.” Yup, laughs were had by all…all 6 of us in the bar which included (seriously, I’m not joking) the mayor.
After we finished our beer and our Glendo local friend carried his beer out to his truck, we were escorted to a local’s home workshop a few block away. There we filled our spare tire up and said our goodbye to our new friends who were at least 5 beers/whiskey’s deeper than we. We made camp a few miles outside of town in the state park that was very much snowed in. We fell asleep to the sounds of cattle mooing closer and closer, convinced we’d get up in the morning to a herd huddled behind the van as a respite from the intense winds. No such luck though.
Chilly campsite
In the morning, we drove north towards the next town with tire repairmen. We stopped at the nearest truck stop, bought ourselves a plug kit and had ourselves a delicious truck stop breakfast. Soon after finishing breakfast, we discovered our plug didn’t hold and we changed our tire back to the spare and drove slowly on to the next town to find a mechanic that could do the repairs on Monday morning.
On our way to find said mechanic, we found ourselves needing much more than a tire repair with the electrical issue we thought we resolved in Texas rearing its ugly head once again. We got the same warning lights, the same “limp home” mode but in this case, the batteries did not kick back on magically and we pulled into a camp site at the Douglas KOA. Hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, we watched the charge in our battery sink lower and lower, until we were set up in a steel, aluminum and rubber home planted squarely in site A3.
Monday morning arrived and there was no juice for our van to even think about turning over. The people at the KOA were incredibly nice and helped jump Hobbes back to life. Eric drove into town with the owner following, to give him a ride back to our digs for the night in the camper cabin at the campground. An hour and a half and 4 jumps later, Eric returned from dropping the van off 2 miles away. Turns out the post from the alternator wasn’t tight and melted from the friction/bouncing during our drive. A surprisingly simple fix, thank god!
With that fixed, Eric hitched a ride back into town to pick up Hobbes. With some driving around town, the battery was fully charged, and ready to be back in action. We celebrated our one-day van repair by visiting the local brewery and pizza joint.
Tomorrow we head out to Wind Cave National Park and out towards Badlands National Park. Hopefully this will be the last of our mechanical issues for a very long time to come. There are a few things I’ve learned from these last few days: 1. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve known someone, it’s always great to get together with friends and chat over a meal and a cold brew. 2. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are going. Truly good hearted people who are willing to help out those in need exist, even if they are “greenies” living out of their van from Colorado.