Category Archives: Colorado

There and Back Again (Colorado Springs, CO)

2015/01/15 davidhobden@mac.com

We made the final road trip to Casa Grande on Sunday with “stuff”… made it back to COS on Tuesday.

Cloud bank coming over mountains near Santa Fe NM

On Sunday: We, (Stilla, Little dog “Coach”, and I), left our house at 6 AM after hooking up the fully-loaded trailer and made it to Casa Grande by 9 PM. After 15 hours of driving, we met my Mom, Stepdad (Jimmy), Brother Steve and his squeeze (Cheryl), for a late-night dinner at the Iron Skillet Restaurant just South of Casa Grande. The 900 mile trip down here took us 15 hours and we only got 9.2 miles per gallon with the heavy load. Every time we pull the trailer, it’s like having an open parachute behind you.

After a good night’s sleep at the “dirt farm” in my Mom’s house, we spent Monday recuperating from the trip. We also downloaded a few items from the trailer to the Conex. Most items, we left in the trailer. Then we gave the trailer a good washing with my brother’s pressure washer. It also took a good amount of carwash soap, buckets and ladders to clean off all the road-grime and magnesium chloride. That magnesium chloride is nasty stuff. They put it on the roads for ice control and it’s hard to get off the under-components of your vehicle. The stainless-steel wrap on the front of the trailer and fenders have spots all over that will have to be buffed out now to get rid of the effects of the stuff. We parked and locked up the trailer in a safe spot on the farm. (Thanks Steve, Cheryl, Mom & Jimmy)!

On Monday: We got a 6 AM start back to Colorado Springs. What a difference without the trailer (parachute) behind us… we made the 900 mile trip back to COS by 8 PM and we got a much more palatable 14.8 miles per gallon 🙂

On Tuesday: We picked up my 90 day refill of meds from the Ft Carson hospital that I had requested the week prior and we stopped by Home Depot (again) for a couple last minute things to finish up the house that’s for sale. I had to special order some 3-toggle light switch plates that they didn’t keep in stock… I needed them to match the others that we had already replaced. I also finally finished up the carpet and trim pieces on the garage steps, which is yet another home project that I never got around to completing when we lived there. Now, if the weather would just cooperate, I can finish staining the rear deck and painting the front porch. These are the last items on our list to complete so we can head South. Hopefully we can complete this quickly and hit the road with the Urban Escape Vehicle. We’re late for the Alpine Coach Rally in Quartzsite.

Looking West from the driveway – For Sale sign in yard.

inner garage door steps (finally completed trim pieces and tacked down carpet)

front porch with partially completed concrete paint (using “Restore” product from Home Depot)

With any luck, my next post will be coming to you from the warm Arizona desert 🙂

BTW- If anyone else out there is selling a house, beware of scam artists on Craigslist. We had someone use our pics and name to represent it as a rental… hoping to con someone into sending them a deposit. My realtor found and fixed this on Craigslist but not before someone stopped by to look at the “rental”. I guess these scumbags try to get people to come by and look at the house through the windows, and when contacted, the scumbag says he’s out of town, but if you send him a deposit to secure the rental – he’ll send them the rental contract and keys… scumbags!

Colorado

House for Sale (Colorado Springs, CO)

2015/01/09 davidhobden@mac.com 3 Comments

Yay! We finally got the house on the market. Link here to Zillow. Or here for the MLS.

It’s been a grueling couple months… Now we can just hope it sells quickly.

Regardless, it’s time to move the Urban Escape Vehicle to warmer climes. We plan on being in Quartzsite by the 14th or 15th for the Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally”.

I still have to make one more trip with the trailer to Casa Grande AZ. I already loaded it with the final garage stuff (tool boxes, wall lockers, etc.,) and will probably head down in a day or two. I’ll leave the trailer there this time and come back to get the coach and the Harley… then we’ll be free again!! Can’t wait.

Colorado

We Can See the End (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/12/16 davidhobden@mac.com

We are finally getting close to being able to put the house on the market. The carpet is finally done, I guess the adage; “3rd time is a charm”, is true. The original carpet guy finally just paid a competitor to order and install the carpet at his expense since we had already paid. Here’s a view of the stairs in progress.

And, here’s a picture of the finished stairs for your viewing pleasure.

The downstairs “family room/game room” looks a little weird with the light brown color carpet (called Honeycomb 201). It used to have a light blue/gray carpet that complemented the wall colors. I hope a potential buyer doesn’t “dislike” it.

This is the bar that we’re including with the house. I just wasn’t going to remove that back piece off the wall because I anchored it with lag bolts to the studs and ran electrical outlets to it when I originally finished this room. Removing it would just create too much additional work with drywall, paint and texture issues.

We had new carpet put in the Master Bedroom and walk-in closet along with the stairs and everywhere downstairs except for one of the bedrooms where we decided to leave our King Size Bedroom set. We just didn’t want to move it again and figured it might add value and an additional incentive to buy the house for the new-owner(s).

This is the chandelier we put in the dining room. The old one was just fine, but it was brass. This was no easy chore due to the extremely high vaulted ceilings. I even had to make another trip to Home Depot to get more black chain so it wasn’t hanging too high. It doesn’t look too bad I guess.

The driveway concrete repair has been the most expensive task so far. This is where I used to park the Urban Escape Vehicle and the concrete just wasn’t thick enough to handle the weight. It had some pretty major cracks and had settled in places. The concrete guys did all the tear out and re-pour in one day.

We were finally able to paint the Den after I got the tenant’s stuff out.

Here’s a view out the front Den window looking up the street. We haven’t been able to easily look out this window for a while due to the “stuff” I had to move out from the former tenant’s.

We still have to clear the previous tenant’s stuff out of the Master Bath so we can give it a good cleaning and re-caulk where needed.

And there’s some wood-laminate flooring repairs I still need to make in the Great Room… sure glad I kept a couple boxes of the original floorboard.

We still need to finish re-staining the deck also, but that’s contingent on good weather, hopefully it warms up soon.

With any luck, we’ll finally have the house on the market at the beginning of the New Year.

I’ll try to keep you updated. Stay tuned…

Colorado

Taking a Day Off (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/12/08 davidhobden@mac.com

We finally took a day off (Sunday) from working around the house to help our friends Daniel and Monika move their daughter’s belongings back to their house. Dan keeps up with the blog and knew about the new trailer purchase. We were happy to be able to help, because as you know – what goes around comes around.

We were able to make quick work out of all the stuff that needed to be moved, the trailer ramp made loading easy.

While we were on the way back to Dan and Monika’s house with the trailer loaded, we stopped by the house of our mutual friend’s – John and Angelika. The Christmas lights and decorations are looking good Angelika 🙂

We wanted to drop off a Coca-Cola Cooler that we gave them. It’s much more satisfying to give some of our things to friends or family as opposed to selling them at greatly reduced prices or even taking things to Goodwill or ARC Thrift Stores. We already gave John and Angelika our “retro” Jukebox that Stilla got for her birthday several years ago. At least it’s in good hands and getting some use instead of being put in storage.

NSM Jukebox “Digital Thunder” on the wall at our house (pic is a few years old)

While stopped at John and Angelika’s house – I used the opportunity to install the load-leveling hitch that I just got in from Amazon.com. Their little cul-de-sac is much more level than the one at our house, and it’s important to do the installation on level ground. With John and Dan’s help, we did some measuring and got the hitch installed at the correct height. The load-leveling bars take a lot of weight off the hitch ball and distributes it more evenly, I’ve heard it described as functioning in a manner similar to a wheelbarrow.

After we unloaded the trailer, Dan and Monika treated us to lunch at Applebee’s. Thanks again Dan and Monika!

We visited for a while back at Dan and Monika’s beautiful home and admired their awesome deck while our little dog “Coach” checked out the back yard and probably left his “calling card” somewhere… sorry about that Dan 🙂

Dan and I also made tentative plans. If the timing is right, Dan offered to help me drive our stuff down to storage in Casa Grande. With his help, we could drive straight there, drop off a load, maybe spend the night and then get right back in record time. Dan is a professional truck driver by profession, (after his illustrious Army Career), so he’s no stranger to driving long distances. We’ll have to see if the timing works out…

After chatting for a while and saying our goodbye’s, we drove straight back to the Urban Escape Vehicle which is safely parked at the Elks Lodge overlooking the pool that is (sadly) closed for the season. This is the first day in – what seems like ages – that we didn’t spend the day at the house cleaning or painting something.

It was a good day off 🙂

Urban Escape Vehicle at the COS Elks Lodge RV Park

Arizona, Colorado

Thanksgiving (Casa Grande, AZ)

2014/12/03 davidhobden@mac.com

Our work on getting the house ready to sell has been progressing fairly well, albeit slowly. We (Stilla and I), often find ourselves asking things like; “Why didn’t we replace those outdated exterior lamps earlier? Or why did we wait until now to change out that brass dining room chandelier?” We’re drawing the line on putting in granite countertops and stainless appliances though ($$). 🙁 Early on in this house-selling escapade, we decided to not upgrade our white appliances and formica (or whatever they are) countertops as suggested by the realtor. We’ve been just fine with them, and they still look and function great. Hopefully, a potential buyer feels the same way.

The interior repaint is almost done. Just a few touchups here and there. We hired a guy to paint most of the upstairs because of the extremely high vaulted ceilings… the last thing I need is to have another hip replacement because I fell off a ladder:) The baseboards and trim have been the most tedious of tasks even though I’m only touching up the scrapes and dents for the most part. By the way – I will never, ever, have another house with high-gloss white paint on doors and trim! Er yeah… no problem there, the Urban Escape Vehicle doesn’t have any painted trim – just real wood.

On Monday the 24th of November, the carpet guy that was scheduled to start replacement didn’t come through. His associate ordered the wrong carpet! The result is another week delay. So I used the opportunity to get an early start on my promise to be in Casa Grande for Thanksgiving.

I left in the Silverado around 3 in the afternoon and got to my Mom and Brother Steve’s “dirt farm” by 8AM or so on Tuesday. Stilla stayed behind in the Coach in order to help oldest daughter Jennifer watch the grandson while she was at work.

Here’s a front-view of my brother’s triple-wide. My Mom and stepdad Jim have a super-long, single-wide at the front of the property.

I got put to work right away with some fence projects. Although, I did more supervision than actual physical labor as i’m sure brother Steve would validate. In the pic below, we are using my stepdad’s Jeep to stretch the fencing. My brother’s Steven and Ronald look on.

Ron and Steve tacking the fencing to the post. Ron is visiting from California and plans to stay and help around the “dirt farm” for a couple weeks.

Stepdad Jimmy inspecting the mirror that brother Steve broke. Just like my Mom always told us kids when we were growing up – “We can’t have anything nice.”

We had quite a gathering of relatives on Thanksgiving day. It was great seeing everyone. Only my brother Donald from Florida was missing, however, his two kids Matthew and Christopher were there to represent him 🙂

A good time was had by all. Great food and great people! It was also my brother Steven’s long-time girlfriend, Cheryl’s birthday! That’s her holding the golden goose. We ate and played games into the night… and then ate again.

Here’s my wonderful Ma and her sister Kathy. We affectionately call Aunt Kathy “Aunt Squirrely”

On Black Friday, I decided to go trailer shopping. So with my ever-helpful stepdad Jimmy in tow, we drove North to Phoenix and visited a few trailer businesses. I did research on line and had determined that trailers seem to be cheaper in Arizona as opposed to Colorado. We need a trailer to move all our “stuff” from Colorado and mitigate the costs of storage units. I already have a storage unit in Colorado Springs and hope to be able to start moving stuff to the “dirt farm” as soon as we get the house on the market. We’re also considering buying a “Conex” with the help of Mom and Jimmy to place on the “dirt farm” towards that end.

So here’s the result of Black Friday shopping: A 7′ X 16′ dual axle cargo trailer from TrailersPlus.com. It’s the “LoadRunner” model. They had one model that was better, called the “ProSeries”, but it also came with a hefty price. This one was a “Red Tag” special that ended up costing me ~$6,200 after taxes and permanent AZ plate.

After sad early morning goodbye’s… I hit the road by 7:30 AM on Saturday in order to get back for the carpet install which was rescheduled for Monday the 1st of December.

I decided on an alternate scenic route out of Phoenix that saved me about 100 miles off the 900 mile route. I took 87 East to Florence, then 79 North to connect with 60 East. However, instead of taking 60 all the way to I-25, I turned north on 117 at Quemado which dropped me off on I-40 just West of Grants. After that, it was a short interstate drive to Albequerque where I got on I-25.

It turned out to be a beautiful shortcut as the following pictures can attest:

I drove straight through and made it back to Stilla at the Urban Escape Vehicle parked at the Elks Lodge in Colorado Springs by 10:30 PM on Saturday night. 15 hours total travel time.

Of course, on Monday the carpet guy calls and tells me that his associate(s) put in the wrong order AGAIN! He will give me a $500 refund off the $2800 I already paid and I don’t have to pay the $500 upon completion. He contacted another carpet company to do the work and they came by in the afternoon to measure everything once again. So here we go again… I’m scheduled to finally get the carpet replaced next Tuesday.

Meanwhile, I used the time to put Thompson’s Water-Seal all over the wood on the inside of the new trailer. I also ordered a load-leveling kit from Amazon.com and some E Track components for load management.

Stay tuned for more house selling adventures… hopefully, we can put all this behind us soon and get to warmer climes. We definitely need to be in Quartzsite for the annual Alpine Coach “Desert Rat Rally” in January. But I’ll probably be making some trips with the Silverado and trailer to put stuff in storage at the “dirt farm” before then.

Colorado

Selling the House (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/11/27 davidhobden@mac.com 4 Comments

I have to apologize for not posting in quite a while. My time has been totally consumed with all things related to selling a house. It’s almost as if I have a “job” again 🙂

Every day we find ourselves painting, staining, cleaning, etc., and if we’re not doing that, it’s another trip to Home Depot for something or dealing with a contractor for drywall texture repairs, painters, gutter repair/replacement, or concrete driveway repairs…

I just haven’t had the time or desire to update the blog… besides, I figured who wants to hear about the mundane stuff related to selling a house. I appreciate the folks that inquired about our status when I didn’t post for a while. At least I know some people are reading the blog:)

In other news – We are still living in the Urban Escape Vehicle. We were parked in the driveway hooked up to my 50amp outlet when someone complained to the local code enforcement “police”. I have to assume it was a realtor that complained because there are currently a couple other houses on our street that are for sale. We are at the end of a cul-de-sac and the Coach had been parked there for a couple years before we took off on our full-time adventure(s) in May of this year. Oh well… we just moved over to the local Elks Lodge for a reasonable $350 per month and have been commuting to the house each day to get it ready to sell.

Hopefully we can get the house on the market by the beginning of December.

Meanwhile, I took a quick Thanksgiving break and drove the Silverado down to my brother and Mom’s in Casa Grande, AZ on Monday. Stilla stayed at the Coach and the house to help Jennifer (my oldest daughter) with baby-sitting the grandson while she is at work. I intend to get back by next Monday, in time for the new carpet to get installed.

Maybe I can find a reasonably-priced cargo trailer while I’m down here to help us with our “stuff”.

Please stay tuned… I’ll keep posting as time allows. Time to go mingle with the relatives that are showing up now for Thanksgiving at the “dirt farm” in Casa Grande.

Colorado

Got Oxygen? (Pikes Peak – Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/10/19 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

One of the many “must-see” attractions in the Colorado Springs area is Pikes Peak. Therefore, on Wednesday, we took our visitors from Germany up the Pikes Peak Highway. There are a few ways to tackle the summit of this 14,115 ft peak. You can take the aforementioned 19 mile long Pikes Peak Highway which is famous for the annual Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, aka “The Race to the Clouds“ and is touted as the highest….or you can take the Pikes Peak Cog Railway. Of course, if you are so inclined, there is always the 12.6 mile hike up the Barr Trail.

Pikes_Peak_from_Garden_of_the_Gods — Pikes Peak from Garden of the Gods (photo credit: Wikipedia)

We chose Wednesday for a couple reasons. First – the weather report was favorable and the sky was free of clouds, and Second – it fit into the busy schedule of things that Will and Jasmin still have planned for the short time they have left on their vacation. Their flight back to Germany is this coming Monday.

We paid the toll at the entrance station/tollgate. The fee was $40 per carload (up to 5 passengers). I showed my retired military ID and got a couple dollar discount. The attendant cautioned us that blowing snow near the peak may cause a road closure and stated that we should go directly to the top without delay because the weather was expected to get worse as the day progressed. When we left the house the skies were free of clouds, however, by the time we arrived at the tollgate the clouds were quickly coming over the mountains from the West. This is a common problem in the COS area… you never know what’s right over the mountains until it’s on you.

It was just below “tree line“, which is the point where the trees no longer grow due to altitude and climate, that we hit snow from last week’s cooler weather.

Here’s some pics I took through the windshield on the way up.

Clouds coming in fast on way up Pikes Peak Highway.

Pikes Peak Highway (view of Colorado Springs)

After driving almost 19 miles, we finally neared the top. On the way up, I monitored the transmission temperature on the Silverado which went from ~140 degrees at the bottom to almost 215 degrees at the top. I have a “Tow” option on the Silverado, which allows me to press a button on the end of the shift lever to limit the upshifting. It keeps the transmission in a lower gear and therefore the engine runs at a higher RPM. This is better for the vehicle because it’s not shifting between gears all the time which is the leading cause of premature wear and overheating. Higher engine RPMs equal better cooling for two reasons; 1) The cooling fan is pulling a higher volume of air through the radiator and transmission cooler while also blowing more air over the engine, and 2) The water pump is operating faster, therefore circulating more coolant through the system.

Sorry if that’s too much technical talk, I guess it’s the old Warrant Officer “Maintenance Tech” coming out again. But, I believe a lot of blog readers appreciate this type of info.

The wind was blowing pretty hard at the top of the peak, so we didn’t take too many outside pictures… just too cold 🙁

I made a bee-line for the world-famous donuts and hot chocolate. The donuts are touted as the only donuts in the world made above 14,000 feet. I like them… they’re not too sweet or covered in glaze or other stuff.

Here’s Will and Jasmin enjoying their snacks in the concession area.

We braved the elements for a picture in front of the Summit sign.

Summit of Pikes Peak (L to R) Stilla, Joleen, Jasmin & William.

The Cog Train arrived at the top while we were there. They left the doors open after all the passengers disembarked so we could step inside out of the cold wind and blowing snow.

I took a picture of Colorado Springs below from the window of the cog train. We were lucky that the clouds that had came in so fast from the West were up high making for unobstructed views.

We braved the cold and wind (briefly) for another picture at the observation deck area.

After only an hour or so at the top, we headed back down.

Here’s a couple views looking South and West towards Cripple Creek.

The wind continued to blow hard on the way down. The rangers had put up cones at one point to prevent cars from coming up. I guess they couldn’t keep up with the snow and ice that was forming across parts of the road.

It’s important to use low gear going down the mountain. I kept my automatic transmission in Low 1 and sometimes 2. I only used the brakes a couple times at the hair-pin curves. A technique I’ve always used when going down long grades is to only hit the brakes just before a curve… and when I must, I use them briefly and firmly. It still surprises me how many people ignore this and ride their brakes all the way down which effectively takes a couple years off the expected brake pad life in just one trip. Several tourists passed me on the way down – and when they did, you could smell their overheated brakes.

The further we went back down the highway, the better the weather. The winds died down and the temperature went back up to a comfortable 75 degrees versus the 34 degrees at the top.

After an uneventful trip to the bottom, we went back to the house. Will and Jasmin had plans to borrow Joleen’s car to go up to Denver and see the sights there.

Until next time… hope you enjoyed Pikes Peak.

Colorado

Overnight Trip (Royal Gorge, CO)

2014/10/17 davidhobden@mac.com

It’s been rather uneventful here at the homestead for the last several days. Stilla has mostly been playing tour-guide for son William and his girlfriend Jasmin who are visiting from Germany. I usually stay home and putter around while Stilla is out showing them the local sites or doing more shopping. I guess our visitors want to stock up on such things as brand-name clothes, shoes, handbags, etc., which can be found cheaper here in the States.

Now don’t get me wrong, I like shopping as much as the next guy… but I’d rather be shopping at places like Cabela’s, Bass-Pro Shop’s, or Western Outfitter’s. So I find things to do here at the house while they’re out and about.

Although, I did go with on a few excursions. For instance, we went to the grand opening (late in the day) to the first Trader Joe’s that opened here in Colorado Springs. We also visited Fort Carson and wandered through the PX. One evening, we did drinks and appetizers at my youngest daughter, Joleen’s workplace, The Famous Steak House, and then went out for an evening at SouthSide Johnny’s. (Click on the green-font names for more information)

We also hosted a small get-together (pizza party) at the house one evening complete with fireworks that someone had brought.

(L to R) Stepmom Elaine, Dad, Stilla, Jasmin, William

William and his girlfriend Jasmin wanted to experience camping in the RV so we pulled in the slides and lifted the jacks on the Urban Escape Vehicle to go visit the Royal Gorge Bridge & Park near Canon City, CO. We left on Monday and came back on Tuesday. There are several RV parks near the Royal Gorge but most are already closed for the season. We found the Prospectors RV Resort which is open year-round.

It was a little more expensive than we like.. it was a little over $40 for 50 amp full hook-ups. We met the nice owner’s who had just purchased the CG at the beginning of the season. We wish them all the best in the future… nice campground.

It was pretty empty in the CG. But it looked like they had some seasonal workers and a few others that were preparing for a cold Winter stay with skirting and insulation.

William & Jasmin walking little Coach around the Prospectors RV Resort near Royal Gorge, CO

Since it was later in the day on Monday after we settled in at the campground, we decided to drive back into Canon City for sight-seeing and dinner. We’d save the Royal Gorge Bridge for tomorrow.

Before going into Canon City, we took Skyline Drive, which is a ~3-mile one-way paved road with drop-offs on both sides. Go to the link for more images of this cool, scenic and somewhat scary (for some) side trip.

Stilla, William & Jasmin at the top of Skyline Drive, Canon City, CO

Checkout time was noon at the CG but the kind owner’s of the Prospectors RV Resort allowed us to leave the Coach as long as we needed for the day while we visited the Royal Gorge Bridge.

Along the drive from the main highway to the bridge we saw evidence of the fire that almost destroyed the bridge last year. If you missed that in the news: I linked more info on that here, and here, with some images here.

Royal Gorge area, single tree damaged by fire.

Here’s the view driving into the parking lot.

You can see the fire damage on the back of the coal car. Good thing the locomotive survived.

And here’s the new Visitor Center/Entrance to the bridge.

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (front view)

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (souvenir shop)

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (guest services window)

They were charging $16 a person to walk onto the bridge. It’s usually more expensive but they’re charging less since everything else burned down. The gondola across and the cable car down into the gorge are gone.

View of Royal Gorge Bridge after exiting the Visitor Center/Entrance building.

Newly renovated Visitors Center at Royal Gorge Bridge. (rear view)

William and Jasmin in front of the Royal Gorge Bridge

The old cable cars that used to take people down to the bottom of the gorge is out-of-service. I overheard a park representative telling another tourist that it requires $9 million in repairs and may not be fixed. Here’s a picture of the track.

We walked across the bridge.

William & Jasmin on the Royal Gorge Bridge (holding the Colorado flag)

Here’s Stilla and I on the bridge. I’m wearing the doggie front-pack I blogged about in an earlier post. We bought it in Florence, OR back in September.

View from the Royal Gorge Bridge (cables at top of photo)

Will and Jasmin took some photos of the gorge below through gaps in the planks.

Have to include this pic… one of my favorites.

A shuttle service takes people back and forth across the bridge all day. How do you get that job?

Stilla walking on the Royal Gorge Bridge.

The gondola is gone but we could see evidence of reconstruction.

There’s a lot of rebuilding going on. This is the South side of the gorge.

We walked on up to the Sky Coaster.

We chickened out and didn’t do it. There was a moment when Jasmin and I were ready to go 😉

Stilla, William & Jasmin on the south side of Royal Gorge at overlook near the Sky Coaster

View of Royal Gorge Bridge from the South side.

View of the Royal Gorge from the South side overlook

We walked back to the Visitor Center building and had lunch on the newly renovated deck.

They even put a fire place and heat lamps on the new deck. Pretty nice!

Many folks probably don’t know that you can stop at the parking lot and take a trail down to an overlook for good views of the bridge and visitor center. This is good if you can’t afford the entrance fee.

View of the Visitor Center deck from the North looking SouthWest

We returned to the CG and hooked up the Silverado for the return trip home. Will and Jasmin have plans for the evening.

Tomorrow we plan on driving up Pikes Peak, so stay tuned…

Colorado

Uncle Alan’s (Floride, CO)

2014/10/08 davidhobden@mac.com 2 Comments

On Tuesday I rode the Harley over to my Dad’s house to help him load a log-splitter into his trailer. My Uncle Alan (Dad’s youngest brother) needed it at his house for some logs that are too big to do by hand.

Stilla chauffeured our visitors from Germany around town in the Silverado to do their own thing.

Meanwhile, I chauffered Dad and Stepmom Elaine in their Jeep with trailer attached up the pass (I-24 West from COS) to my Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly’s house. They live on approximately 10 acres that borders the Florissant Fossil beds. It is halfway between Florissant and Divide, CO so my Uncle calls his homestead “Floride”. Get it?

Here we are after unloading the heavy log-splitter from the trailer.

My Uncle Alan (Dad’s brother) got a quick block of instruction on how to operate the splitter from Dad.

Here’s the wood he wants to split.

And here’s some of the wood he already split (by hand!).

And here’s more piles of wood he already split!… Unk – I think you got enough to last awhile…

Here’s a picture of the Hobden homestead in “Floride”, CO.

We then had a picnic, complete with campfire, at a spot near the house that Alan keeps on the ready with picnic table, chairs and fire pit. Here’s Uncle Alan burning some hot dogs.

Stepmom Elaine and Aunt Beverly set the picnic table.

Dad & Elaine tried out the comfortable swing while waiting for the dogs and beans to finish cooking.

After our fine picnic, Uncle Alan loaded the extra picnic accessories into his little trailer to take back to the house.

We had a little fun touring around the property in Alan’s older model ATV. Here’s Dad going for a spin.

Off into the horizon…

For the afternoon, Uncle Alan suggested we go on a hike to take a look at a house that sits on over 300 acres located on the West side of Pikes Peak. Us folks from COS would call it the “back-side” of Pikes Peak but my Uncle says it’s the “front-side” for him. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.

Interesting story – a gentleman by the name of Harvey Carter owned the land and house until his passing in 2012. He was a pioneer rock-climber and entrepreneur that envisioned a ski area being developed on his land, but alas, it wasn’t to be. Here’s a couple links for more information on the guy: Link here for obit and here for a short video. It seems that the Broadmoor Hotel bought the land and house after Harvey’s passing and worked some sort of trade deal with the National Forest Service. It is now NFS land. The Colorado Springs newspaper, “The Gazette” did an article on this here.

My Uncle is a real-estate agent by trade and met this guy a couple years ago. He got an exclusive personal tour of his land and first- hand account of Harvey Carter’s vision.

We had to park about a half-mile away from the house and hike in. The spot where we parked at is at the end of the dirt road past the Crags campground. It was good to walk off the hot dogs we had for lunch, but it was slow going due to the high altitude.

Here’s a view of the trail we hiked on the backside of Pikes Peak.

Many of the Aspens still have their leaves, but not for long…

And here you can see one of the peaks just coming into view as we hiked the road on the back-side of Pikes Peak.

We came upon a tree that had fallen across the road. Unsure what could have caused it – maybe high winds.

Pikes Peak as viewed from the West side.

Once the trail we walked joined the main road. We could see that the road had been clearly widened and graded recently… not a good sign. Alan speculated that the forest service may have already demolished the house and had widened the road to get the dump trucks and bulldozers in.

We hiked and hiked… Alan kept telling us that it’s “just around the next bend”. And he’d say the same thing after the next bend…

View of Pikes Peak from the West side (you can see the “Crags” on the left)

Uncle Alan at the end of the road ahead of us where the house used to sit.

When we finally got to the end of the road, we found that the house had been demolished. All that’s left is dirt and boulders. Hardly any evidence that a house was ever there.

Sure must have been a nice view from the house back in the day.

We tromped around on the dirt that had been brought in to cover the old homesite. There was still some glass and electrical wiring mixed in with the dirt. Whoever did the demolition for the Forest Service must have been the low bidder as usual.

We enjoyed the scenic views… and then headed back down to the Jeep.

We said our goodbyes to Uncle Alan and Aunt Beverly when we got back to his house. Thanks for another memorable day Unk! See you soon.

We hooked the empty trailer back up to the Jeep and headed back down the pass. Dad treated at Wendy’s in Woodland Park where we stopped for supper on the way down.

It was already dark by the time we got back to Dad’s house. So after storing the trailer, I jumped on the Harley and went straight home to see what Stilla and the Germans did for the day. I think they spent some time at Helen Hunt Falls and did some more shopping.

In other news – I heard about the eclipse of the moon tonight, so I set the alarm for 4:15 AM and got this picture.

Hopefully you can see the moon almost eclipsed. I took the pic with my iPhone and probably should have pulled out the Canon S100 but didn’t. As usual, if you click on any of the photos in this blog, it should enlarge for easier viewing.

Until next time… stay tuned…

Colorado

Yay! Willi’s Here (Colorado Springs, CO)

2014/10/06 davidhobden@mac.com

I spent most of Sunday detailing the Silverado after I downloaded the Harley and everything else we’ve been carrying around in the truck for the last several months. I put the bikes, the motorcycle, the inflatable Sea-Eagle boat, the trolling motor, metal detector, firewood, etc., into the garage because we needed the room to pick up son William and his new girlfriend Jasmin from the airport in Denver.

They came in on Iceland-Air from Frankfurt, Germany to DIA. I was supposed to drive to Denver to pick them up with Stilla and youngest daughter Joleen, but I got bumped at the last moment when oldest daughter Jennifer and grandson Kaan wanted to go too. So I stayed home and waited while Stilla took the rest of the family to meet the flight’s expected 7 PM arrival time.

They came in on time and Stilla got everyone back home by 9 PM. They were pretty jet-lagged, so we didn’t stay up too late.

The next morning (Monday), Stilla made us all a hearty breakfast of eggs, sausage and toast. Then we all piled into the Silverado again for a fun-filled day of sightseeing and shopping.

We started off by driving through the Garden of the Gods park after a quick stop at Wells Fargo bank to exchange Euros for Dollars.

Here’s William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock.

William and Jasmin in front of the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

Rock formations near the Balanced Rock in Garden of the Gods park.

After checking out the Balanced Rocks, we stopped at the Trading Post in the Garden of the Gods to look at souvenirs and then we went on over to the Kissing Camels to walk around a bit.

Kissing Camels rock formation in the Garden of the Gods

L to R: Joleen, Jasmin, William, Stilla and little Coach in Garden of the Gods park.

I almost forgot what the Silverado looked like without the Harley sitting in the back.

After our tour of the Garden of the Gods, we stopped by my Dad and Stepmom Elaine’s house. They live just down the street from the Trading Post and were glad to see William again. It’s been over 2 years since he was last here. We didn’t stay long because everyone was getting hungry and it was almost time to pick up Kaan from school.

The rest of the day was spent shopping at the various stores in the Broadmoor Towne Center aka Southgate. William and Jasmin were interested in stocking up on some new clothes to take back to Germany. We also ate at the Panda Express located there.

I think I’ll take a break from the sight-seeing and shopping tomorrow. I’ll let Stilla be the chauffeur for the day. I think my Dad could use some help getting a log-splitter up to my Uncle Alan’s house near Florissant, CO.

So, til next time.. stay tuned.

Urban Escape Vehicle .com

Category Archives: Colorado

There and Back Again (Colorado Springs, CO)

House for Sale (Colorado Springs, CO)

We Can See the End (Colorado Springs, CO)

Taking a Day Off (Colorado Springs, CO)

Thanksgiving (Casa Grande, AZ)

Selling the House (Colorado Springs, CO)

Got Oxygen? (Pikes Peak – Colorado Springs, CO)

Overnight Trip (Royal Gorge, CO)

Uncle Alan’s (Floride, CO)

Yay! Willi’s Here (Colorado Springs, CO)

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