July 12, Colorado State Park Camping

Jeff left out of the Walmart parking lot pretty early, and I got up as well. He ran back up to where we stopped yesterday. Although we try to stay where we stop, sometimes it just doesn't work out. So, we apply the theory of Equivalent Miles. In other words, it really doesn't matter if he goes back UP the road a bit, as long as the miles are covered.

Went in to Walmart for a few items, and spent over $100. How does that happen? Water, ice, some cleaning supplies, a few food items, RV stuff, and BAM! It drives me nuts. This isn't even Central Market, and I spend less there! So I also got some laundry done while Jeff was going upstream. There was no one else at this laundromat, but it was huge. And they had a dry cleaners, a car wash, a dog wash, and showers, all for a price. Interesting place. About 1/3 of their machines were "out of service" though. Thankfully it didn't take me too long.

I wish I had checked my email earlier. Since we don't have good service here, it has kind of become a secondary concern, particularly on the weekend. However, had I checked, I would have seen the email from Mary LaFrance, my friend Margaret's sister, who was passing through Craig and invited me to breakfast at the Village Inn. Sadly, by the time I saw it, over an hour had passed. It would have been perfect, though. I needed coffee this morning BAD!

Craig is an interesting town. Remember I mentioned yesterday that the Colorado Visitor Info Center in Dinosaur had a wooden bench that was carved at the Craig competition? Well, Craig has them everywhere! They are really cool. Apparently their collection grows annually, also.

 

 

 

 

 

Craig also has a couple of really good murals on a couple buildings. I thought they were pretty amazing!

 

And their furniture store has a complete brass menagerie!

Don't think this guy is metal....

 

 

Mailboxes for Sale!

As usual, Jeff is making friends while walking through town taking pics. This guy is a retired Captain from Craig, and is now on the board or commission, whatever they actually call it, for the fire department here.

Another cool thing that happened today was that Jeff met the Craig Hot Shots. He passed their station, and there were a bunch of them there. He had quite a chat with them, and he said they seemed delighted about what we are doing. And they gave him a sticker of their patch. We have a growing collection of patches and stickers!

So, Jeff has continued his habit of finding weird things on the side of the road. Check this out!

A simple software update would probably have
saved it!

 

No idea... snuff box?

We did find the Flower of the Day. I love the way there is just a simple, random, single sunflower growing up out of the asphalt.

And there is a coal fired power plant outside of town, that they seem particularly fond of!

These signs were all over town!

I am running out of steam, but here are a few of the awesome landscape pics from today.

The road ahead....

 

There are so many pretty ponies out here!

I know that we drove to Craig yesterday, but today we actually did the run through it. And out the other side. Traffic is much worse on Hwy. 40 on the east side of town! Or maybe it is just the weekend traffic. Not sure. But I do know that there are not as many 18 wheeler's on this stretch. Once we got ready to quit for the day, just past mile marker 100, there was nothing.

No place to pull off the road. We drove a few miles, and found a Colorado state park! With camping, and hookups, but alas, no internet.... so I am using the 4G. The worst they can do is charge us more for more data usage. But, this is a pretty nice state park. There is a building with great showers and laundry. We got the last spot, actually. The ranger let us have it because it was late Saturday, and even though they always hold that one for over-booking screw ups, he figured it was late enough. Other than that spot, they were full and booked solid. This could be a problem as we wander east! We got lucky this time....

Sunset from the campground.

 

Chef Jeff hard at work! 

So, for all of you that really enjoy the Mailbox of the Day, we seem to have hit the mother lode! I guess we just had to get back into a sizable town to find the personalities in the US Mail!

No idea what this is supposed to be!