After deciding Galveston wasn’t in the cards at the time, we re-routed to Denver. We booked a room at The Curtis Hotel and made reservations at Maggiano’s for dinner. We finally got to M’s choice for dinner after they got angry at me for choosing on their actual birthday. The adult children joined us for a pleasant dinner. The Curtis Hotel is a funky artsy hotel, which is why we booked it. They have themed rooms that look super cool. We stayed on the disco floor. Sadly, we didn’t fit in any of the hyper-themed rooms with the four of us. We still enjoyed our room and our stay.
After accomplishing our work to-do lists, we checked out of The Curtis Hotel and made our way toward Grand Lake. We went the long way to stop at the outlets in Silverthorne. First, we stopped at Smokin’ Yards BBQ in Idaho Springs for a delicious lunch. We’d visited their location in Denver a few times, but this is their original location. After a finger-licking good meal, we saw bighorn sheep on the rocks above their place.
Next, we stopped at the Columbia Sportswear outlet store in Silverthorne, CO, for our winter gear. We each picked out a pair of boots, gloves, ear warmers, and a few other items. When the cashier slid four large boot boxes across the counter at us, Tom mentioned the boxes would not fit in the car. “Can we leave the boxes?” I asked. “If you do, you can’t return the boots,” she answered. “That’s ok. We’re just going to wear them. We’re kinda living out of our car right now, and those boxes won’t fit.” She removes all of the boots from their boxes, slides each pair across to us, and as she is handing us our bag, she says, “I hope things get better for you!” It took a few moments for what she said to register, and I chuckled as I reached the door. We’d just spent $500 in their store, and she thought we were down on our luck. Bless her heart. It was very nice of her. We got a good laugh. In our minds, it seems silly to spend that much money on Columbia wear if we were genuinely unhoused.
We pulled up to our Airbnb condo, and there was a lot of snow. Everywhere. There were not many cars in the cute condominium complex. We traipsed upstairs and into the warmth of the condo. After settling in, Tom and the girls went to the store for food and firewood. My fibromyalgia doesn’t get along with cold weather, the entire reason we moved out of Colorado. I changed into sweats, pulled out my computer, and waited for the extra coziness of a fire in the fireplace. We built a fire that crackled as we worked, schooled, and read.
We spent two weeks in the mountain condo looking over the town of Grand Lake. On our way to the grocery store in Granby, we saw the largest herd of elk any of us have ever seen. There were hundreds in a large field just off the highway. We spent a lot of time working and schooling, but we couldn’t only work and school. One morning, we completed our work and school and headed out to Colorado Adventure Park for an afternoon of tubing. I didn’t tube. With the fibro, I am always afraid of taking a spill. I never do well with falls, no matter how minor. And I was miserable enough.
Late one afternoon, we headed over to Hot Sulphur Springs to take advantage of their natural hot springs. Is there anything better than sitting in hot springs while the air around you is chilled? It’s the best time for a hot spring. We visited four or five different springs at different temps. We even found an extra warm cave in one of the pools. Am I the only one who gets a little freaked out by that kinda thing? I know nothing will happen, but my irrational brain kicks in that a ginormous, blind shark is going to come get me. Just me? Ok.
Grand Lake, CO, was not a horrible place to call home for a couple of weeks. Even if there was snow on the ground. I hoped for a good snowstorm while we were there, but I didn’t get my wish. I was hoping to get snowed in with a fire. Maybe next time. On March 5, 2021, it was time to pick up our home. We could finally start moving in. For real. We drove back to Denver and the body shop who fixed our roof, then we checked into Casey’s RV Hideaway in Elizabeth, CO.
We checked out of Casey’s on March 9, 2021, with plans to stay at a state park in Mack, CO. Just outside of Denver, the RV started screaming at us to stop again. We were still limited to 25 MPH up hills. Apparently, our best friend Jack didn’t repair the problem like he said he did. We stopped for dinner in Grand Junction and checked the weather. It appeared we would be waking up to snow in Mack. That was not our ideal, so we continued on and took the Moab, UT exit heading South. For a couple of hours, we had rain. Heavy rain at times. We made it out of the storm and had nice weather for the rest of our non-stop drive.
We limped into Oceanside, where we camped at Oceanside Harbor for a couple of different birthday parties the girls planned at the beach. Camping at the Oceanside Harbor is not a cheap place to lay your head for a few nights considering it is a parking space in a parking lot, and you can’t put your slide out. It is cheaper off-season than it is during tourist season. Either season you must purchase a day parking pass and a night parking pass for each parking spot. But it is right on the beach, and the harbor is on the other side. You really can’t get a better location unless you are on the beach, which is not allowed in Oceanside. We arrived Wednesday, and the girls had a party planned for Saturday and Sunday. Friday night, while riding skateboards in the harbor parking lot, I heard a scream of pain, and when I looked out, Liv was lying on the ground holding her leg, crying. Liv is not a crier, so I knew something was wrong. I turned down the ambulance a woman had called, got her inside, iced, and discovered she had sprained her ankle. Having crutches on the beach for two birthday parties was not fun for her. Neither was the next 6-8 weeks.
We made an appointment at Oceanside Truck to look into the screaming and our airbags. We were informed that there was something wrong with the fuel system, and only a Cummins authorized repair shop could fix our issue. They said there was no problem with our airbags. The Southern California Cummins repair shops were months out, and we needed it fixed sooner than that. Oceanside Truck said we could limp the RV across the country to Illinois, where we were headed to remodel, and the fuel system issue shouldn’t be a big issue. We finished with our commitments in Oceanside and hit the road for Central Illinois.
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