Happy 24th Birthday Kristina!!!!!! 21 AUG 09

We made it 380 miles a pretty good day. We stopped in Checotah, OK and are staying at the Onapa RV park. Nice park quiet and peaceful. Off for home in the morning. We have about 3 1/2 hours left to reach the house.

Oasis RV Resort Amarillo, TX 20 AUG 09

What a day of hard hard driving, we were running against the wind all day long and boy was the wind blowing. Dust storms from Roswell, NM all the way to just outside of Amarillo, TX. We got to the RV park at around 5:00pm and set up for the evening. OH I almost forgot to tell you my eye tooth on the left side came loose and out!!!! Man do I look good. We went to Walgreen's and found a temporary repair kit for crowns that come loose. Sure hope it work because the dentist can't see me till Tuesday. All is good and we are headed closer to home in the morning.

On the way home 20 AUG 09

We are leaving Ruidoso, NM this morning and hope to make Elk City, OK this evening and on to the house Friday (Kristina's Birthday). This all hings on my ability to drive 7 and 1/2 hours.

Oh I forgot to tell you that we got to see an ELK last evening. He was a real nice looking young bull probable a 2x2 but a real good looking animal, I did take pictures but as luck would have it it was to dark for them to come out.

Ruidoso, NM 18 AUG 09

We made Ruidoso buy about 3:30pm and are in a nice RV park. It sure is a lot cooler and very pleasant. We have some shade and all. We set things up and took Cooper for a walk. Rested some of the afternoon and then went out for a drive in the Lincoln National Forest. We saw Mule deer right off the bat then Donna said OMGoodness, I said what, she said I think it is a bear. I backed up and sure enough it was a large black bear and another bear behind it a ways. We also saw a large buck and then headed back to town. Stopped in for Kentucy Fried Chicken and then home for the evening. Of course we went out without the camera. Not very smart on my part!!!!!

El Paso, TX 18 AUG 09

We have had a great time in EL Paso visiting with Diana and the boys. We were able to go out to dinner with Diana, Ben and Angila and Gee's girlfriend Karen. It was nice to see Karen again. Diana was able to find a place that was able to evaluate my gold piece. It was a 28 gram chunck of 12 caret gold, not to bad for a find at about 6-8inches deep in the mountains of Colorado. Thankks to Diana for finding a place to get it checked out.
We are on our way north and towards home today not sure just were we will end up today but will be in New Mexico probably.

El Paso TX. 16 AUG 09

We got to Fort Bliss RV park at about 11:00 am and set the RV up. Hot Hot it is Hot!! We got on our way to Diana's house just after 12:00pm. We pulled in the drive and got out of the truck and as Donna was getting Cooper out I was looking over Diana's new Suzuki car. Anthony who had seen us drive in did not have any idea who we were so he went to Diana's room and told her that someone had come up and was looking over her jeep. Diana came to the door along with Anthony and I was standing their. I asked to see Diana and Anthony looked away to tell her as I opened the door and let Cooper in, Diana came around the door and did not recognize me at first until she saw Donna come up behind me. Great Surprise!!! We all sat around and talked for a short while then I said I was Hungary and we headed out to Cracker Barrel for a light lunch. We had ordered our lunch and Diana came up with a plan to get Ben and his girl friend to come over and we would surprise them. It worked and after we finished lunch Ben and his girl friend came by. Sure was great to see Ben and to see just how happy he is with his girl friend. After all that we headed to Discount tires to see and surprise Polo, got there and he was at lunch. Diana called him and he asked how Aunt Donna was. We had left Cooper at the house and he went home for lunch and saw Cooper. Well no surprise but as usual great to see Polo again. We should get to visit more with both boys as they are off Sunday. Back to the house and some time on the computer setting up Diana's Email for her and just talking etc. We decided to go see the new Pug pups that Hilda a friend of Diana's has. We got to Hilda's and the dogs had a great time , but it took the pups a while to take to Cooper because he was breathing so loud it scared them. We sat around and talked and at around 7:00pm decided to go eat. Hilda took us in her Mercadis SUV,what a nice ride. We went to a GREAT Mexican restaurant and had a fabulous meal. Got back to the RV at about 11:15pm and low and behold no power the park had lost power for some reason. We just went too bed and I am not sure when the power was restored.

Leaving South Fork,CO 14 AUG 09

Well today is the day we had been dreading since the day we arrived at South Fork, we were on the road at 0830 headed toward El Paso, TX. We said our good byes to our friends Dale and Donna Fletcher who had invited us on this trip to start with. Dale and Donna were just new friends when this trip started but are now our very good friends from Peculiar, MO. We had just about the greatest time anyone could ever imagine. Dale and Donna are both great travailing companions and we sure hope to make many more trips and adventures with them in the future. It was sure hard to leave their company. (Thanks to you both for the great time!!!)
We arrived at the Lake Side RV Resort in Elephant Butte, NM at about 5:45PM. What a nice park very very clean and just everything in complete order. We are off to El Paso in the morning and are planning on staying at Fort Bliss while we are there. We started our day at 54 degrees and ended it at 86 degrees what a change, Cooper was not a real fan of the change but as usual he is doing well.

Back in South Fork from the Forest 12 AUG 09

We got back in South Fork and are staying at the RV park we were in at the start of this adventure and it sure has been a great one! We have been out in the National Forest for two weeks and have done everything from gold panning and detecting to bird and animal watching. We have done some real enjoyable jeeping in Dales jeep and seen lots of beautiful country doing it. We have made many side trips out and been to Creed, Lake City, Silverton, Pagosa Springs and many of the surrounding areas. The picture of Dale with the Humming bird on his hand and the Orange H.bird in the back ground is just great. Dale drug out the Marshmallows and we enjoyed the great old time favorite roasted marshmallows.
We are going to head south and towards home tomorrow.

Happy Birthday to Mom!! Sunday 09 AUG 09

Happy Birthday to Mom.
Well we are still doing great in the forest. We have been busy taking day trips and mountain rides, lots of beautiful sights. We went over a pass called Engineers Pass it took 4 hours to get down the back side of the mountain. We found out later that the pass should only be taken by experienced 4x4 drivers so I as of now fit that category. It was not real pleasant at the time but we did see lots of old mines and sights. I found two flakes of GOLD yesterday back at Sumitville this time we were using gold pans. What a blast when you can find gold so easily. No real value but sure is pretty in the vile.
This morning it was 25 degrees and it was just beautiful. We was our Buck and Doe again also. Will catch up again soon.

National Forest RIO GRAND

We moved to the national forest last Tuesday and have no internet or phone service BUT we have trout right out the door of the RV. We came into town for laundry and groc. so just a note to let you know we will catch up later. The creek is just behind the RV..

Day 7 27 July Mesa Verde National Park

Off to Mesa Verde at about 7:45 AM. We loaded our goodies all of us including Cooper the traveling Pug in the Dodge and away we went. We drove down HWY 160 to Pagosa Springs and as we were going through town saw a goldsmiths shop so we stopped and visited with a real nice lady that was the goldsmith. Summer Phillips she was just great gave us all the info we needed so we could find out the true value of the chunk. Summer weighed the chunk, it weighed 28 Grams of a Troy ounce. She also told us that she felt it has some sort of alloy in it and was more like processed gold than a nugget, that is how we felt because of the color. Summer said that the value would just depend on the actual pure gold content but figured that low ball was over $500.00. She also cleaned and steamed Donna's rings and wow were they shinny. Summer gave us a mans name in Durango, CO and we were going through on the way so we stopped and talked with Bill Cook owner of the Jewelry Works in Durango. Bill was very nice and went over everything about the chunk with us. He suggested as did Summer that we get in contact with a gold refining company and they both recommended the same place and both said to tell them that they had recommended them. So that was great and back on the road we went. We got to the park and were able to enter free on Dales Golden Pass great savings. The main part of the park was some 20 miles in and up to around 7000FT elevation. The Cliff Dwellings are just amazing and I would have never guessed that there were so many of them. We got to the Museum and walked around a while then outside to a picnic area and had lunch then off to view the park and dwellings closer. We had a wonderful time in the park and headed home around 4:30 PM. On the way we say a place that raised Elk and stopped on the way home to see them closer but they were laying down in the back of the field. We stopped again in Pagosa Springs and had the best dinner we have had, just a great meal. Home at about 9:30 PM what a day it was just fantastic, we all were just wore plumb out.

Day 6 26 July Creed

Today we just hung around till up in the morning and then we all decided that maybe some place in Creed might be able to tell us the weight and value of the chunk. So off the Creed we went. We hit all the places in town that were open and no luck. We had a good time walking the streets and then had a nice lunch before coming home. We spent the evening just resting and then over to Dale & Donnas for Mexican Dominoes, and the WINNERS were Barry & Dale!!!!!!!!! We got lucky and took the lady's, but we all had fun..
We planned to head to Measa Verde National park tomorrow and spend the day. It is about 150 miles from South Fork. End of another great day in South Fork, Colorado

Day 5 25 July Surprises and Elevation

This morning we got started at about 8:00AM and at 8,145ft in elevation took off to a small ghost town Summitville,CO an old GOLD mining town. The trip to the town was just out of sight with beauty, the road wound up the most beautiful mountain valley. There were places that you could get right down to a winding stream and camp,we saw quite a few campers. The trip to Summitville was just spectacular and we thought could not be bettered. We arrived at Summitville and I got out my metal detectors for Dale and I to do some detecting around the old buildings. We got up the small hill to the buildings and started to pick up nails it seemed that the place was just covered in nails and junk, along with biting fly's and mosquitoes, they were killers just all over us. We were detecting for a while and I struck a signal not much better than any other but deeper so I was bound and determined to find what ever it was. I dug 6-8" and kept loosing the signal but just kept digging and siffing until I hit something with my digger and when I got it out of the hole I started to just shake I could not believe that I had what looked like a rather large piece of gold!!!! I went over to Dale who was hard at it and held out my hand to show him, I was almost out of breath with excitement. Dale looked at it and said do you think it is gold I said that I was not sure but it looked like it was. We dug around for a while longer thew took the piece down to the Jeep to show the Donnas. We were all pretty excited and just not sure it was real gold. We headed on up the road when I spotted a guy sitting in the stream gold panning, I told Dale to stop and I would walk down and just ask the guy he surly new what it was. Well Dale and I walked down the hill and the guy came across the stream to talk to us. I showed him the chunk and his eyes almost popped out even with him trying to show no emotion. He took a knife from dale and scratched the chunk and said it the real thing you have a nice piece of GOLD. We talked a few minutes and the back up the hill to the Jeep.(Did I mention that at this time we were at about 10,000FT elevation and were having quite the time breathing so the hill clime back to the Jeep about killed us) We told the Donnas what he said and all started speculating on how much the chunk weighed. We headed up the road again enjoying the scenery and everything. We came to this road that lead up to the top of the mountain and decided to give it a try. We got to the top at 12,603FT what a sight it was awesome. We were going to eat lunch but it started to sleet and boy did it come down. We made our way back to the main road and on towards Del Norte a town on HWY160 east of South Fork. Dales brother had an airplane hanger at the airport in this town. The rest of the drive was as pretty as the first. We got to the airport and sat in the Jeep and ate lunch because the sleet had turned to rain. After lunch we drove some of the back roads to the north of Del Norte, some very pretty areas but just hills and planes land, high desert. We completed a large circle drive and then back to HWY 160 and west to South Fork and home. When we got back Donna and I decided that we would set up the screen tent so we could sit out side in the evenings without the mosquito's. We sat around just pondering the value of our find and going over the beautiful sights was saw. We ate dinner and I went back outside for something and I saw a beautiful rainbow. I got Donna and showed her. She said that was the lucky rainbow!!

Day Four 24 July River & Mountains

Up with Cooper early and just messing around camp when Dale came out,we talked a while and he wanted to take a quick drive around town to show me the area. We drove around and went to the Masonic park a beautiful area that is full of old cabins for members of the Masonic order. Dales brother had a cabin in there up till about three years ago and sold it. We stopped at the Rainbow store they have just about everything one could imagine. Back to the park and we decided to pack a lunch and do some sight seeing (exploring). Dale knows the area real well and off we went we drove back through the Masonic park and along the river. Then Dale headed up in the Mtns on an old road he remembered and we ended up at a beautiful spot above the Rio Grand river. (Pic) We came out of the Mtns and down the road to a spot by the river and had our lunch. While eating a woman and her dog came over to visit, boy Cooper had a great time they ran and played. The lady was real nice and is a camp host at a place down near Pagosa Springs. The camp area is a no hook up area meaning no elec, water, sewer. We had a nice visit with her and will drive down to see her when we go that direction. After lunch we headed into Creed a real neat town on hwy 149 north of South Fork, we walked around town awhile and Donna bought me a present, a bag of Moose poop. (candy) We drove back to SF and then went out to dinner. We will not be eating at that place again. During the day and last evening when we were in the park we were trying to set Donna F's new DISH sat up and we have worked and work and no luck. Ours set up right away. Off to bed Cooper is so tired he went to bed before us.

Day Three Thursday 23 July

We got up early and were starting our day when Donna told me she had not slept well due to hearing a cat fight or something during the night. Later when I stepped out of the RV you could tell that a Dove in the cedar tree right at the door drew its last breath and became a meal for something!! Well Dale & Donna were up early and we left at 7:30AM. Everyone is ready to get to South Fork, CO. I was real happy with the way our RV was doing we were having no trouble at all keeping up with Dale and his Diesel Pusher, I had been concerned that it would be hard to keep up on the hills but we were doing OK. We got a great plus when about 45 min out we passed into Mountain time zone and gained an hour that made us all feel better knowing we would make South Fork today. We got to Walsenburg, CO and stopped for a break this is a town on I25 and at the bottom of the Mtn pass we had to go over 9,350 Ft. I was real nerves about making it over the top pulling the Dodge and had just about decided to unhook and have Donna follow me over the 8 miles to the top. As we took off for the top I decided it would go and we followed Dale up, at about 8300FT Dale started slowing down and I let off to stay behind him but when I did the RV would not pic back up so we were losing power, I shifted down and it did no good so I was shifting back to drive and went to neutral and then back to drive, well that ended it all we just died right on the road at 8450FT. I called Dale on the radio and told him and he pulled over right quick. I got out of sorts for a few short minutes but gained control pretty fast.(I am getting better with that lose of control thing). I was able to get it started and pulled up and over behind Dale off the road. It would start but just not have any power to move, Dale came back and I unhooked the Dodge as Dale looked things over. We crawled all under it and decided that maybe it was the fuel filter we found the filter but were just not sure as to the cause of the problem. Donna was going through the manuals (that are worthless) to see if she could find anything. As all this was taking place the weather was getting colder and it started to rain and hail. All through the time we were down I would try to start it on an off, well ti started and this time the RPM's stayed up like they should and I was able to accelerate with out it missing. We sat for a few minutes and I decided that I would head up the road to the next turn off and if it was running OK just keep going and I would call and Donna would follow me up. I took off and the RV never missed a beat it ran perfectly and over the pass and on into Alamosa to the Wal-Mart. We got into town and followed the GPS to wal-mart, only the last turn it said right and it should have said left. Donna and I wondered through the back streets winding out way back as Dale and Donna found a place to park and waited on us. We started the generator for cooper to have air and headed in for grocery's.
We came out all happy with our wal-mart fix and when we go to the RV the generator was off well I had for got that at high altitude you have to change a setting so I did. We went to eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant and then back too the RV's to head to South Fork after we gassed up. I hooked the Dodge back up and we were off, one hour left. We got to the park and were getting set up when we found out that the park had no water but it would be fixed the next day. We got settled in and down finally and that was that day!!!!!!!!!!!

Day Two, Winona, KS Wednesday 22, July

Started off at around 8:30 AM. We followed Dale & Donna and headed to Winona, KS to a little city park that they had stopped at before. On the way we took a short break at a rest area in the Flint Hills. (Pic) of the two RV from the observation area and Dale walking up to meet us. We made real good time and were averaging about 60 miles an hour,(We drove 400 miles) not to shabby for the RV's. We got into the city park early afternoon and parked to just decide were we would set up. Dale and I walked to the back side and thought it would offer more protection from the road noise so we went back to the RV's to move. I was walking beside Dales trailer and a Gigantic Huge Monsterest SNAKE and I crossed paths, I believe the snake went under his trailer but not sure as I was about 100 yards away when I stopped running, Not in the least bit scared just being very respectful of his place in nature. Got over the shakes and we moved the RV's and set up for the evening. Donna & Donna decided on Grilled burgers so I set into getting the grill ready as Dale made a few adjustments to the hitch on his trailer. We all set down and had a good meal and Donna F made a delicious Blueberry pie that we all enjoyed for desert. We had all decided to head into our RV's for the night and what a surprise we all got from Mother Nature. We had a tremendous wind and rain storm blow in and all _______ broke lose for about 45 min. I had opened the bed room windows knowing that one of them is hard to close so we ran to the BR and were fighting the window as Mother Nature was trying to take us to OZ LAND. We ended up getting it closed from the inside but sustained a little water on the bed, but no real big deal as it was on Donna's side!!!!!! After the storm we gave it up for the night. Sorry to lazy to take many pictures.