Mittelstaedt family
Vacation 2011 B

Colorado Springs, Colorado

Thusday - 23 June 2011

at Fountain View RV Park - with so many shedding Cottonwood trees that it looked like snow.
It was close to a major road but the noise was not bad.

This Squirrel seen in the RV Park was the darkest we saw on the whole trip.

As soon as we got parked and set up we used the daylight left to visit the western part of the Garden of the Gods which is a large city park.

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Near the top, and on the sides of one of the major formations (the one on thr right) rock climbing is forbidden.
It is where there are several falcon nests. The falcons make a good living hunting pidgeons.

The Ballenced Rock is one of the major attractions

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there is a lot of rock climbing for registered climbers

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Joseph had an unofficial try

Friday - 24 June 2011

on the 2nd day we also visited the indian cliff dwellings
and the museum there.

This was a privately owned and one could climb on them and touch nearly everything.

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most native American baskets were made coil fasion

Some decorated pots and other artifacts.
Native American pots were built up from coiled rolls of clay then smoothed to shape.

The trailer was not towing level and as we saw a Camping World store at the southern edge of Colorado Springs.
We took the opportunity to get a ball mount with a better level of drop.
We also got a small folding table which became our primary table for eating and doing almost everything we needed a flat surface to accomplish.

We also solved a vexing problem...
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Drawer problem - rail connectors broke - nylon string duck tape and more screws fixed it

This RV park was the first with sewer connections low enough to allow proper draining from the very low connections on the R-pod.
We took the opportunity to drain and rinse both the black water tank and the grey water tank.
We also emptied and re-filled the fresh water tank because the water in it,
which had been drained and re-filled in McAllen, had a very strong plastic taste.
As it tuned out after a day in the tank the water got very plastic tasting. We only used tank fresh water for washing.
For drinking we used water stored in plastic containers which previously had contained cranberry juice.
These are not round, are of robust construction are easy to store and do not give the water any bad taste.

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Next stop - Rocky Mountain National Park - north of Denver and west of Estes Park, Colorado.