#13-Not So Happy Trails

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

We'll, we've had better days....that's for sure. But I guess you don't go on a trip like this and expect everything to go along just perfectly, do you?
We prepared to depart from our "home" in Laporte for the past 10 days feeling excited about what was ahead, yet a little sad about leaving the people and a place we truly enjoyed. It was another very warm day as we set out, toward the town of Gypsum, about 200 miles away. We would head south towards Denver and then west on I-70. We have always tried to avoid the interstates on our travels but made an exception today in an effort to keep the trike cooler, going faster in the heat. It was the first time in several days that we were hauling the camper and we were a little nervous about it being too hard on the trike.  Well, to start out, I picked a bad route on the way to Denver. We unknowingly ended up going through several small busy towns where it was stop and go traffic and we had to go very slow. That, combined with the 90°+ temperature caused everything to run hot,  including us. The trike temperature started to rise and we knew we were in for an interesting day.  We were very relieved when we got to the interstate. Shouldn't have been relieved. To make a rather long story short, heading out of Denver into the mountains with constant steady inclines of 6% the trike didn't do well at even the 7600 ft elevation. There was no way we were going to make it to 11,000 ft! The temperature guage went to hot and we knew there was just no way we were going to make it further west in this very unusual heat.  We pulled off the interstate to a Park & Ride and pondered our next move.  If we couldn't go west to the higher elevations, maybe we needed to change our plans and go somewhere else. I had Colorado Springs on our list for late in our trip but it was looking pretty good for right now. And that's what we did. We turned around, went downhill and the trike's cooling system was happy. We made a few phone calls and landed a campsite just outside of Colorado Springs. We actually ended up having to climb to 7500 feet there,  but the good thing was, we hit fairly heavy rain on our way and the trike did much better. We just never expected this to be an issue. Our trip 2 years ago with the same trike, same trailer, same heat was without problems. The difference seems to be the frequent climbing of much steeper inclines in Colorado vs. the terrain of the other states we visited. Live & learn.
So, all in all, it wasn't a good day. I was tired, wet, ornery, not wanting to do this anymore and ready to pack up and come home. My very patient husband did everything he could to make things better and once we settled in at our new "home", I just went to bed knowing that, as Scarlett said, "After all, tomorrow is another day."
Please forgive me if this has been a "complaining" blog post. I just didn't know what to write if I didn't tell you the truth. I'm sure hoping for Happier Trails tomorrow....