Blown Away & Bailey

We depart Nebraska and head to Cheyenne, Wyoming for a night. It's a short trip, less that 100 miles. We're getting short on clean clothes, so we plan a stop in a campground in Cheyenne. We give them a call, get an answering machine that says, "Come on in", so we do. A. B. Camping is operating on a trial basis for their first winter, and technically, they have no sites with water, as only select sites have been winterized, and those are filled with work campers working on a pipeline nearby. But the manager puts us in a spot near a water hose that we can pull over. We do some shopping in town, do some laundry. Overnight lows are starting to hit 20. The next morning we're ready to depart, and since we're not expecting to see a campground again for a few days, I try to fill the water tank. I attach the hose, turn on the faucet, and go inside where it's warm. After 15 minutes, I check the water gauge, and nothing is happening. After fiddling a bit, I discover that the hose is frozen. By letting the water run, I finally get it thawed out, we fill the tank, and we're on our way.

Our plan is to get to southern Colorado, some 240 miles away. But we only get to the first exit on I25, and have to pull off. The west wind is blowing down out of the mountains at a fierce rate, gusting to 50 mph or more. Our awnings are taking a beating. Both the big one, and the one over our door have been secured with extra restraints, and even so they're straining to get out and banging against the coach. I pull off to check, and discover that 18 inches of the large awning has separated from the roller, though it's still rolled up. Smelling disaster, we return to a McDonald's truck parking lot in Cheyenne, The wind, now on our left side, and it blows open one of our window awnings, something I heard could not happen. (Update: When we park in Congress, AZ, and unroll the awning, it takes about an hour to get it back in place, but it survives the day)
We sit in the truck lot for 6 hours, watching TV, reading, taking little walks. Trucks come and go, and around 3:00 we feel that the wind has calmed enough to depart. NOW the big electric highway sign on I25 is reporting windy conditions ahead. Yeah, we've seen them.

So we roll through Denver, and begin our ascent into the mountains on US 285. We won't get to southern Colorado, as our initial climbing into the Rockies slows us to an average speed of about 30 mph. We traveled about 20 miles, then stopped for the night.

Bailey, Colorado
About 30 SW of Denver, we see a sign along the road pointing to "Town Park" in Bailey, Colorado. We pull into a parking lot on a tiny strip mall, and ask at the feed store if we can park overnight in the park. At first he says no, and when I ask about alternatives, he thinks for a minute and changes his answer to yes. This is Ron, the feed store owner. So we pull in for the night.

The Bailey town park is a small collection of buildings and a big steel bridge. The bridge crosses the North Fork South Platte River, a nice bubbling brook that runs along the park. There is a school house, a granary shed, and some other artifacts from Bailey's past. We settle in for the night.

The iron bridge in Bailey Park

About 8:30 PM, I decide to take Thumper out for a walk, As I go around the back of the rig, I encounter a teenage boy wandering around in the park. This turns out to be Stevie, a local high school dropout who's just out to play on the bridge, and we chat for a few minutes. I ask him about Bailey, and he asks me about the RV and our travels. He tells me about the shooting at the high school in 2006. I think about what mischief he might do, but our conversation is amicable, and I return inside, and he goes on his way.

I have no recollection about a school shooting in Bailey, but we find an open wifi, connect to the Internet, and I look it up. Sure enough, his story pans out. Creepy.

We depart the next morning, off to chug through the mountain passes.