Spring Trip 2015: Denver

Saturday and Sunday, May 9th and10th.  106 miles.  We had a couple inches of water surrounding the camper when we woke Saturday morning, and it was still raining.

My sister Mary Ann and her husband, Eric, were in Denver vacationing at their condo.  We met up with them about 9:00 for breakfast.  My niece Cara and her three children live in the area also so we got to have a family get together.  The weather was chilly and overcast, but we took a gamble and decided to visit to the Denver Botanical Gardens.  We got lucky and caught a three hour break in the rain.  It started to sprinkle just as we were leaving the gardens.

After an early dinner, we arrived back at the campground about 7:00 in the evening.  And that's when everything went down hill.  We had no 12 volt power in the camper!!   Since campers are designed to run off the grid, so to speak, almost everything in them runs on battery power.  A few things that take high energy use the 110 volt power that you plug into.  Appliances such as the air conditioning, microwave, electric fireplace, and a few wall outlets for coffee pots and the such use the 110 power.  So we could have some heat from the electric fireplace and a small electric heater, as well as some light from a plug in table lamp.  So, we were able to get through the night.  Now I will admit, we could have been worse off.  We could be camping in a tent like I did thirty years ago.  But after traveling in an RV for a number of years, the evening seemed like primitive camping.  :-))

Sunday morning, Mother's Day, was even worse.  We had three to four inches of snow overnight, and at 29 degrees, the water hose was froze.  GRRRRR and BRRRRRR.

The order of the day was to find a repair service.  Good luck with that on a Sunday.  We placed four calls, and left messages with each.  Only one called back, and he was on vacation in California.  He did offer us some suggestions to try.  Finally Monday morning we got a hold of a repair service, and he came out about 1:00 and went through the system.  He took everything apart, and then put it back together and presto, it worked.  That was good news, however he couldn't find what caused the original failure, which made me nervous.

In the meantime, earlier Monday morning, Judy's dog, the Alaskan Malamute, got loose.  Malamutes are known for running away, and this one did.  It's a miracle she is still alive as she crossed busy Interstate 70 about six times before she tired and we caught her.

So Monday was starting out to be a stressful day after a all ready miserable Sunday with limited heat and lighting.  Anyway, by 3:00 we were packed and back on the road, thankfully.