mountainborn

The internet has spoiled us ! It is so easy to do a vehicle registration on line in Arkansas, that when we have kept a vehicle for so long that the State sends us a mandatory "come in and re register" letter, we grumble, and . . . grumble. For example we renewed our 08' Jeep Wrangler on line earlier this Summer and the decals for the plate caught up with us at our Summer Job of camphosting out in Colorado. But then the " mandatory tag replacement" letter arrived. We just had to come in to the Revenue Office to get a new license plate. Dunno' why, this one is still perfectly good, it just has a lot of renewal decals on it. I usually leave the left edge of the previous year's decal showing so it is easy to count and see how long we have had our 96' Nissan 4x4 farm truck. The internet has became such an important part of our lives, we do so many time saving things on it, from locating and landing our migrant worker jobs to taking care of routine chores such as vehicle registration renewals. Hey, email us ! We ain't got no time fer' no "snail mail " !

Welcome to the Oliver Forums DieselDummie !!

Most evenings this doe would visit our camp. I made a place in the livestock drift fence that made it easier for her to pass through. Dillon would often times meet her at the fence forcing her to wait until he got tired and left his guard position to lay by the campfire. There were also two bucks with velvet covered antlers that would come by right at dark but light didn't permit a video opportunity. Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p62At5Ljawo

Here is a video look at our rest stop on the CDNST at 11,600 feet of elevation. The wind is pretty fierce at the top ! You can hear it in the camera microphone as I pan the camera around the horizon. He, he, that evil laughter in the background is BugEyeDriver. We were really soaking up the good vibes present here. This is one of those places that are just naturally good for your soul, but like most of those wild and wonderful places that Betty and I seem to seek out, you can't simply "buy" a ticket to them. You have to give something of yourself to get there. Yep, were a' talkin' sweat equity here !

Would you like a close up video look at the pin up Oliver ? Just click the vid frame below:

We have been home from Colorado for a couple of days now and are still trying to catch up on stuff ! The camphosting Summer job above 10 K was a wonderful thing. We are looking forward to being there next year. It is six days until we leave for the Sugar Beet Harvest and we are rushing to get all of our plunder sorted out for the trip. Betty will be taking samples for quality control and I will be operating a front end loader. The harvest starts on October first and runs 24/7 until finished, usually about four to six weeks. The job pays straight time, time and a half and double time. They also furnish a full hookup campsite. Here is a link to the web site: http://www.sugarbeetharvest.com/ Then after that it is home for the hollidays and deer season, then,,tadaaa ! off to the tie dye event at St georges Island ! We have our beach front reservations made already ! After that, who knows, more beach, flip flops & tee shirts we hope !

I guess that what they say, " all good things must come to an end", is true ! Our 110 days of boondocking and hosting at Trujillo Meadows campground has came to an end. By the end of the month of August we had a hard frost five times and it had snow flurried and hailed many times, though nothing stayed on the ground for over an hour. We had everything packed up and when out last camper departed Tuesday about 1230 hours , we locked the gate and headed down the mountain. It seemed fitting that 1/2 inch of hominy snow suddenly fell on the highway, and us, as we started down La Manga Pass, just as it did the day we climbed up to the campground to open the gate for the season. After closing out our books with our area manager, we headed for Arkansas driving until about 1130 hours, stopping for the night at Amarillo's East Wal Mart. There must have been thirty other RVers overnighting there also. The next day, Wednesday, we put in a long day on the road, arriving at our home about dark. We don't like putting in those long days at 70 MPH ( sometimes more, in a passing situation ) on a boreing old interstate, but our time is short before we report to our next work camper job site in North Dakota. Ten days to reshuffle our clothes and depart for the North Dakota job site. This trip put us over forty three thousand miles on our origonal equipment Jeep tires. We ordered four new ones online ( Tire Rack . com ) and had them sent to a friends shop for installation later this week. We priced the same tire at a dealership in Colorado and they were $130. less on line, even after shipping. Sure i'll pay a trusted friend to install them, but still saving over $100 per tire ! By the way, that three wheeled bicycle never made it back to Arkansas ! Someone saw it at the campground on the fourth of July weekend, and bought it for their little girl that has an inner ear Ballance problem, and wanted to be able to ride with her friends. We just had to help and let them have it at the bargain price we gave for it. The next few days will be busy for us, so, we will try to update after we arrive at the Sugar Beet Harvest.

Excelent advice from Oliver owner/users ! This is especially true at 10 K elevation where the temperature swings are extreme.

As we near the end of our time here at Trujillo Meadows, we think we may have set a couple of records. We will have been boondocking and off of the grid and above ten thousand feet of elevation for one hundred ten consecutive days. We have learned much during our outing. One example: Even though Our NORCOLD refrigerator works well at lower elevations, it has to be manually lit twice a day at 10 K ! The NORCOLD web site doesn't make any bones about it and seem to wash their hands of the subject, stating on their site that they don't recommend using their refrigerator above five thousand five hundred feet, and offer no help or suggestions. Now, we realize that is a minor inconvenience, and out of necessity have learned to cope with it. However if someone should forget to manually light their Norcold refrigerator, they could loose the contents of their refrigerator to spoilage. If someone has suggestions to resolve the "fail to relight in automatic mode" problem, we would be all ears because we will be doing it again next year.

Here are some interior still photos:

An old timer from the area agreed to show us a cave where a bear was reported to be "Wintering up" ( hibernating ). Here is a cave entrance video: ( Note BUGEYEDRIVER standing on this nearly verticle mountainside cave entrance. Remember I told you in an earlier post that he must be part mountain goat ! )

A pair of Red Foxes are part of our resident animal population at Trujillo Meadows. We see them often hunting togather. When this video was taken we didn't see the female and thought that unusual. She was nearby though. We couldn't see her for she was in the shadows of the connifers. They had a pine Squirrel treed and their focus was on catching breakfast. Here is a link to the video in our blog update: http://www.mountainborn.blogspot.com/

The Red lake trail head is at the end of a Jeep trail. A rough one. Then after a mostly steep hike you cross through a Large rock ledge with a waterfall:

CONTINENTAL DIVIDE NATIONAL SENIC TRAIL Tough going in places. Very steep in others. Well above the timber line, here is a trail marker: Pete and I hiked up to eleven thousand six hundred feet or so, where this photo was taken: We sat at this marker at the top and re hydrated while consuming a bit of energy food. This trail marker is actually located below the summit a ways. Pete is a real MOUNTAINGOAT ! In the far distance there was a very tall waterfall:

A free USFS campground located just below Stunner pass Colorado and at the location of the old ghost town of Stunner. The campground is thirty, yep that's right thirty miles from the nearest paved road ! Now talk about your primo boondocking site ! Here is a part of the road into Stunner Campground: Looking down at Platoro Lake ( elev. 10211 ft. ) while climbing up to Stunner Pass, ( 27 miles from a paved road ):

BUGEYEDRIVER IS A CACHEMASTER ! This geocache is located up high on a pinnacle above the Cumbres and Toltec Senic Railroad. It is hard to find. It had been found only twice before. There was no trail beaten out to lead us to the cache. After a difficult climb and a lengthy search, Pete stood still for a couple of minutes thinking and looking while I was trying to catch my breath ( folks hundreds of feet below us likely thought all of that huffing and puffing was the steam engine coming up the tracks ), then he simply pointed and said check right there. Sure enough it was there ! Here's the pix: The Cumbres Pass Train Stations is way below us at 1022 feet of elevation.

Bugeyedriver advised by phone that it had been over 100* for sixty consecutive days in his part of Texas ! WOW ! So, let me get this straight. If someone goes South to get away from the snow, they are called a SNOWBIRD. Does that mean that if they go North to get away from the scorching heat, they are called a SUNBIRD ? Geeze ! I might be a REDNECK SUNBIRD ! Now, that's pretty exotic sounding and might fool some, until they see the camo overhauls ! He, he. Pete and Oscar will be arriving in Trujillo Meadows on Friday.

We had seen it in Trailer Life, on the internet version of the magazine also, and, we had talked about on these forums. Yet, when it pulled into the Trujillo Meadows campground, it caught us by suprise ! Another Oliver Micro Rally is happening right now at 10 K elevation ! After setting up camp and some idle chit chat, the Porter's set out to find the geocache down by the waterfall.

Early this season at Trujillo Meadows, while watching a lightning storm thrash Jarosa peak to our North, we became concerned about EMP, ( electro magnetic pulse ), from a nearby lightning strike. Our Ollie is loaded with electronics and we knew that spending the rest of our work camper season without those electronics would certainly deminish our camping experience. A grounding system seemed to be in order. I wanted a ground system that not only grounded the generator at it's ground terminal, but a ground to the frame of our Ollie as well. It needed to be simple and the system didn't need to add to our towing weight. Here is how I did it: The ground rod is a full eight feet into the ground and will stay at the campsite. The jumper cables are part of our normally carried emergency equipment. Each cable half makes a seperate connection to ground. The frame connection is visible under the generator where it connects to the tounge of the trailer. So, what do you think ? A waste of time ?

Very cool !

We have been off the grid for well over seventy days now, boondocking in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, above 10 K elevation, so I thought I would give a update on how the solar panels are doing. Our generator is run so infrequently that it's starter battery doesn't stay up ! Now, I sure do like that trick little wireless remote start and stop feature, so I have rigged a quick disconnect jumper cable to charge the generator's battery. That way should Betty need to use the microwave for something, I won't have to go outside to pull the manual starter rope. Here is a video look at the jumper set up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyGaGrWjh-o

He, he, as we all know, there is often more to the story. Here is the rest. This morning after daylight Mark found bear tracks all over the outside of his Oliver ! Now, he was safe inside, and when he shined his million candle power light outside, the bear scrammed. Say, Mark, that's quite a souvenier you are taking home with you ! Not every one can say "wanna' see the bear tracks on my camper ?"

Count us in ! I have this very cool tyedye camo tee that came from T or C NM !

Here is the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzDisMaD-TY

There are bear warning signs posted everywhere around the campground. When they arrived, I stopped by to welcome them and bring them up to date on bear incidents and warn them about putting their food up. The bear talk lasts about ten minutes. Later, they said, " you told us this could happen". After the bear left, I shot this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzBojrZzkzc