Golden Colorado to Grand Lake CO July 19-30

July 20-21, 2022

Clear Creek RV Park

Golden, CO

$108.96

Site X B/I; electricity; shared water; no sewer

219.51 miles/5 hrs

Elevation 5,675 ft

A good part of the blog disappeared, including our drive to this park. Barry was able to recover most but not this drive. Unfortunately, we cannot remember the drive.

Clear Creek is a county owned RV park with a mere 22 sites along the Clear Creek river. Jason and his wife manage the Park. Jason is very helpful and amusing. We were fortunate enough to snag a site alongside the river. Tubing on the river is free. There are several rental sites where you can snag a tube then make the climb to any of several spots along the river where you can hop on the river and float your way to the bottom. The Coors Brewery is the final hop off point where your ride will end. Most float down to the baseball diamond and make the trek back up to do it over and over again. There’s a walking trail, 1.75 miles, that runs alongside the river with lots of traffic. Walkers, floaters and bikers flood this pathway every day.

Washington Avenue is the main drag of downtown Golden that offers much to do and see. It is teaming with restaurants and shops that can occupy your day. We had a delicious late lunch at Table Mountain Grill and also patronized Capital Grill.

July 21-30, 2022

Winding River RV Resort

Grand Lake, CO

$96.90/evening

$969.00

Sites 2 & 6 B/I FHU

96.99 miles/2 hrs

Elevation 8,369 ft

Our drive here was so hair-raising for me that I had to move myself to the couch. Hairpin turns and traffic was beyond what I could manage. Thankfully it was not for long. All I can say is that we traveled I-79, I-40 and Route 34 before reaching Winding River. I’m certain I missed much beautiful scenery.

Winding River RV Resort is quite the place! It’s huge with 148 sites, along with a wedding venue and boarders Rocky Mountain National Park. They have several activities each day including horseback riding, pony rides, hay rides, wagon rides, game tournaments, etc and an animal farm.

What’s more is the LE RV Repairman live here! Roger and Jeff came by shortly after we arrived to assess our slide issues. They will return Friday morning and get er done 😉. Hopefully the parts will arrive today.

Barry and I headed out to survey the area and things to do. Grand Lake is just that…grand! Grand Lake Village is the main road in town loaded with restaurants and shops. Parking is limited to street side parking and tough to find. Finally, at the very end of the street we grabbed a spot and headed out for a stroll. It was a beautiful day and even better we spot the UPS truck making deliveries! Barry approached him and asked if the “tube” was on the truck. Sure enough, it was there and met us down by the car where he gladly placed it in the car. Yay, we have the parts…now for the repair 😀.

Most of the shops here are absolute tourist traps and so over priced. I managed to find one that was pretty reasonable and scored a few items.

Back at the Park Roger and Jeff inventoried the parts and will return early AM to repair the slide. 🥰

July 22, 2022

Roger and Jeff were at our door at 8:30 am and let the repair begin!

Roger is a wealth of information regarding the area and urged us to go to the National Park at 3:00 pm when reservations are not needed and take the drive to Estes Park.

Just around 3:00 pm the repair was completed. We watched the slide run in and out several times while they worked at syncing front with the back. We left them to finish the job and we headed to the Park. We got in line at the entrance with lots of others waiting for admission. Right off the bat five deer were grazing on the side of the mountain. We didn’t see much more wildlife until at the top. Alpine Visitor Center was about an hour up the winding road with breathtaking views of the spectacular mountains. At Alpine and the apex of the mountain we spotted  three moose lounging on the ground along the road and among the beautiful glaciers. Estes Park was another 27 miles of long and winding roads so we opted out. The Park has elevations from 7,860 to 14,439 feet. It’s one of the highest national parks with 77 peaks.  Approximately 30,000 acres of the forest was devastated due to wildfires in 2020 and will take decades to recover.

We arrived back at the RV close to 6:00 pm to find the slide closed 🫣😱. Oh, no!!!

Now what??? While we awaited Roger and Jeff we looked up and amazingly a huge moose and her calf walked right by the front of the RV and then continued

Right on through the Park and then into the woods! It was quite the site to see!

The news regarding the repair was not good. They decided to give the slide a few more in and outs and boom! It happened again. Crunch, crunch, crunch 😥.  After discussing our options we decided to stay and let Roger and Jeff do their thing. Fortunately the RV Park had room for us to stay until the job gets done. More parts were ordered, due to arrive on Thursday, with the work to be done on Friday. These men are like a dog with a bone. They came back the following day, took the topper off and found a bent bracket and repaired it. They also pushed the slide back out making the RV livable again. In doing so, they now had access to other issues they found. One of them being, in their opinion, a manufacturer’s defect of not putting parts correctly where they should have been to distribute the weight of the slide. So for now…we wait.

Sunday was a cool day at 65* so Sandy got a good cleaning. Many people have been watching the goings-on at site 2 and stopped by to discuss our woes. Afterwards, the rain came. But we were prepared. I managed a couple of pounds of dough from a pizza parlor and then some free flatbread from Mountain Market. Why the owner or manager just gave it to me…I have no explanation. She overheard a worker telling me they did not sell dough, came after me and said I do have something. She came back with two packages of cooked flatbread and said, “ I’ll just give it to you if you want to try it.” Wow! Thank you very much! So 2 calzones and three pizzas were made for our new-found friends who are desperately trying to get to the bottom of the ailing slide. Roger popped by to pick up the goods and informed us he and Jeff will be contacting Lippert tomorrow to brainstorm with them for any other info available to assist in solving this issue for good.

Monday 7/25. We are trying to be productive so Barry made reservations at Headwaters Marina, owned and operated by the town, for an information-packed cruise around Grand Lake ($20/pp). At 2:00 pm we hopped on board a pontoon boat.  Our guide certainly knew the area filling us in on who lived where and their importance to the area.The homes built into the sides of the mountains are magnificent. It can take up to three years to build a home along the lake due to the weather, workers and supplies. That doesn’t matter much at this point because there is now no available land on the lake that is buildable. During the summer occupancy is 2,500. Off season it drops down to 500. We also learned that Grand Lake is the largest and deepest body of water in Colorado covering over 500 acres and 300 feet deep at the deepest point. It’s also fed by the Colorado River that originates north of town in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was good to be back on the water.

Lake Avenue is also home to the town beach that was filled will happy tourists! Some of them were swimming in the chilly 65* water…oh, burrrrrrr!

We also were fortunate to snag the last two seats together at the Rocky Mountain Repertory Theatre ($40/pp) for a performance of Jersey Boys. The theatre is small and only accessible for approximately 300 patrons. Tucked away in the upper right corner of the auditorium we thoroughly enjoyed the show. The performers were spot on in giving us our moneys-worth in this 2-1/2 hour show.

Tuesday, July 26, we chose as a day to explore and burn some of our $5 per gallon gas 😠. We headed downtown to climb to Adams Falls. The nearly one mile walk to the falls was rocky and mostly up hill. I backed out about half way up…the increasing elevation got the best of me. Barry continued on his own admitting he had to stop three times along the way to catch his breath. The waterfall was nice, but nothing spectacular.

We moved on to Grand Lake Lodge and its panoramic views of the mountains. We enjoyed our overpriced cocktails ($14 for Sauvignon Blanc 😂😂😂) while sitting on one of the five oversized swings on the front porch. In this same area, Columbine Lake was another suggested place of interest only to find it is private with no admittance.

The town of Granby is a short distance so we headed there to continue to explore. Granby does not have much to speak of…a gas station, a couple of restaurants, Ace Hardware…not much more. Although, Stillwater Campground National Recreation Area is really nice with amazing views of Lake Granby at an elevation of 8,300 feet. There are 129 sites, 21 of them have electricity. They can accommodate a variety of camping options and also have a couple of cabins. None of the sites have shade due to the pine beetle infestation and removal of the trees. But, the views certainly make up for no shade.

Fuel

Kum & Go, Granby, CO

9.163 gallons; $4.59/gallon; $42.14

On our way back to the RV we made a quick stop at Mountain Market, a very well-stocked market. We picked up 2 lemons, eggs and locally-grown oyster mushrooms for a whopping $20! We enjoyed the $9 mushrooms with the steaks Barry purchased in Kansas. I’m sure we will enjoy the $6/dozen eggs soon enough!!!

Barry went to the campground store for firewood ($9) and also picked up the parts that we have been waiting on for so very long! Finally! Roger and Jeff will come by after work to start, and I’m hoping to finish, the broken slide once again. 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Today, Wednesday, we headed back to Grand Lake Village for a walk around and a stop at Grand Pizza for a yummy pie.

Roger and Jeff showed up late afternoon to work on the RV and get the repair started. They are fitting us in between their jobs here at the campground and other RV repairs. They definitely know what caused the problem. The new parts from Lippert, the slide out hardware manufacturer, had a misplaced rivet in the drive mechanism that caused the gear block to be misaligned. This created stress on other parts which lead them to fail and jamb the slide. We have pictures and will be going back to Lippert, but we expect no compensation from them.

With the day to kill Thursday we headed, once again, back to town. For a change of scenery we parked down on the lakeside, walked a bit and then enjoyed a bench and conversation with a lovely couple visiting from Golden, CO. From there we headed to The Waterfront. A rooftop patio with a wonderful view of Grand Lake was the setting for lunch. We were enjoying our food, about midway through…sprinkles, then light rain, then the downpour! Everyone on the patio headed inside. We were almost finished by then so we stayed. At the very end we went in to pay the bill and received a round of applause from the patrons who had moved inside, along with the servers 😂😂😂😂😂.

Another stop at Mountain Market for a few items…$19! I realized today all of the produce is sold by weight, so you really do not know how much something costs until you get to the register 😞. Two avocados $5.74…one tomato $3.06. I’ve never shopped like this anywhere else. The store clerk said it’s how they have always done it.

Torrential downpours on and off all day drove us back to the RV to chill. We await Roger and Jeff and I fear if the rain doesn’t end we may not see them today.