The big part of our trip to Colorado has been looking at land and seeing if we like this area as a future place to live. We had found some properties on Zillow before leaving Texas that we wanted to see and contacted a realtor. While the realtor didn’t take us to the properties (none have houses so we can see them ourselves) she did take us on a tour around the Pueblo area. For about 4 and a half hours she drove us all around telling us some history of the area, pointing out landmarks and ideas of things to do, restaurant recommendations and took us to some beautiful scenery in the mountains. I think it gave us a better idea of what the area has to offer as well as seeing parts that we didn’t know were here and that we found very intriguing. The area is very beautiful and the city while not nearly as large as Austin would have everything we need for shopping and entertainment purposes. After all the views we saw and the information she gave us we came back to the camper mentally exhausted from the day.

After we got back we spent a bit of time with Michael’s brother who lives in Colorado and came down for a visit. It was a beautiful evening and we were able to let the dogs sit outside with us for quite a while as Michael and I enjoyed a small campfire.

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Monday we got up early with the dogs – time changes and a good nights sleep after a 300 mile drive fighting crosswinds makes people pretty tired. This KOA in Pueblo has a lovely option of a few “private patios”. It has been a huge blessing being able to take the dogs outside and let them have room to run and play. We spent some time out with them and then needed to run a few errands. Ever since I got my glasses it’s been a struggle getting them to not hurt my bridge of my nose. I hit the eyeglass place while Michael ran to Best Buy across the road and found a camera for the RV.

Having recently brought a new dog in to the family has made us a bit nervous with them alone at times. When we are home in Austin we frequently will check in on them when we’re out for extended periods of time to make sure they are okay and brace ourselves for any destruction they may have chosen to do while we were gone. We knew on this trip especially we had some days planned to sightsee and learn the area and wanted a way to check in on them and the camper so, Michael bought a small camera that hooks to our internet hotspot. This will give us a better sense of security and peace knowing we can check on things on our home away from home.

Part of the purpose of this trip is getting a feel for the area and looking at some property in Colorado. We spent part of the afternoon, with the dogs assistance of course, driving out to a few properties we had in mind. We saw some beautiful countryside and enjoyed the trip to see places we’d had in mind. Along the way, as the dogs heads are hanging out windows, we stopped along an area that had open grazing for animals. As I am taking a picture of a cow, Moki has always been fascinated by cows, Moki’s head is out the window and the cow mooed at him. Moki jumped back and just stared – he’s always loved looking at them but never has had one talk to him. It was one of the highlights of my day.

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In our world today we are highly dependent on technology in so many things we do. When we were planning a trip years ago we would have used an atlas or different maps of the states and roads. Nowadays, we have a gps on our phone or a separate unit for gps guidance. In today’s world we depend on technology for tablets, phones, streaming shows – especially on long trips – and even some for medical reasons. When camping sometimes one of the hardest things to do is find a decent internet connection. As someone who has been trying when I am traveling to stream on Twitch it’s been one of my biggest frustrations at times.

One of the ways I’ve prepared myself on our internet situation is a websiste called Campendium.com. Many times people will leave reviews with their cell service company brand and what kind of signal they had there. This is a good way to judge if our phones and/or hotspot will be adequate for what we want or if we are going to have to plan for not much signal there. Many times people will also list the quality of the wi-fi at the campground we are staying at. This is also a huge help in judging our service options wherever we are headed.

We also take in to consideration what kind of television service we might have. We don’t watch a lot of tv necessarily when camping (rainy days it may be a different story), but we do enjoy it at night time and having the ability to check in on the news and weather. We always plan ahead by using Netflix to download a variety of shows and movies so we have some stuff we may want to watch – always helpful when we have no tv signal in that location. Many people have portable satellite dishes and Dish Outdoors even has a monthly plan for people who may not travel full time but want to pay as they need it. Whatever you decide it’s something that may be smart to think of ahead of time.

Today’s trip was about 325 miles and not the route we planned. When planning a trip we map as we go on Google Maps to get an idea visually of the route. This also helps us gauge miles between destinations, refueling stops, and can let us know when we have to make additional stops if it is more miles than we prefer to travel in a day. We figure in how large our fuel tank is, how many miles we can go before we need to refuel, and factor in the terrain and weather. One of the things I’ve started doing the last few trips to prepare is planning fuel stops for us. With our gas tank size it’s usually a good stop to grab a sandwich we packed and bathroom breaks for all, when we can. We prefer to find truck stops when we possible these tend to have larger bays allowing for easier stops while pulling a travel trailer. When we can’t find a truck stop I will look at Google streetview on the map along the way to see if it looks like we’ll have a place to stop without making it a stressful situation. With 2 dogs in the vehicle they notice the stop and go change in traffic when we are traveling on long trips. They will start to get a bit antsy and it can make things a bit stressful in high traffic areas. We try to find stations that seem like they might be able to get to easily so we can get back on the road quickly.

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When planning our trip we had planned a route that would not take us through the Raton pass as it is steeper over the mountains that way. We set the route in Michael’s phone and about an hour and a half in to the trip realized that the GPS had changed our route sending us through the Raton pass after all. It was beautiful scenery and just a small amount of construction that way. As we were driving I told Michael there must have been a reason we didn’t go that other way. When we finally got here last night, set up and took a deep breath we made our way down the little campground road to Michael’s mom and pop’s site. They mentioned that there had been major construction and a detour the way we were supposed to go so we had been right there’d been a great reason why we didn’t go the other route.

Our campsite here in Pueblo is awesome. It has a little fenced in patio area with a picnic table that is under a shade netting. It also has a wrought iron table and chairs, a fire pit and a gas grill that we have plans to use tonight actually and we’ll grill chicken wings for dinner tonight.

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When we’ve talked about going to Amarillo in the months we’ve been together Michael has often mentioned a restaurant called The Big Texan. They have a 72oz challenge that if you eat in an hour you get the meal free if not you owe them $72. It comes with 4.5 lbs of steak, a baked potato, salad, a roll and 4 fried shrimp. We DID not attempt the challange but we did see a young man (probably 16 or so) attempt the challenge. About 30 minutes in he gave up but it was still neat to see someone try it while we were there. We had a wonderful lunch, brought a gigantic peace of carrot cake back with us and our leftovers to nibble on the next few days and took a few pictures while we were there. Throughout our travels I’ve had this thing about picking up postcards – some I have been saving to put in an album that we are going to make of our travels along with pics we’ve taken, some I send to friends all over the world. I’ve sent some to as far away as Australia.

After lunch and yesterday’s long drive (500 miles is rough when pulling a camper) we took a nap this afternoon, spent some time loving on the puppies and just enjoying being together. We have occasionally had an issue with our A/C freezing up this summer and it happened today. We are in a site with full sun and the humidity got in there and it froze up. Here’s probably the first tip I’ve posted in here but it’s one we’ve used a few times now on our travels. When the a/c does not seem to be keeping up at all watch for water runoff where it usually is however, watch for it to be more water than normal. After about an hour of running just the fan on the a/c and opening the windows while the water poured out of the runoff the a/c is working beautifully again.

Tomorrow morning we’ll be on the road to Pueblo by 9 am our travels tomorrow will only be about 340 miles so not nearly as long. We have our breakfast sandwiches ready for morning and a couple sandwiches for lunch along the way.

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Friday morning Oct 9 we got up very early (for us anyway) at 5:30 am so that we could be on the road around 7 am. We made some breakfast sandwiches ahead of time that we froze and can reheat the days we are driving. We walked the dogs, filled the last minute things in the camper, heated up our sandwiches and took off. After a few stops on the way for gas, potty breaks for both 2 legged and 4 legged passengers we made it to Amarillo. Michael had made his famous Mexican Casserole for us that we both love so we didn’t have to cook dinner when we got here we could just scoop some out and microwave it. After feeding and walking the dogs and eating dinner ourselves we crashed in front of the tv for a few hours. I don’t even remember my head hitting the pillow when we crashed.

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Wednesday we needed to make a trip in to town for a few supplies – ice seems to be one thing we always want a lot of as we both like ice in most things we drink (even at home we struggle with the ice supply at times). Before heading to town about 7 miles from the park we had looked for a local cafe to visit for lunch as we seem to have enjoyed doing more and more lately. We don’t eat out all the time but we love having a day sometimes where we check out someplace that’s not a chain restaurant. We went to a local place in Livingston called The Blue Duck Kitchen and Bar. It was in what they termed an old art deco style building and was a cute little place. There was a small bar and only about 10 tables in the place. I tried the shaved ribeye sandwich and it was delicious. Michael had their turkey, bacon and pepperjack sandwich. He had the chips and I ordered fries – both were made from scratch – his chips were still warm when he got his food.

After lunch and getting the ice and another bundle of firewood, just in case, we headed back to camp. The dogs had been great while we were gone so we took them on a short walk and everyone took an afternoon siesta. That evening Michael grilled some chicken wings and brats on our charcoal grill and we made some sweet corn hushpuppies in the Ninja Foodi (yes we really are addicted to it). It was a beautiful evening and a nice night for a fire so we enjoyed the evening by the fire. I even did a stream on Twitch where I sat by the fire and chatted to share our fire with my twitch family.

The cooler (cooler as in not 100 degrees all day) temps have made it so enjoyable to be outside more on this trip than in many past. We spent Tuesday hiking and having a picnic with the pups. We took part of the Bakba trail here to the Pineywoods Boardwalk trail. The Pineywoods trail is all boardwalk as to be accessible for wheelchairs and walkers as this park is on a bird watching trail. The Pineywoods trail basically does a large loop which passes by a little frog pond where we saw no frogs but has a cute little picnic area, and then leads to the duck pond where we saw a turtle. They have a bird blind set up there to help attract birds and birdwatchers. There are some benches to relax on and pretty flowers which would also bring in birds. Towards the end of the trail was an area where we were able to sit a bit, attaching the dogs to a few posts we had the sandwiches we brought and enjoyed the pretty view. The trail ended at the road about a half mile from our campsite and we walked the rest of the way along the road.

By the time we got back to camp the pups were absolutely exhausted and they both walked in the camper and crashed in whatever bed or chair they found. Before we had left for the hike we started some stew in the slow cooker of the Ninja Foodi (our favorite gadget) and it made for an easy dinner when we were tired later on from the hike.

We left the house around 10 am to head to the Eastern part of Texas to camp for the week. The dogs love riding in the truck – Bella usually sleeps and Moki loves looking for cows. He seems to be very fascinated by them. After some weird roads that the lovely GPS took us on – sometimes we think she has been hitting the bottle early – we arrived at the campground around 3. With as many times as we’ve camped in the last 7 months together we’ve gotten the set up and tear down figured out to a science almost. I handle all of the inside stuff while he hooks up the water, sewer etc outside.

Before leaving I made stuffed pepper casserole so all we had to do was heat up dinner for the night after traveling and set up. We took a drive with the pups around the campground checking out the views and some of the other camping loops. It was warm but we took them for a walk so they could do their business after dinners and stretch their legs a bit. It was a nice evening for it.

I did a short just chatting/crafting stream on twitch while Michael played on the xbox. We don’t have any tv signal here and the only internet is through our hotspot but we are enjoying the peace and quiet here. Below are some pics we took yesterday.