With the time change the dogs have had a hard time letting us sleep in past 7:30 mountain time. After having spent the first 3 days in Pueblo running all day, dogs waking us up early and the altitude by Thursday we were a bit run down. We spent Thursday and Friday running a few errands and enjoying the private patio at our site. We thoroughly enjoyed having lunch out there with the pups running around and playing. We had dinner out there with Michael’s mom and pop a few times and on our last night we had a fire in the lovely firepit they provided.

One of the things that wore me out so much was the altitude. The few days of driving up in to the mountains I battled nauseau and shortness of breath both times. One thing that helped was drinking water. If you are making huge altitude changes quickly be sure to drink lots of water. We also took with us cans of air that with the touch of a button you could breathe in and help catch your breath. I didn’t use those but Michael whose lungs are a bit touchier used it quite a bit while we were in Colorado. You can buy the canned air like that on Amazon.

While we were resting I made use of the internet and hopped online to order groceries from Walmart. One of the things we do on longer trips (especially in Texas) if we need to restock we try to order what we need online and scheduling curbside pick up so we don’t have to spend our time away at the grocery store.

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Many campers have that one gadget they can’t do without (or that they would rather not camp without). One of our favorite gadgets is the Ninja Foodi. While camping in Utah earlier this year the temperatures were over 100 degrees. When it’s extremely hot you definitely don’t want to turn on the oven in temperatures like that. The Ninja Foodi can do so many amazing things and it’s nice to have a tool that will do so many things in one tool. We’ve used ours to air fry snacks in the evening. We have used it to slow cook stews and roasts as well as the pressure cook function to take steaks right from the freezer to your plate in about 20 minutes. We enjoy our 6.5 quart so much that we’ve decided it’s staying permanently in the camper and when there was a sale this week we ended up buying an 8 quart one for the house no so we don’t have to haul this one in and out the camper between trips.

With the internet and all the different recipes available we’ve enjoyed finding recipes that are easy to make on the road as well as trying new foods that maybe we wouldn’t have attempted before. I’d love to have you share your favorite gadgets with me. Please feel free to put it in the comments.

While we’re in Colorado Michael’s parents are in the same campground as us. They planned a trip up in to the mountains for a day trip on Wednesday. His mom and pop rented an SUV so we could all comfortably ride up to the mountains and enjoy the scenery. We drove about an hour and a half each way up through the winding switchback roads until we reached Cripple Creek. It seems to be a neat little town with several small casinos and restaurants. We enjoyed a lovely lunch at a little restaurant called Dynamite Dicks in a small casino there. After lunch we each spent a little money and enjoyed the slot machines. Michael’s pop came away the big winner – seemed fitting since he bought lunch and all for everyone.

We stopped many times on the way back down the mountain so Michael could get some pictures of the beautiful views we were seeing. We have spent every day running since we’ve been gone. We were both exhausted and were grateful for the pot roast we had started in the slow cooker portion of the Ninja Foodi. It was wonderful to not have to cook anything when we were so very tired.

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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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