Notes From The Mountain Top

Carol Ann Hoff Dictating Her Blog From Mountain Top

Carol Writes..........
Hello again:

Today was an interesting day, we crawled out of our RV cave about noon to a beautiful day. (I think Carol is becoming disappointed with my wake up time) Chriss looked out at the mountain top behind us and said “Lets go”. I looked him in the eye and said “What are you crazy”
but go we did and I am glad I am with that crazy man. We just started up the side of the mountain through the trees and brush. We started our climb behind the last campsites and directly across from the Dunes. It was a steep climb on small to medium stones and small rocks interspersed with cactus and flowers. We saw deer scat and a small bear poop and a large foot print I couldn't identify. That takes care of the ground but it was the scenery that was amazing. We were above the top of the Dunes and could see the mountains behind them. The sun was warm and the breeze cool.

With our binoculars we could see the tops of surrounding mountains with what looked like caves in the shear side walls. The birds were flying below us. Through all the trees we could see our motor home as a little white spec down in the campground. Also in the distance we could see the town of Alamosa and the Rio Grande River that flows through it. In the RV we had made our lunch. it consisted of 2 sandwiches, a banana and two bottles of water and a few cookies. Now we are on top of the mountain and once we got done "oohing and ahhing" at the scenery we decided to sit down and eat our lunch. To our disappointment and found that neither Chriss nor I had packed the sandwiches. All we could find was just a banana and two water bottles between our two packs. I later found the sandwiches in the refrigerator (we ate them for supper).

Anyone who knows me knows how I love trees. This climb was a paradise for me.
Such interesting trees. Junipers, some twisted junipers, and other fur trees. All of them were more than 10 feet tall. The dead ones were as pretty and fascinating as the live ones. As the afternoon progressed we watched the weather change and Chriss’s experience as a pilot diagnosing weather problems came in handy. There were black clouds, gray clouds, 3 different rain storms coming down in the distance, increased wind speed from all directions at once with clouds moving in different directions. His diagnosis of the weather was interesting in determining which would be a real threat to us. My solution was "Let’s get out of here” and that is what we did. We got to within 100 feet or our campsite when we felt the first drops of water on our faces. What lucky hikers we are, because the sky open up with a hard downpour. Anyway we were back in our camper eating our "left at home" sandwiches with tomato soup. When there was a knock on the door. It was our neighbor Kendall and her Dad, Don bringing us fresh made "somemores" roasted over there campfire. A real feat in the rain. One someore was made with strawberry flavored marshmallows, very good. We already enjoyed a yellow squash right out of their garden and a piece of blueberry birthday pie from Collin’s birthday. What nice neighbors. Don, Holly, Collin and Kendall.

It is still raining hard. We are so glad we are snug in our camper but just in case you are wondering we do miss riding the motorcycle but not tonight.


Chriss Writes...........

Carol is such a wonderful companion. The climb was steep and at sometimes rugged. The bear poop could have turn us back but Carol wanted to forge on. She always sticks with me on the outdoor adventures, you should see her when we winter camp. Well that is another adventure story for later. Maybe we ( I ) should go to bed early tonight so that we may get an early start tomorrow..... Not!!!

Good night, Chriss and Carol Ann

Still More Notes From The Dunes

Hi Again:

Well today was the day that we did it. We climbed to the top of the Dunes. Honestly, at 8,000 feet the long walk through the sand flats to get to the Dune's base was harder then actually climbing the Dunes. At the base of the dunes is Medano Creek. This time of year it is just a wide shallow trickle that we were able to cross without getting wet. We had to jump over some shallow runoffs. Yes, we could have taken off our shoes and wadded through it but that would have been to easy.

MEDANO CREEK WHEN SHALLOW

Once we were up on the dunes there was a nice cool breeze. Although the sand was too hot to be barefoot.The sand was very fine and multi-colored, red, black and light sand color. Surprisingly once up there if we stayed on the dune ridges it was pretty stable. We were told the loose surface sand blows off the ridges and what is left is hard packed and relatively easy to walk on. The view was great and we could see our campsite with our white RV. The terrain up there was high ridges with some deep pot hole valleys which small amounts of green vegetation was actually growing. We saw a storm approaching in the distance and came down off the Dune. The Rangers had told us to be careful of the lightning.

Once back down fro our dune climb while walking in the park we met a family with a pop up trailer that looked like it was the child of a Hummer. It was very high, bright yellow with big knobby tires, truly a real backwoods camper. We stood and chatted for a while and and was offered a yellow squash from their garden back home. We soon learned it was their son’s birthday and was invited over after dinner to share birthday desert at their campfire. Later that evening it began to rain very hard. We thought the night was a bust but soon there was a knock at our door. There they were all wet from the rain. We invited then in, they had brought a piece of blueberry Birthday Pie to us. What a surprise and what a delicious blueberry pie, berries the size of marbles. The best part, it was cooked over their campfire.

Blueberry Birthday Pie Hot Off The Camp Fire

The heavy storm never materialized, the rain stopped. It did cool off significantly, at this elevation it has never gone above the 80’s in the day with low humidity and in the 50’s at night. We are still meeting very interesting people. We met a man who has been traveling around the USA on his motorcycle for a year now and plans to continue for another year. We saw him pull in and set up camp. Later we invited him over to our campfire. He is definitely a free spirit at 50 years of age. He has only had seasonal jobs and has lived from Alaska working on crab boats to the Caribbean living on his own boat. His adventures provide great entertainment as we sat around our campfire. . His appearance does not lead one to identify his life style. He is clean cut, shaved and well dress in all the right camp gear along with the appearance of an educated businessman. Very interesting to talk to.

See Our Short Video Of The Great Sand Dune Avalanche.......

Till tomorrow, Carol Hoff and Chriss Horstman

Continuing notes from the Dunes

Good Morning:
This morning we considered the possibility of changing campsites, possibly one on higher ground overlooking the sand dunes. We walked up the hill to find another couple also considering making a change. We soon entered into an interesting conversation with them and admired their young golden retriever. After giving it some thought we decided to stay right where we were nestled in some shade tree with nice privacy and a big backyard. Carol decided to take the garbage to the dump. She inquired where it was. “down the road a bit:, etc.” So off she went only to find out it was about ¼ mile up and down hills. At 8000 feet no hill is really appreciated. Carol said you really feel the hills and will think twice before doing that again.

Today was laundry day. After a hand wash in the camp laundry sink. The Horstman and Hoff laundry rope was strung up between our RV and the bear proof food storage box. Hanging in the hot sun and low humidity after 15 minutes our clothes were dry. Good job we did.

Later in the day a wind storm developed. Carol and I tried to secure the RV's awning with additional tie down line. We had quite a web going before we decided to give up and retract the awning. At that point a young woman walked up to our campsite and asked if we had any duck tape. It seems their tent blew down and incurred some damage. They moved to a site near us trying to get out of the wind. They had three young children watching while Mom and Dad struggled with a flapping tent. We pitched in to help, which was a difficult task in all the wind. The wind continued well into the night along with some rain. I got up twice to check with a flashlight, I found they were snug as a bug in a rug.

Now the next morning again it is beautiful. We had a visit from the park host and two very sociable park rangers who sat and chatted with us while admiring our motorcycle. Later they helped us move our picnic table. Remember awhile ago what we had said about the Colorado Park Rangers? Well it is completely different at this park, what a nice bunch of Rangers, so very helpful.

We take it easy the rest of the day, relaxing while enjoying our site and talking with neighbors. Carol and I always find someone interesting to meet.

Chriss & Carol

Great Sand Dune National Park, CO

Chriss Horstman & Carol Hoff

Chriss writes:

We started driving today at about 12:30 or so (once again Carol will say it is my favorite departure time) We are not sure exactly where we are headed or will end up. I started driving west on route 160. Carol was navigating as she had all the maps and was calling the shots, just like on the motorcycle. We saw a hugh mountain in the distance. One that appeared to have snow on its cap, sure in August? As we got closer you could see the different rock textures that gave the appearance of a snow capped mountain. See our pictures.

Click to view Mt. Mestas,Co. Google Map

We traveled less than 100 miles on Hwy 160 when we came across a sign that read "Great Sand Dunes National Park." I said "isn't that the national Park that the Andrews family were telling us all about?" Carol said, yes it is so I turned our rig around and pulled into the entrance road and stopped. Carol and I talked it over and agreed "let's give it a try." Later we both will say this spot was one of the high points of our trip. A good choice we made. Although later I will wonder if my spontaneity will put Carol under stress? More on that later.

The park is about 30 miles of sand dunes that are 750 feet high. Although I have some pictures, of course it doesn't really do it justice. A web search will be the best. As seniors we can stay for $7 a night (It pays to be a senior citizen). We also decided to stay for 5 days. This way we won't have to try and find another campground during Labor Day weekend.

Click......... Here's an updated map of our trip so far.

Carol writes:

Thanks to my son Tom for typing as I dictated last night’s blog to him at his home in NJ. We have no hook ups at the park but I will write a 5 day blog to send out when I can. Later on Chriss will encourage me to call Tom and over my cell phone dictate my days blog while we are perched on a mountain top during our hike.

Our campsite is a beautiful spot in spite of not having electrical or water hook ups. We do run our generator to charge the batteries but it would not be very well thought of in the park if we ran it all the time. So we must haul water in jugs and be very conservative with the use of the RV's battery power. But in spite of these small inconveniences we are very pleased with our site.

We have chatted with many people from all over the USA during our stay at the Dunes. People who walk past our site will stop and chat. I think Chriss and I tend to draw people into conversations, they end up enjoying us and we them. Last evening we met a very young lady named Clair with her dog Ellie. She was kind enough to offer to take a picture of us and in turn we took a picture of her with Ellie too. So intelligent this young lady is, we all had a good chat. later on Clair came by with her dad and Mom. Nice people!

Last night we went for a walk after dark, and this place gives DARK a whole new meaning. This whole trip has been a series of “WOWs” one wonderful scene after another. Last night’s walk was another one, I saw more stars out than ever before in my life. The milkyway was very clearly visible in the night sky. I even saw a couple of shooting stars. After our walk we just sat in our lawn chairs in the middle of the lane, in front of our camper. This dark spot on the road is where our view was the best, away from any lights from the rest rooms or other camp sites. Unfortunately, we scared one of our fellow camper to death as he was walking up the lane. He didn't see or hear us and was startled when he almost walked over us. He jumped back with a start and shout. Further down the lane this same person screamed out as he took off running off the road and into the woods. He was startled thinking he heard a bear growl next to him. Actually it turned out to be very loud snorring from a fellow camper. Chriss and I started to laugh and could hardly stop.

Each night at 7:00 PM the Rangers give a lecture in an amphitheater not far from us. Usually it is regarding some facet of the park. Last night it was about weeds that grow on the dunes. Last night we missed it but will go tonight and listen to a different topic.Today we plan to investigate our surroundings. Not far from our campsite there is a trail down to the dunes and we plan to try it out soon. So I will return later and continue.

Carol Hoff & Chriss Horstman

Lathrop State Park, Co

Carol Hoff At The Top Of The Mountain

(Double click picture to enlarge, back arrow to return)

Hello again with more notes from the road:

This morning stated out with more tire problems. Seems there were two nail holes in our trailer tire. Only one got patched at Walmart. We asked at the campground and was given a place in Trinidad that would fix our flat tire. Although it took a very long time we had friendly service at J&M Towing and Tire by Mark and Randy.

Now the tire is fixed and we can continue on with our journey. We decided to head north for now. We followed route 12. It is a loop off of Hwy 25 from Trinidad campground just outside of Walensburg CO, to Lahtrop State Park, CO. Route 12 is probably the most scenic road we have traveled in a long time. At the time we did not know that this scenic byway is famous. It is called "Highway Of Legends." The drive started out in the mountains and just kept going higher. The amazing part of it was the rocks at Stonewall located at milepost 37.8. The rocks weren't actually mountains, but rather 250' walls with places that you could see through. These walls were incredibly high. I have stood next to skyscrapers and didn't feel the incredible size that these rocks gave me. They just went straight up and up and up... Some of the walls looked like they were carefully stacked in place by man or machine, but nature put them there.

Our highest peak today was Cuchara Pass at 9,995 feet according to signs and our GPS. There were mostly fir trees on the mountains and what looked like white-barked birch trees, but were actually Aspens. We also passed a few pristine lakes. Blue and Bear Lake, Monument Lake and North Lake. All in places that made it look like an artist painted the scene. Do some research on this scenic route before you drive it. It has so much interesting history.

I will say one thing, the Colorado Rangers were not very friendly, especially at Trinidad. However the front-desk people in every place we have been were extremely nice and usually went out of their way to help.


Tonight we are safely tucked into a state-run campground called Lathrop. It is more expensive than the national parks, but clean and nice. As usual Chriss drove the entire park 3 times before settling on in his opinion "the very best site."

We met another RV camper as she walked past our camp site. We invite her over to say hello. We find she is traveling with another women in her RV along with another couple in their RV. Were told how difficult it was for her today as she is very active and soon got herself separated from the others during an "outback"hike. She had continued on during the hike while the others turned back. I think she was about to "jump ship". Carol decided to go for a walk with her??

We have a nice level cement pad for our RV which is also close to the showers and rest rooms. Carol finally returns, it's late and we are tired so to bed we go.
Good night.
Carol and Chriss

Trinidad Lake Campground, CO.

Carol, Migual, Chriss

Hello again:

Well today we finally started making progress again. We left the Corral Campground after a very nice stay with temperatures about 95*F. The best part was they even had WiFi for me. We got our tire fixed quickly at Dalhart Consumer Fuel by Migual. It was his brother George who helped us out yesterday and who told us to come back today. They both are very nice young men, friendly, and polite and prompt. When Chriss and I are together we seem to always meet such nice interesting people.

Then off we went westward still very warm sunny weather. We traveled some very interesting terrain from Texas to New Mexico. The terrian was flat but our GPS showed it to be very high. Awhile ago we wrote regarding Mt. Mitchell although in the mountains we said, "just wait" till you see the high flat "west." We saw mostly farm land planted in crop circles with watering equipment on wheels that circled within the field with the center attached to a well. These irrigation devises were Huge!

There were many grain silos for storing the crops and trains to transport the crops to sell. Those Texans are right, everything here is "BIG" the fields, crops, silos even the small towns had super wide main streets (five lanes in one town). See our pictures.

While were enjoying the scenery in New Mexico we weren't aware at how much we had climbed in altitude because the terrain appeared flat as far as we could see. No Blue Ridge Parkway or Smokie mountains to see, just flat land. To our amazement we were at 7030 ft (beat you NC, VA, TN). We laughed as we were higher in New Mexico at 7030 feet than we were in the mountains on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Mt. Mitchell which is 6800 feet.

While we were admiring the scenery the clouds began to gather and it started to rain part way though NM. These clouds were big and nasty looking but only rained with a little lightning. Those clouds sure did look threatening which reminded us of our weather delay starting this trip. Then we crossed into Colorado and the hills and scenery changed amazingly fast, high rocky mountains with mostly evergreens, very pretty. We looked to our left and partway up a mountain on a ledge were two very large black bears, I mean large.

We checked our Good Sam campground book and found Trinidad Lake Campground located in a State Park. In the park office it was Virginia, a very nice lady who checked us in to our campsite. She was so very helpful and pleasant to deal with. She was new and had to ask her superior questions over the radio while trying so hard to help us, even though she had to deal with a rough gruff ranger voice giving directions on the radio. We found at another park that not all Colorado Rangers are , well, mean.

We were assigned a great campsite (thanks Virginia). Chriss took my hand as he was showing me the sights. This is when we met our neighbors, the Andrews family, while holding hands. What a nice family, David and Karla and their children, Alyse, Kayla, Ethan, Seth, and Abby. A pleasure to be around. Chriss says this was his high point in our entire trip. The boys made a camp fire and they invited us over for their specialty “campfire cakes” which were absolutely yummy. They used special hamburger grilling pans to hold buttered bread (top and bottom) with a cherry pie filling, held over the fire until toasted and warm. Now that is a campfire treat! Later David showed Chriss his telescope and set it up to see Jupiter with its rings and 5 of its moons. The outside temperature at 12:00 midnight is 62 and we were wearing sweaters and sweat pants to keep warm. It is getting cool so it is time to call it a day. A nice warm bed sounds very tempting.

Good night to all,
Carol & Chriss

Delhart, Texas

Chriss Horstman and Carol Hoff

Hi To all, once more with more notes from the road:

After picking up our motorhome in Lawton, Ok, our trip has been quite adventure. To be honest today didn't exactly turn out as we expected.

After we got our first flat fixed we started off from Dumas, TX with the best of intentions as we headed for NM and then to Mesa Verde in Colorado. We got thirty miles down the road and stopped in Delhart, TX. Chriss discovered that a second rear tire on the motorcycle trailer had 2 nails in it. One nail was leaking air pretty quickly. We found tire repair stores on our GPS but none were open on Sunday. It was 105*F while we were parked on the street near a closed tire repair store. We talked to a man in his front yard who just happened to work at the closed store. He really wanted to help us but the repair center was closed and there was nothing he could do. He suggested we come back tomorrow (Monday) and said that he would personally repair our tire. He also recommended a RV campground near-by. After much searching we found it but didn't feel it was safe to stay.

After more random searching we finally stopped at the local police station, which also was the town jail. We tried to talk with A female jailer sitting in a protective bullet proof cage but found her to be not very cooperative. She was the jail matron and really tough looking and didn't care to answer any questions. She was mean to us even though Chriss told her he once was a Deputy Sheriff. A group of young people waiting to see an inmate took an interest in our problem and suggested a place. After more driving on a near flat trailer tire we found what turned out to be a local park and not an RV campground.

It was getting late and very hot. While further searching Chriss pulled our rig into a gravel parking lot of a large well drilling equipment garage. The doors were open and two young men were working inside. Chriss went in to talk to them and came out with more directions to another campground. They also put more air in our tires so we could get to the RV park that they had suggested to us. They were so helpful and friendly , it sure made up for the rude jail matron.

So now we are hooked up in a very nice clean campground with WiFi. We are waiting for the tire store to open in the AM, hoping that we have enough air in our tires to get there. The wife of the manager was so very nice to us during check in. Oh, yes, right after we checked in a train went by. She said it was just a 1/2 mile away but the whistle was loud and clear and I think we felt the ground shake. It is so very hot but at least it's dry. We walked through the park meeting some more interesting people. Life is good, we are having fun.

Corral RV Park is located on Highway 54 East in Dalhart Texas, one mile East of Highway 87. Dalhart is just about halfway between Dallas and Denver

The campsites here are level and gravelled. The pull-through site we got is big enough to park the largest rig out there, has full hook ups with cable TV, and cost us a whopping $19 per night. They don’t take credit cards, but will take a check if you don’t have cash. It is a very nice park to stay the night on the way to somewhere else.

So all in all we now have an all time record for distance traveled, 68 miles in two days. At this rate, please save our Christmas presents. Anyway we have better hope for tomorrow and will write again hopefully with good news.

Carol Hoff and Chriss Horstman