Friends from Florida and traveling over Cottonwood Pass

July 7, 2010.

Yesterday, Dean and Billie Tecklenburg picked us up at our campsite and took us to breakfast in Buena Vista. Dean and Billie used to live across the street from us when we owned a stick and bricks in Palm Harbor, Fl. Dean also retired from the Pinellas Sheriff's Office a few years before me. His wife, Billie retired from teaching. They had both dreamed for years of moving to Colorado and building a home. A dream they accomplished as soon as Dean retired.

They drove us out to their beautiful custom built home at 9000 ft. overlooking beautiful mountain pastures. While we were there, clouds rolled in and it began to hail first it was pea size hail which turned to Garbonzo bean size hail! It was beautiful to look out their large windows at the mountains and watch the storms rolling across the mountains and valleys. Before long we had to get back to Maggie and Rico. 

Dean and Billie dropped us off at our rig as it started to rain. We made plans to meet again later in the week for dinner.

July 8th, 2010,

Joyce and I woke to temps in the 50's. Highs were only expected to be in the 70's. We slept in late and then took the dogs for a good walk. Around noon, we decided to take a ride over Cottonwood Pass. It was a beautiful climb from Buena Vista along a sometimes narrow two-lane paved road.

Cottonwood Pass (elevation 12,126 feet (3,696 m)) is a high mountain pass in the Rocky Mountains of south-central Colorado,United States. It is located near the border of Gunnison and Chaffee counties in Colorado and is in the Sawatch Range. The area surrounding the pass is mostly forest, with the San Isabel National Forest to the east and the Gunnison National Forest to the west.

Continental Divide is marked at the summit of Cottonwood Pass. The pass is closed seasonally due to heavy snowfall, typically from around October until sometime in May. When open, the pass can be accessed from Buena Vista to the east by following Chaffee County Road 306. Near the summit, the road name changes to Gunnison County Road 209 as it continues to the west, passing nearTaylor Park Reservoir and continuing down into the town of Almont. The majority of this road is paved, with the exception being the section linking the summit of Cottonwood Pass with Taylor Park Reservoir, which is gravel.

We parked at the summit and could see clouds rolling in.

The road to the summit of Cottonwood Pass is paved traveling west from Buena Vista. However, the downhill side continuing west is a dirt road. We decided to travel down the West side towards the Taylor Reservoir.

We got within 3 miles of the Reservoir and it was raining, hailing and sleeting so we decided to turn back.

It was a bit muddier on the way back! We sure are enjoying our Jeep! This is not something we would have attempted in the car we traded.

After getting back to Buena Vista, we took a ride over to an RV dealer in Salide to look for a fifth wheel lube plate for the king pin. My previous plate broke in half as i unhitched. Naturally the RV shop was out of them. Hopefully they will have one for us on Monday.