Tornado Warning Produces Big Hail

Yesterday, June 17

A rather eventful day, weather-wise.  It got a bit too exciting.

The morning started off with heavy overcast skies, eventually turning to mostly cloudy as Noon approached.

Got the severe thunderstorm warning on my phone, went outside the VRRV to see the sky not looking good: 

The 4G signal wasn't working so I fired up Starlink to check the weather radar, not great.  You can see the northern edge of the storm passing to the south of the blue dot. (That's me)

We had a few minutes of light pea-sized hail, no big deal.  

Things got serious after I had lunch.

At around 12:35, the tornado warning was broadcast and with it soon came very loud banging noises on the roof of the VRRV!

This shot shows the thunderstorm passing through my position.  (Blue dot).

This hail lasted perhaps 2-3 minutes and was quite scary.  I wondered how the CR-V and VRRV would come out of it.  Full of dents?

After the hail and rain stopped, I went outside to check the CR-V and the exterior of the VRRV.  Fortunately, no damage to the vehicles or the solar panels.

This is the largest hail I've ever witnessed:

No tornado near me, apparently there was one sighted further to the NE.  The skies slowly cleared towards evening, but things remained quite cool at 50° F at sunset.

Ah, camping above 9000 feet in Colorado, it can get exciting this time of year.

Displacing to Escape the Barrio

Yesterday, June 14

Happy birthday to my branch of service, the US Army.

Not quite a happy day for me though, I woke to a travel trailer and a pickup truck pulling a long cargo trailer with OHVs in the site next to me!

No problem, I told myself, it's public lands.  The trouble began when more large pickup trucks with trailered OHVs, two travel trailer rigs and several cars joined the first people.  By noon it was perhaps three generations worth of people including kids and 3 dogs.  I guess it was perhaps at least 20-25 individuals.

All, mind you, in a space suitable for perhaps two campers at most.

It became quite a Barrio.  

Then to give it the final Barrio touch, one of the pickups was blasting music, suitably loud to overcome their generator and what must have been perhaps 10 OHVs.

For whatever reason, the OHVs were sometimes left idling, I guess for background noise, between outings.

Best part was a couple of young punks on OHVs, spinning donuts in the space between the barrio and my site.  Thanks for the dust clouds, amigos.

So, Saturday dragged along where I kept hoping they were day users (nope).  I was treated to their music late into the night too, I guess their kids didn't need to get to sleep at normal hours when camping.

Sunday, I woke to quiet.  This lasted until they woke around 730 AM or so, then the music started up.

Fortunately, I spotted the Class C belonging to a separate set of campers further down the trail, leaving!  

Yes!  I knew the spot they'd been at, and it had been my mistake not to shift to it before the weekend.

I drove the CRV to the spot and claimed it.  Returning to the VRRV, I did a hasty displacement from the "still rocking the times" barrio.  It's not even a quarter mile but the no more music!

There's only one way to get to the new site and the CRV stands guard to keep the OHV swine from racing up to my new campsite.

Nice big site, only drawback is no shade for the VRRV but that's fine.

I'm guessing the barrio will be gone by Noon, but the new site is better and I don't have to move somewhere else for at least a week!

Oh, and no way for another barrio event from occuring with this site!

Anti- social, that's me.

I went later to check, they were gone between 2 and 3 pm.  They left trash all over the site.  Nice, huh?

Some interesting clouds in the afternoon:

Here's today's post-sunset views:

Boondocking near Divide, CO

I displaced this morning to a Pike-San Isabel National Forest dispersed camping area near Divide.

The route Google maps had me take involved High Park Road.  Boy, they sure named that road correctly!  Steep climbs had poor Uma, the VRRV as she towed the Honda CR-V uphill.

Note to self: while on an uphill climb, do not stop to let traffic pass, you'll not be able to accelerate enough to regain previos climb speeds!

Had Martha been with me, we would have disconnected the CR-V and she would have driven it separately.  Oh well.  I'll try and avoid this route in the future!

Anyways, finally made it and found a nice spot with good vistas of nearby mountain peaks 

I'll be here about a week or so.  Martha is joining me after the weekend.  Friends of ours: Jenny and Scott are going to be camping in the Mueller State Park which is about 12 miles away.  The plan is to visit with them.

More to follow ....

Sunset:

T'Dubing along the Arkansas River Headwaters

Yesterday, June 9

First, last evening's sunset while parked along US50 and the turnoff for Westcliffe.

I drove the Honda CR-V to check out what would end up being 5 candidate vacant land properties.  Spent the morning criss-crossing the area south of my campsite to no avail.

All the properties were either too hilly or had sketchy looking neighborhoods.

Oh well.  I hung out at camp the rest of the day, relaxing with audiobooks.  Got some threatening weather in the late afternoon but it turned out to be much of nothing.

Today, June 10

Spent the first half of the morning riding my TW200 up and down US50 within 10 miles east/west of Texas Creek.

Some views of the rock formations and headwaters of the Arkansas River:

I then rode past the village of Cotopaxi, to the vicinity of Howard, CO to check out National Forest Access Roads I had seen during other trips.

First was Kerr Gulch Road, found 3 likely sites for future boondocking; though only one had usable cell signal.

I was at the same, pursuing these views of "nearby" mountain peaks:

I also checked out County Road 6 which seems to deadends at a USFS campground with tiny campsites.

Motoring back towards camp, I gassed up in Cotopaxi after this shot of the rock formations near the village.

Entering back into the OHV area I'm camping at, spotted these foundation remnants which were curious:

I returned just in time for lunch.  It was quite warm by now and sunny.

Things would cool a bit with growing cloud cover as the afternoon wore on.  Spent the afternoon blogging after processing pics.

I did go for a few miles of riding within the OHV area on the TW200.  Lots of steep single track and the wider trails were deep sand in spots, not very enjoyable.