Tarryall Day 5: Final Day - Wanderings

 Worry not, gentle reader, no overdose of Fall Colors today.  There will be more from latter camping sites, but from here no more.

I rode Yagi, my TW200, to the Cline Ranch State Wildlife Area to check it out.  It's located west of Jefferson, CO along US 285 and just west of the junction of County Road 34.

It was, disappointingly, a wildlife area seemingly dedicated to fishing.  It offers a four slot parking lot and you walk in to the "fishing beats", whatever those are.  The creek you fish from is Taryall Creek.

Still, it is land that used to be the Cline Ranch, part of the Tarryall/South Park Valley apparently.  Some old buildings remain and one can check them out.

Someone is trying to restore/preserve the buildings, but not to "historical" or authentic to period styling.  I think they're just trying to keep the weather out basically.

Here's a link to some historical info:  LINK

Main Ranch House

I liked the look of the horseshoe on the front door

of the cabin

I left the SWA without walking in further to check out the "fishing beats".

A couple of views from CR 77 where it goes over Michigan Creek.  

Riding back towards camp on CR 34, I stopped at the western end of CR 39 aka Rocky Hills Creek Rd which is the main access road to the dispersed camping sites.

From here, you get a good view of a nice and imposing rock formation which lies on private property:

That's it for the wanderings today, the rest of the day was spent reading and relaxing at the campsite as the skies turned gray and the day turned cool.  A little bit of rain (barely any) fell sporadically but not enough to even dampen the ground.

I'll be displacing to the Buena Vista, CO area tomorrow.  Not much else in this area that I wish to check out or see again.

Tarryall Day 4: Fall Colors on Boreas Pass Road

 Today I rode the Scarlett, My 2014 Ural Patrol sidecar rig over to the small town of Como. The town sits on the southern end of the Boreas Pass road, with the city of Breckenridge on the northern end.  The road, used to be the railbed for the rail line that ran from these towns.  

I would not go much past the actual pass summit itself as the fall colors are not much in evidence on the northern third of the road.

I thought that by going on a Monday I would not have to deal with too many leaf peepers in their cars, I was wrong.

While I am sure that there were much more of them during the weekend; they were enough today that it was sometimes very hard to get a shot of the full color without a car being in the shot.

After I returned to the town of Como, I checked out the train station buildings and got the following "then and now" shots.  The B&W photos were on informational displays in town and at the station.

I thought too also take a picture of the railroad roundhouse building in town but the gates were locked.  This didn't stop some tourist dirt bags from California and Florida from sneaking under the gate to look around.  I left to go back to camp instead.

I got back by 2:00 p.m. and after a quick lunch decided to go out riding on Yagi, my TW200 and check out the Eastern side of the camping area.

I spotted only one campsite occupied as opposed to eight campsites on the western side along county road 39 which is the main access road for the dispersed camping sites.

The clouds moved in as evening approached, which cooled things down enough that I just returned to camp.

Tonight's post-sunset light show "didn't suck"

Tarryall Days 2 & 3: More Fall Color

 Saturday, September 24

Did a little bit of riding on Yagi, my TW200, around mid-morning but otherwise pretty much stayed at camp and enjoyed the sunny weather.  

Lots of other campers in the area but still none within line of sight of my campsite so it's all good.  It's the weekenders!  Several OHVs running about, disregarding the rule about the county roads being limited to licensed highway vehicles.  Oh well.

That's Mount Silverheels

As I wandered the trails I spotted and stopped for what looked like a tupperware container.

Yummy....

Here's a view of distant mountain peaks, some being the Collegiate Peaks near Buena Vista.  Taken from atop a rock formation near the campsite:

Sunday, September 25

I hung out at the campsite most of the day, trying out the shade RV Awning Sunshade that I'd recently bought.  Works fine on the awning, but ended up putting it away due to the VRRV's orientation, it wasn't needed.

Played around trying it on the left side of the RV, using the mounting bar previously used by the slideout's topper.  It worked fine to attach, but too short, it would have to be at least 15' long instead of the present 9' but not sure I'll pursue it as a shade option for the left side.

In the late afternoon, it was warm enough to go out riding again on Yagi to capture some more Fall Colors:

All the amateurs/weekenders have left, I counted only six occupied campsites to the west of me and only two on the ridge to the north of me.  I'll have to see what is to the east of me tomorrow.

Tomorrow:  Boreas Pass and its Fall Colors.

Resuming Camping Trip - Tarryall

 Martha, Thing One and I returned from Wisconsin on Tuesday of this week.  Laura, my SIL is still working to settle my FIL's estate and take care of closing out things.

It was a long drive there and back, 16 hours each way, but otherwise things went well for Martha and Laura as they said their goodbyes to their dad and celebrated his life with the multitude of family and friends that showed up for the service this past Saturday.

Today, the weather cleared up enough here in Colorado, to allow me sunny weather for the resumption of my camping trip.  Martha returns to work but the plan is for her to join me for a few days during Fall Break in October.

In the meantime, I will camp in Colorado so she doesn't have a very long drive to come join me at camp, wherever that might be when the time comes.

Today I decided to check out, again, the dispersed camping south of Jefferson, CO.  I call it the Tarryall area as the reservoir by the same name is some miles south of here.  The idea was to detox from all the people-related activities of the last few months and to try and capture some Fall Colors.

I got here early enough to snag the preferred camping spot from previous trips.  The grand tree that used to provide shade is gone, apparently knocked down by winds based on the breakage pattern left behind.  Still, it's a nice spot:

The leaves are starting to turn in this area, and I found some patches of Aspen which provided some early color display:

I would estimate perhaps 15-20% of the Aspen have turned yellow so far, more to come I am sure in the next few days.

There's several other campers around but fortunately my site has no line of sight to the closer ones.  This area seems to be quite popular.