Reposting: Sunday Sunset...and I'm still here.

Well, apparently one hazard of trying to edit one's blog using the EasyBlog app is accidentally deleting a post that was published while editing it!  Dammit.

Sigh.

OK, so bottom line up front: The Ultrasound Scan of my bladder today showed no kidney stone so the doctor thinks it has been passed out of me.  No pain involved with that particular exit so I'm happy.

Lesson learned: Hydrate!

Another lesson learned, avoid EasyBlog for more than correcting typos on published blog postings.


Here's the pics that went with the posting I accidentally deleted.

Uraling to Boreas Pass, to be known as the Kidney Stone Ride

Thursday, July 18

The day started with a new pain on the left lower side of my back.  After some stretching moves, the pain subsided so I thought no more of it, thinking it was just old age catching up with me.

Martha and I rode over to nearby Breckenridge and I dropped her off to check out the "Troll".  I tanked up in town and then headed out on Boreas Pass Road to check out the scenery. 

Last time I was there, was in search of Fall Colors:  LINK

Boreas Pass is quite rocky in parts, hell, most of it is rocks that were bouncing Scarlett around quite a bit.  ( I think I may need new rear shock absorbers on the tug).

More traffic than I expected for a mid-week ride, but then again it's summer time.

 The view from near town, not too shabby.

I arrived at the usual spot for pictures and the mountains were in full display, the pain had returned but not too bad and it seemed to go away with the walking I did to get the below pictures so again, I just ignored it.

Kept on riding towards the pass summit, made it there but it was crawling with cagers so kept right on going.

At this point the pain returned and got steadily worse. 

I turned around soon and moved rapidly to a shady spot I'd spotted earlier closer to town:

I drank the bottle of water Martha had provided me, did the same stretching exercise as before and it seemed to help a little bit.  Took a while but the pain subsided to the point I could ride again.

I called Martha once I had coverage and told her to prepare to go to the ER!

In pain but still able to ride, I met up with Martha after some tense phone conversations (sorry, dear) and we rode to Dillon's Hospital's Emergency Room.

Got checked, described the symptoms while at time writing in pain and tests were run, including a CAT scan.  My first.

Resulting imagery was transmitted via Internet to Denver for a Urologist's review and apparently a 3 mm wide kidney stone had dislodged from my left kidney and was causing blockages on the tube leading to the bladder....hence the periodic and rather high pain.

Apparently, the kidney is covered in nerve endings in that area, which provide for the high level of pain I'd never experienced before.  Yay, another first. 

I also showed up very dehydrated and with microscopic blood in my urine.  So they push an IV bag's worth of fluid into me and the pain abated.

They offered morphine but I declined, hoping to be able to ride the rig back to the RV.  The fluid from the IV did the trick thankfully to remedy the pain.

Now waiting for the kidney stone to come out, am told more pain in my future but was also prescribed meds to make things flow easier and to manage the pain with Percoset.

Once released from the ER, we rode to pick up the prescriptions from Walmart and then back to the RV.

We broke camp and came home, even though scheduled to spend one more night in the campground; I wanted to be home for part two of the kidney stone's passage.

Got home to a broken Air Conditioner.  Turned out to be the blower motor and it was replaced today, Friday, thanks to a neighbor friend who does such work on the side.  Lucky for us we knew him, because our regular HVAC company couldn't send someone till July 29!

Camping at the Prospector Campground near Dillon, CO

We left the Rabbit Ears Pass area this morning and displaced south on CO Hwy 9 to Dillon, CO and the Prospector Campground run by the US Forest Service.

Along the way we checked out cell reception of the campsites on the border of Green Mountain Lake but there wasn’t enough signal to fully explore any of the four we passed; nice area, perhaps for a time when I don’t require cellular data connectivity.

 Our site in the "A" Loop of Prospector Campground.

 Lunch!

Martha went for a short walk down to the Dillon Lake/Reservoir and got this nice shot:

photo courtesy of Martha

I did some work, some adjustments of the windshield on Scarlett (it had become askew from all the bumps and vibrations recently).

We relaxed in the afternoon and when the time came, we headed out on Scarlett to see what kind of sunset we could see from Sapphire Point nearby.

I tried to get photos with Scarlett but the sun's position on this time of the year proved quite difficult for that.  The next photo is the best I was able to do....

Martha, on the other hand, armed only with her iphone, had walked down with the sunset seeking crowd down at Sapphire Point and got these great shots:

 photo courtesy of Martha

photo courtesy of Martha

She's got colors, she's got framing, she's got good anchoring foreground objects and nice composition!  

Fish Creek Falls and checking possible campsites NE of Steamboat Springs

Martha and I rode into Steamboat Springs and found our way to the Fish Creek Falls venue.

Short hikes later, we found the falls and the moderate crowds.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

Then, we motored back into town so that Martha could check out some Hot Springs, and get a work out in at the recreation center.

I went off to check out a nearby National Forest Campground, Dry Lake.  I got to it with no issue as it wasn't far away and it proved to be full and besides, no usable cellular signal.

As I was already on Forest Road 60, I decided to ride on and check out Buffalo Pass which was about six miles away.

Rocky roads made for slow progress but not too bad.  The heat of the day on the other hand made me stop to let the engine on Scarlett cool down.

As I was waiting for the engine to cool (it had reached 469F), I spotted a Jeep coming from the direction of Buffalo Pass which according to my GPS was about 2.5 miles away.

I flagged him down and queried as to the pass, he said the gate was closed.  Damn.

So he proceeded on down the mountain and so did I.  I did stop at a couple of spots to check out the cell signal even though it'd be a pretty rough ride for the RV to get to them.

About 3 miles from Buffalo Pass

Good signal

Here's a couple of shots of the Steamboat Springs Valley as Scarlett and I made our way back down into town:

Several sites, not very level are in evidence, but this road's sites are mainly for tent campers.

Picked up Martha after a while and we headed back to camp.  

I did go out for a bit to find a spot to pose Scarlett with the Rabbit Ears rock formation, instead not only did I use the same spot but I found SonjaM's Ziggy's american cousin!

Hiking Rabbit Ears Trail, visiting Steamboat Springs

Martha and I got an early start after breakfast and walked part of the Rabbit Ears Trail that is located near the campground.

Motorcycles are permitted but there were a couple of sections on the portion we walked which would have been a tad rough on the Ural.  Yagi, the TW200 Dual Sport, on the other hand, would have had a blast I think.  Next time.

 A view of the Rabbit Ears as we walked along.

This is a pretty popular trail it seems, we saw several groups of hikers, some of them families with little kids, hiking along.  Google maps seems to indicate one can get to the base of the Rabbit Ears, but it wasn't meant for us today due to time constraints.

 The view back down the valley wasn't too

shabby either!  That's Whiteley Peak in
the middle.

Later in the afternoon, after work, we rode Scarlett for about 20 minutes or so along US Highway 40 to the ski town of Steamboat Springs.  Not too crowded with tourists and we just walked some of the shops to include seeing this fellow inside F.M. Light's Western Apparel Store:

 Jackalope?

Some more walking led to Martha sitting down with old Ben Franklin for a picture:

Then she decided to pose with Amelia Earhart with me doing a selfie accidentally in both pictures.

Headed back up to the West Summit of Rabbit Ears Pass on our way back to Dumont Lake.  We stopped at a couple of turnouts which offered some great views of the valley below:

Lake Catamount

Camping at Dumont Lake Campground, Medicine Bow/Routt National Forest

Martha and I headed out of the cesspool that is the Metro Denver area and fought traffic all the way to the west side on I-70.  Accidents, asshole truckers, texters and just plain too many cars on a crumbling and limited infrastructure.

Still we did manage to escape and got into the mountains with lot of other cars, but there were more cars coming down off of the mountain!

We got off I-70 West at the US40 junction and headed through Winter Park (crowded as hell), Fraser and finally Granby where we tanked up and left the Rocky Mountain National Park Loop.

Traffic plummeted at this point and things became more enjoyable in terms of driving.  I imagine it was a zoo at the RMNP today.

We tried finding boondocking at the Muddy Creek area but all the spots were either taken or we couldn't get good cell signal.  We proceeded onwards to the Dumont Campground and found the last pullthrough walkup spot!

Good cell signal here and we'll be here for three nights.

Photo by Martha

Once we were settled in, I took Scarlett out for a spin and to check out the local surroundings.

I found what I think was a road that takes you to a basecamp for eventually climbing up to the Rabbit Ears rock formations for which the nearby pass gets it's name.  I didn't get far, perhaps two miles of rocky bumpy road before snow stopped me.

Headed back towards camp, I found a small side road that gave a view of the Rabbit Ears Rock formations:

Here's a view of the Rabbit Ears from the road which leads to Dumont Lake Campground:

Later, Martha and I went for a short walk, here's a sample of the wild flowers which were in bloom in the area:

As we approached Dumont Lake, we could see large clouds of what I think were mayflies or some similar insect flying about, probably desperately trying to find mates during their probably short lived lives.

Luckily they weren't clouds of mosquitoes!

Here's a shot of the oncoming sunset at Dumont Lake, yes, those are bugs flying about:

Nice leading lines shot by Martha

 Martha at Dumont Lake

 Back at the campground, Martha read while waiting

for the sunset to happen

The sunset was "ok", with some rich colors at the end :

photo by Martha 

A warm summer sunset on the Front Range

Home for a bit, weather is sunny and hot, even humid at times.

Makes for sweltering work at times in the garage, even will all the doors open.

Working on the trailer to finalize the modifications for safe transporting of two motorcycles at same time; also cleaning it to help #2 son move into his studio apartment this weekend.

Less expensive (and hopefully less germ free than the university dorms), it located closer to school to ease the logistics of the traffic-jammed Metro Denver area.

The heat though, appears to also be contributing to interesting cloud patterns in the evening.  Last night's sunset, though not as wildly spectacular as the one I missed on Wednesday while driving home from boondocking; produced some really nice shadowing with the Front Range Mountains.

Sunset Mode was used in the camera to bring out the colors better; that, and some post-processing as usual.

 I liked this one the best