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.

Boondocking at the Texas Creek OHV Area

Back again at my favorite traveling activity: Boondocking!

After some VA appointments last week, I was free once again to go Boondocking while Martha starts home to continue socializing.

One major event occured, we got a second vehicle again. Martha hadn't felt joy on purchasing a 2024 Honda CR-V last year; and so, had returned it.

We still needed a second car as a spare and also to drive when the 2014 CR-V is boondocking with Umarang the VRRV.

So, Kuma, the 2017 Honda Ridgeline was purchased.

Kuma means Bear in Japanese....

So, I'm out at the Texas Creek OHV area for the next couple of days, embracing dispersed camping once again. I towed the old 2014 CR-V with me, along with Yagi, my Yamaha TW200.

I plan on doing some exploring of land that's for sale in nearby Cotopaxi, pics of the Arkansas river along US50 and whatnot while camping here.

Though sunny in the morning, the skies turned overcast as I setup camp.

I  managed to snag a nice one-rig spot, electing to forego the big dispersed camping lot that's a little further from my site and closer to US50.

No cellular signal here, but I just fire up Starlink when I want Internet access....it's all good.

The sun came out later:

Overseas Travel and Receiving Texts

Online security being what it is these days, we use 2FA or Two Factor Authentication whenever possible while accessing accounts online.  If you're not doing this, you're at risk.

I elected to not pay Verizon $10/day to be able to use our Verizon ESIMs while in Europe (this feature is called Travel Pass).  Total cost would have been roughly $750 for our two phones, a bit high)

I went with a third party ESIM from Holafly (which sucks at activation processes, not recommended).  Cost <$3/day per phone; came to roughly $100/phone.

So, we had Internet access but Verizon ESIM had to be off.  Important caveat: the third party ESIM only provided internet access, no phone call capabilities.

This meant that when an online resource, such as our bank/credit card company wanted to verify it was me trying to login, it sent a text with authentication code to my Verizon mobile number as I'd previously set up.

Of course, my Verizon ESIM being turned off (and no Travel Pass), no texts so no authentication code.

Workarounds:

Best option:  Set up email as a 2FA authentication code option.  Not all companies offer this at this time however.

If email option not available, here's what worked for me and my Verizon account.  YMMV:

1.  While connected to good Wi-Fi Internet, go to your phone's SIM Manager and turn on the Verizon ESIM.  Leave your third party ESIM turned on.  

Note: enable a VPN if possible since you're accessing account credentials on a public Wi-Fi access point!

2.  Immediately, turn on Airplane Mode while ensuring Wi-Fi is still enabled!  (On my Android phone, SIM Manager is disabled when in Airplane mode)

3.  Queued up texts (sent to me while Verizon ESIM was off) would then start arriving, to include the 2FA text I needed in the moment.  Got the code, authenticated and was into my account.

4.  Once you're done, remember to disable airplane mode and immediately turn off the Verizon ESIM!

I also called Verizon support, while on Wi-Fi Internet and using my Google Voice number and had them remove Travel Pass from all mobile lines to prevent accidental activation of this feature and ensuing costs.

I believe the above workaround required Wi-Fi calling turned on.

You can receive texts but not send via Verizon ESIM.  You'll get a "trying to connect" error.

Texting while overseas was via apps such as Signal or Whatsapp.  It does require both parties to use the same app however.

You cannot make calls via Verizon ESIM when not using Travel Pass.  That's where Google Voice came in but it only works with US numbers!  If I ever travel overseas again, will have to do more research on this).

Almost bought another ESIM for voice calls in Spain but got by without; once Booking.com resolved internal issues which made bookings impossible when using our US credit cards.

Related Note/Caveat:

2FA via SMS texts is no longer as secure as it used to be.  Local authenticator apps are better but commercial entities aren't moving fast enough to implement this option