As predicted it poured during the night dropping the overnight temps into the high 30’s. Everyone around here is happy to have rain because they had a very dry winter. They usually get several feet of snow in this area but only had a total of 7 inches. The mountains did get several feet and some ski areas will still be open for business on May 31st. (How about that Jack!)
Cheyenne Mountain State Park is a beautiful park at the foot of Cheyenne Mountain. It was once a private ranch but was sold to the state several years ago. The plan was to make this a super high-end CG with over 200 sites but when the economy tanked so did the funding for the park. There are only 51 beautifully constructed sites with full hook-ups overlooking the city of Colorado Springs with the backdrop of Cheyenne Mountain. Quite a change from the KOA.
We had four nights secured beginning Monday because the CG is booked solid on weekends. We were fortunate enough to secure a walk-in day at the site we had booked on-line so we will be here for five days total. On Friday we’ll try the walk-up thing again to extend our stay knowing we will probably have to move to another site. This CG is not only perfect for us but is centrally located to all the activities we have planned.
The weather continued to be overcast with intermittent rain most of the day. By the time we set up it was mid-afternoon so we opted to stay put and organize a little more.
As the day went on we watched the loud cover slowly recede over the mountain and enjoyed the view. It warmed a little (48 degrees) so we took Jewel for a walk around the park.
Tomorrow we will drive up to Pike’s Peak weather permitting.
Ron was doing the gas mileage calculations and was surprised at how much the combination of high altitude, 40 mph headwinds and climbing to 7000 feet dropped our usually MPG. It dropped from from 7 to 4.3 mpg. No wonder it took 50 gals of gas to go 216 miles. We also discovered that you cannot buy regular gas here. It is mandated that all gas have a minimum of 10% Ethanol (E-10) that also decreases MPG’s but does protect the environment. Prior to that last 216 miles we had filled with gas but mistakenly put in E-15 – even worse for gas mileage. Another lesson learned when traveling state to state. Even though the gas is cheaper it is definitely less efficient and more costly in the end.
0 comments:
Post a Comment