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Thu, 8/20/09

West Fork NF CG, Pagosa Springs, CO; to San Luis Lakes State Park, Mosca, CO: Well, it started out a good day. Morning dawned sunny and bright. We decided not to top off our water tank before we left so we wouldn’t have the extra weight. Left at 10:20 and headed back over Wolf Creek Pass. After going over the pass we followed the Archelata Creek for quite a while. An absolutely beautiful drive. We went through South Fork, which is a cute little town, and Del Norte. Then we’re basically back in the desert on a high, wide valley sitting between the San Juan and Rocky Mountains. Guess it’s a big potato growing area. Made it to the San Luis Lakes State Park which is in the middle of nowhere. The campground is all sage brush and sand but we have a beautiful view of the Sange de Christo Mountains. It’s really quite pretty and not very hot. The campground is quite nice. We have electric but no water. Thought we could fill up the water tank at the dump station on our way in, but they didn’t have potable water there. Mike is starting to get ticked off at this point. So, after we got set up we filled up our totes at the faucet in our loop (four trips) and transferred to the holding tank. It took five six-gallon totes to fill it up. Mike went and sat at the picnic table relaxing (glad that job was done) and I went in to turn on the pump. That’s when our day went to hell. The pump didn’t sound quite right and no water came out. I had washed my hands just before we started filling the tank and it worked just fine. So, after ranting and raging for a while Mike called our RV dealer in St. Louis. They walked us through how to prime the pump, but still nothing. Can’t really believe it needed to be primed anyway. We discussed our options. Mike wanted to pull out tomorrow and drive down to Alamosa and find an RV dealer hoping that they could fix. I said I’d rather stay here two nights like we planned. The rest of the trip we’ll be on city water anyway. So, we filled up the stock pot with water to use for washing, etc. They do have showers here also. That was our wonderful day. Tomorrow we’ll drive over to Great Sand Dunes National Park—just up the road. In the meantime, we have a full fresh water tank but can’t get to any of it (sigh)..