Maybell (or Maybelle?), Colorado

On Monday, we traveled a short distance (about 90 miles) west on US 40 to Maybell, CO.

Before leaving the Meadows Campground, Dwayne stacked up the firewood that we had not used so the next occupant of the site we were in would be able to use it. The last couple of days we were there, it was too chilly and rainy to enjoy being outside even with a fire going.

Dwayne took pictures as I was slowly driving down the mountain to Steamboat Springs...

Monday was much clearer than Saturday when we drove the Jeep into Steamboat Springs.

The uphill traffic has a passing lane.

There was a runaway truck ramp about halfway down the downgrade.

The name of the National Forest that we have been camping in.

This shows some of the housing that is part of the town.

The oncoming traffic is getting their passing lane, so we're about to reach the end of the downgrade!

US 40 in town - this was where the car show was on Saturday. Thankful that we could drive straight through on US 40!

Days End Directory and AllStays had both indicated that there was a City Park in Maybell, CO with RV electric hookups, fresh water fill, and a waste water dump.

We made use of the dump and fresh water fill in Maybell Park.

I don't know that you can see them, but the electric hookups are along the side of the road that is inside the park. The marker indicates that there are two campsites per post - each electric post has one 30A hookup and 2 20A hookups. There's about 40 feet between posts - so each RV gets about 20' of parking space. I guess they were built when RVs were smaller.

One of the things we've gotten installed on Miss Doozie this year is a SeeLevel Tank Monitor. The previous monitoring system showed us just 4 measurements in the tank - it had a light at 1/4 full, 1/2 full, 3/4 full, and full. There was space above the sensor for "full" in the tank so full wasn't totally full. The previous monitors measured how full the system was by probes that went through the side of the tank into the inside. If liquid (or "something") was in contact with the probes, it indicated that the tank was full to that point. If something got caught on a probe, it indicated the tank was full to that point. Not to get into TMI (too much information), but, you can probably imagine, it isn't too difficult for "something" to get onto a probe, especially in the black tank. Our black tank would rarely indicate completely empty. And sometimes, just randomly, one of the higher probes would also indicate it was covered - so we might have a light just at 3/4 full, and not at 1/4 or 1/2. It was just problematic.

 We had read that other RV owners had installed the SeaLevel system and were very pleased with it, so we got a system at Quartzsite this year. The sensors are mounted on the outside of the tanks, so there is no physical contact with the contents of the tank. The monitor displays the fullness of the tanks in percentages. It feels like to me that we have more space in our tanks now. Previously, once a grey or black tank got to 3/4 full, we were thinking we needed to find a place to dump. In a similar way, once the fresh got to 1/4 full (which happened when the water level got below 1/2), we would start looking for a way to fill up fresh water. Now we feel a lot more confident with going longer on use of the tanks. The photo above was taken while we were filling the fresh tank. It was down to 18% before we filled.

I want to do some more experimenting with the tanks - the way that we mounted the sensors on the fresh tank it never shows 100% full on the monitor - the fresh water fill automatically cuts off at a point where there is another sensor through the side of the fresh water tank - and that point still leaves air space at the top of the tank (I'm not sure why). The percentage full on the SeaLevel shows 93-94% full (that's why Dwayne has the label next to the monitor read-out). We don't see the same anomaly on the grey and black tanks. However, it seemed to me that when I was doing laundry when we were on full hookups, when I got to 70+% full on the grey tank, it went to overfull (it overflows into the shower) more quickly than I thought it would - I thought each load of laundry took about 17% of the tank, and I had more than 20% remaining when I started the load. So... either different loads can produce different amounts of water, or I mis-read the monitor, or... something! More experimenting to be done, and when we're on full hookups is the only time I want to experiment with filling the grey and black tanks.

The sign for the park - here Maybell is spelled "Maybelle", but this is the only place I've seen it spelled that way.

We took the first site in the front of the park (site 1&2), which doesn't have any sites beyond it (behind us). Our front end is probably about 20' from the next power pole, so if someone with a small rig came in, they could get to site 3&4.

For dinner, I made Zesty Lemon Scallion Grilled Chicken and Vegetable Kabobs... we used the outside grill...

They turned out really good, and enough to have leftovers too!

One other rig showed up in the park with us. When I first saw it, I just saw a car hauler, and then I saw a very long tractor pulling the car hauler (it was on the street, not in the park). I wasn't sure whether it was a commercial vehicle or not.

When it drove past us, there was a sign on the door of the tractor indicating that it was a private vehicle, not for hire, licensed as an RV. We didn't have the chance to talk to the owners, but it looked like an interesting rig!

Re: Internet service: I had checked along the route and Verizon's coverage map indicated that they had coverage here, but they do not. Thankfully, with the cellular booster, AT&T's coverage is good.