Steamboat Springs, CO

We have been staying at Meadows Campground, just above Steamboat Springs, CO, for several days, and finally, on Saturday, decided to head down into town.

First - how did the town get named? Well, as you can probably surmise, it has special "springs" - hot springs. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steamboat_Springs,_Colorado):

Steamboat is home to natural hot springs that are located throughout the area. Upon first hearing a chugging sound, early trappers believed that a steamboat was coming down the river. When the trappers saw that there was no steamboat, and that the sound was coming from a hot spring, they decided to name the spring Steamboat Springs.

As we were driving down into the town, we were surprised at how green it was - it was also overcast and drizzly at times.

 We stopped at the Visitor's Center, and the lady there gave us some good information. She mentioned that US 40 through town was closed for a Mustang Roundup. I asked whether it was horses, and she indicated it was cars. I said, "They close US 40?" and she said that it was surprising how often US 40 was closed through town. Understand that this is not a place where there are a lot of alternative routes - there isn't a "beltway" or interstate that bypasses the town - US 40 is it!

So we headed on into town and saw lots of Mustangs...

And some other cars...

Mustangs were parked all down the center of the roadway...

... and diagonally along the side - looking one way...

... and looking down the other way - on both sides of the road.

We were looking for a bakery, and crossed this stream on our way to it... note that it is flowing westward since we've crossed the Continental Divide.

We found the bakery - with this cute sign outside!

While sitting on their outside patio overlooking the stream, we watched the traffic that was detouring through town due to US 40 being closed. There were several of these large livestock carriers - one of them had a name on the door of the truck indicating it was rodeo stock. We had seen on the event schedule for town that there was a pro rodeo in town on Saturday evening. They had to hold up traffic at the corner (just beyond the range of the picture on the left) because the truck couldn't make the turn if there were vehicles in the oncoming traffic lane (which there were constantly with the detoured traffic going the other way). It was quite the chore with folks directing traffic all over town - so US 40 could be closed for the car show!

Also from the bakery patio we could see something that was on the hill on the other side of town...

It was a ski jumping hill right in town!

 From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howelsen_Hill_Ski_Area):

Howelsen Hill Ski Area has sent more skiers to international competition than any other area in North America. It is the oldest ski area in continuous use in Colorado, and has the largest and most complete natural ski jumping complex in North America. Howelsen has been the training ground for more than 79 Olympians making over 130 Winter Olympic appearances, 15 members of the Colorado Ski Hall of Fame, and 6 members of the National Ski Hall of fame. Howelsen Hill is open to the public and is owned and operated by the City of Steamboat Springs Parks, Open Space and Recreation Department.

The lady in the Visitor's Center also recommended a drive up to Fish Creek Falls...

There were a few walking paths - we elected to use the one to the overlook as the one to the base was rated as "difficult"...

The one to the overlook was rated "easy" and it was a nice, broad, gently sloping walk.

This was interesting because it showed that the water we were seeing would eventually make its way to Yuma via the Colorado River!

I thought this was interesting - specifically about "the average household uses about 600 gallons of water" a day. I recently read that there is a proposal in California that each individual be limited to 55 gallons of water usage a day - to be reduced to 50 gallons at some point in the future. I was thinking, "We have a 160 gallon fresh water tank, and with two people, we can go a week with conservative usage." (We actually don't know whether our fresh tank is 120 gallons or 160 gallons.) Anyway - say that we have 160 gallons of fresh water - if I do 2 loads of laundry, we can go 5 days without needing water. We drink distilled water separate from what is in the fresh tank, and we figure that we consume about a gallon each of distilled water per day. So, 50 gallons per day per person seems like a lot to me... if I assume that this signboard has an average household at 4 people, this would imply 125 gallons of water per person per day. Of course, we don't have kids or diapers to wash... I also know that we are careful about our water usage - I even am when I'm on "unlimited" supplies (like when I was in the hotel in Colorado Springs in April), I turn the water off in the shower except when I'm getting wet or rinsing off, and I don't let the water run at the sink except when I'm actively using it. I guess it just requires thinking more about your usage.

As we got up to the overlook area, there was a Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel who was posing for pictures. If we still had film cameras, I would have thought he was hired by Kodak to use up film!

The falls...

By the time we were in the overlook area, the squirrel had gone on the far side of the rock wall... I read that the difference between the Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel and a Chipmunk is that the Chipmunk has stripes on his head (https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/nature/squirrel_chipmunk.htm).

Do you see what I mean...

... about him being hired by Kodak...

... to use up film...

... and then have you pay more for photograph printing...

His contract evidently did not specify any change in terms with digital photography!

As we were heading back to the campground, we stopped at one of the overlooks of the valley and got some pictures. You can't see the town of Steamboat Springs from the overlooks (or in the picture).

As you can see, it looked very threatening, and it subsequently rained almost all night Saturday night. It remained very cloudy on Sunday with sprinkles on and off. The forecast had been for "dry thunderstorms" - where there is a thunderstorm but the rain doesn't make it to the ground because the air is so dry (a concern for starting fires if lightning strikes) - but I guess there was enough rain coming out of the clouds that it is making it to the ground as well.

Miss Kitty enjoying the warmth of the front dash even though it is rainy outside. Note the pay envelope right next to her - we finally got the payment materials when a ranger came by on Saturday afternoon. He stopped to chat with us... he said he noticed that we didn't have a receipt on the post. We said that there were no pay envelopes in the supply - he said, "Really?" He said he had noticed that it appeared that no one had receipts on their post and he wondered why - and that he would need to "talk to" the guy who opened up the gate to the campground and make sure he knew that part of opening the campground was to provide pay envelopes! We had planned to just put a check into one of our own envelopes and into the pay slot when we left if no one came by to check before we left.

Our plan is to travel to a city park in the town of Maybell, CO, for Monday night, where we can dump and get our water tanks filled. We last dumped/filled up fresh water in Nebraska on Sunday a week ago - we've been careful in our usage, but like that we can go at least a week, probably more like 10 days (if we're not doing laundry).

This is the route we are planning (Google Maps link to route).

We're not sure what kind of connectivity we will have at any of those stops... but we'll keep our diary going and catch you up when we get back to "civilization"!