This is the same spot I was camped in when I left here last Fall. It's fairly level and its close to a plug-in.

I'm back in Denver and parked in my family's driveway. I don't know what I would do without them, and I would hate to even try.

It was an uneventful 200-mile drive today; all the places I thought might be a problem were a nonissue. I thought there would be some snow on the roads going up Raton Pass, but the road was clear; there weren't even any mini rock slides on the road, which are common for Raton Pass. And the big open areas where I thought the wind might slow me down, but that too, wasn't a problem. It took about four hours to get here, including stopping at a rest area to make breakfast, and stopping at Popeyes for red beans and rice in Castle Rock.

I took the rest of the day off and didn't accomplish anything useful. I figured I would start tomorrow trying to get my prescription from a doctor and trying to get it filled by the VA. I've got less than two weeks of medicine left, and the VA is not known for its speed.

The Grands are still in school as I write this, and I can't wait to see them again. I'm always amazed at how fast they grow in six months, both physically and mentally; they seem a lot more intelligent and grown-up every time I come back... Of course, I could be getting dumber, and they just look better by comparison.

I had a pretty cold night in the Trinidad Walmart parking lot last night. It got down into the teens, and as usual, I don't run my propane heater while I'm asleep. There were eight or ten RVs and four or five semis in the parking lot. I don't know what folks would do without that Trinidad Walmart; it sure is a popular place when it's snowing or windy.

Normally when I get back to Denver the end of May the various garden areas are growing and flowers are already starting to bloom, but not this early.

Spanish Peaks, near Trinidad Colorado. View from the Walmart parking lot where I'm boondocking.

I finally had a good traveling day. The wind wasn't too bad, and the snow had all melted off the roads, even going over Raton Pass, but I'm getting kind of tired of driving. I had a nice rest at Storrie Lake State Park for a few days, but I had to get out because I've got so many things to do when I get back to Denver.

I've always found that the drive "coming back" is never as enjoyable as the drive "going somewhere." Every place I stop at is fun when I go somewhere, and I look forward to every place I stop. But when I'm returning, much of the fun goes out of the drive, and I just want to get to where I'm going.

But being a full-timer, I've always been able to mitigate that problem by going in a big circle: out of Colorado, down through New Mexico, across Arizona, then up through Arizona, and  North to Colorado. And because it's a big circle, I never really feel like I'm on the "getting home" leg of the journey until I get to Storrie Lake State Park, which has always been kind of the beginning and the end of my travels.

I will miss Storrie Lake State Park if the new fee schedule goes through. Storrie Lake is where I traditionally have left my Colorado life behind, and I am now on my way to my winter life of travel. So, I usually stay at Storrie Lake for a few days to unwind and get back into traveling mode. And Storrie Lake is a good place to do that since I've never failed to find a hookup site if I need one. And there's enough boondocking available that I will always have a place to stay no matter what, which is one of the major things that attracts me to certain areas.

Theboondork

My boondocking spot at the Walmart parking lot . This is why I try to avoid Springtime in Colorado.

A tiny car boondocking down by the lake at Storrie Lake State Park with a pop-up camping tent tied to the roof. also tied to the back of the car is a telescoping ladder used to get on the roof to get in the tent.

I'm not even sure what the point of the roof tent is. It's time-consuming to make the tent livable on the roof, and if you want to go somewhere you've got to put the whole thing down again. Why is that so much better than a tent on the ground? You can quickly and easily put up a tent on the ground or strike the tent if you gotta go shopping. Or do what most people do and leave the tent there while they go shopping. Maybe a tent on the roof makes it harder for small critters like a raccoon to get in the tent with you, but in all my years of sleeping in a tent I never had that problem, and South Florida has more coons, armadillos, possums and yes even alligators, than you can shake a stick at. I could be wrong but it looks to me like a tent on the roof is a solution looking for a problem.

Another downside is, I don't think I would feel safe going down the interstate at 75 miles an hour with that thing on the roof...especially if I was driving behind him!

The campground this morning. The snow had pretty much melted off, but yet again the winds were too high.

I was hoping to leave Storrie Lake State Park today, but even though the sun came out and started melting the snow, the wind was still too high, and I had a lot of open plains to cross to get to Trinidad, Colorado.

It warmed up into the 40s today, so I walked around the campground some. Despite the wind, it wasn't too cold as long as I was in the sun.

My new plan is to leave early tomorrow morning before the wind picks up and spend the night in the Trinidad Colorado Walmart parking lot. But I have to say I dread not having electricity to run my electric heater and having to depend on propane heat. The propane heater keeps the camper warm enough; it just uses up so much propane that it gets expensive. And, of course, it will be colder the further north I go and the higher I climb in altitude, which means more propane heat will be needed.

As often happens, I hoped to run into the head ranger at Storrie Lake State Park so I could ask him how things are going with the proposed New Mexico Park fee schedules, figuring he might have some inside information on how the pros and cons are shaping up.

There will be a lot of positive public input because the new fee schedule eliminates the entrance fee for all New Mexico residents so that they can get in the parks for free. I hope they realize they may get in the door for free, but the price of everything they do will be raised especially camping fees, and boat launch fees.

I fear we boondockers will bear the brunt of the price increases since there are very few of us, and I imagine we spend the least  amount of money at the state parks... So we're expendable.

Why did the parks department have to make the fee schedule so complicated? After all they just want to make more money. So why couldn't they leave the the schedule the way it was and raise some of the prices. Leave the annual passes in place and raise the price of the nonresident annual Parks pass to $250 instead of $225, raise the camping fee five or ten bucks, and leave everything as it was? But noooo! They've got to trash the whole fee system and start from scratch, hurting as many people as possible with their extreme changes.

I've never seen any evidence of this, but it wouldn't surprise me if that dastardly company "Reserve America" had something to do with this mess. It's got their greedy fingerprints all over it.

Theboondork

The snow was melting off so fast this morning when the sun came out that there were patches of ground fog from the snow evaporating.

You can see the Lance camper on the left-hand side of the campground. This is only one of the four different campgrounds at Storrie Lake, and this one has water and electric hookups.

Looking more like a river than a lake, you can barely see Storrie Lake In the distance.