Today is travel day to Durango CO! We got up at our normal time and chose to eat breakfast in town. We took our time because we only have an hour drive and the park made it clear we couldn’t arrive before 1pm. After breakfast we got the coach ready and headed out. I wanted to get propane for the coach on the way and we set the GPS for AmeriGas in Bayfield CO about half way. We got there and they couldn’t help us as all of their technicians were out with trucks. They recommended Tarpley’s RV in Durango. I plugged that in and about 40 minutes later we arrived. They informed us they did not carry propane. Ok, I should have called. I did a quick phone search and confirmed the Durango KOA campground would be happy to fill us up. We back-tracked the 4 miles and the folks at the KOA were super nice and had us on our way in no time. I asked at the KOA about diesel and they recommended a gas station near Tarpley’s. We found the CENEX gas station had nice accessible diesel pumps AND propane. Ah, if we had only known. Why Tarpley’s couldn’t have recommended the place 200 yards away I’ll never know.
We killed some time on the Home Depot parking lot so we wouldn’t arrive before our 1pm check-in time. We arrived at Lightner Creek Campground just after 1pm and checked in. The campground is in a valley surrounded by mountains and is very pretty. We only get 30A electric service so we have to be careful with out A/C and appliances. We can only run one A/C at a time here. After setup we drove the short 5 minutes into Durango downtown and ate at Steamworks Brewery. This is our favorite place to eat in Durango and we were thrilled to discover no wait on a holiday weekend. The food was great and we ate on the patio with a really nice breeze and nice temperature. After lunch we walked about half of the downtown shopping area before our parking meter ran out. We chilled the rest of the day at the coach. I checked with the office and had received the items I had ordered from Amazon. I had ordered new thermostat parts for the AC part of our hot water heater that has been inoperative for about the last year. The propane hot water works fine so it has been low priority. Even though it has been a low priority I wanted to fix it to reduce propane usage and its loud at night when it turns on. I had also ordered a new battery for our Verizon “Jetpack” wireless internet device. While the device still worked, the battery had swollen so that it was hard to keep plugged into the device, taking it offline often. We discovered when we made reservations here that there is a Motorcycle Rally in Durango this weekend. The campground owners were trying not to accept reservations from Motorcycle groups due to the problems they experienced last year. We are afraid what this may imply for our 4 days here in Durango. Its 7pm and we now have new neighbors. They are currently very loud, this doesn’t bode well for our stay.
By the way, I mentioned we are in a mountain valley. This means no phone coverage, no internet coverage, and no TV satellite. Can’t win them all. We do have quite a bit of recorded TV programs and movies so it isn’t all bad.