RV-Dreams Journal

Getting To Know Pagosa & Poma Ranch - (Pagosa Springs, CO)

Linda woke up early with her head spinning about many things - mostly Rally stuff and things she wanted to get done today.

Of course I can get up early and she can sleep another three or four hours.  But if she wakes up early, I can never get back to sleep.  :)

It got down to 29 overnight, but the day started out sunny.  This was the early view from our side window.

Now, I forgot to mention yesterday that this RV park is sort of a strange situation.  From what I understand, two friends owned/managed this RV park tucked between a hillside and a stream running into the Blanco River.

But, apparently there was a split of that friendship, so now the RV park is divided into two separate RV parks - Blanco River with new owners and its stream-side sites which we are on, and Acres Green with sites next to the hillside.  There is one main driveway with big signs pointing to both offices.  Weird.  :)

Oh, I also forgot to mention the usual travel stats yesterday.  We drove 220 miles, just a bit longer than we like.  In the first 40 miles while we had full tanks before dumping in Monticello, we got 7 mpg.  With empty tanks, the last 180 miles, we got 10.4 mpg which is pretty normal for us.

Now elevation changes, wind, and road conditions are usually our main reasons for one to two mpg differences in fuel efficiency.  But, clearly, the extra weight we were carrying early made at least a noticeable difference even if those other factors made an impact as well.  The extra weight of our solar panels (maybe 100 pounds including wiring, mounting brackets, etc.) seemed to have no effect, but the extra 1,000 pounds of liquid did.  :)

A little before 10:00 am, we set off on our journey into Pagosa.  We had to run some errands before our noon meeting with Karen of VA Poma Ranch where we will be working this summer.

First, we had a late breakfast at Plaza Grille.  Very nice.  Then we went to the post office to ship off a Ho-Hummers feeder order and various other mail.

Next we stopped at a hardware store.  We picked up some brackets to reinforce a couple more drawers, some fireplace tongs to use as our campfire poker, and a coffee thermos/carafe.

Then we met Karen as scheduled.  Linda rode with her and I followed heading north of town.  The first five miles was on pavement and the last 20 miles was on a pretty good, graded gravel road.

It was a beautiful drive along the Piedre River in the San Juan National Forest, and we suspect it will be even more beautiful when the aspens and other vegetation get their leaves.  As we drove, I kept thinking to myself "there's a good place to boondock, there's a good place ....."  :)

In addition to the trees not yet having leaves, it was also very, very wet as the huge snowfalls from the winter were still in the process of melting.

I was paying close attention to the road and hills and turns and overhangs as we will have to tow our rig back that road in late June.  I didn't see anything that scared me, but it will take us about an hour as we will take our time.

Karen stopped about 5 miles short of the ranch to show us the "phone booth".  It's one of the few spots anywhere around where folks can get cell service.  We are hoping with our booster antenna and amplifier, we can reign in that signal at the ranch.

I wish it hadn't clouded up for photos, but I took pictures of the ranch anyway as we approached.

The lake in the right foreground above is a temporary oxbow lake.  It will dry up as the summer progresses.

Below you can see a portion of the fifteen acre Martin Lake on the left.  And the Weminuche (we-mi-nooch) River runs through the property.

Beyond the Weminuche at the treeline, are the cabins and ranch house.

Another view as we descended into the valley.

Here are a couple shots from the driveway.  First, a shot of the ranch house and cabins.

Now a zoom.

Then a pan to the left across the river to the mountains.

The main ranch house and office.

And up in the area beyond this cabin are two full hook-up RV sites for us and Doug & JoAnn who will be our co-workers for four months.

The views from our sites won't be great, but we won't have to go far to find some.  :)

There are seven cabins in all - each with its own rustic charm ....

and view.

There is also a bathhouse and a separate building for meetings.

Now, as beautiful as the ranch is, it needs lots and lots of TLC.  The ranch has been in the Poma family since 1963, but it has not been continually run as a guest ranch as envisioned during all that time.  The years have taken their toll and the large snowfall this winter didn't help matters.

Karen is single-handedly trying to restore the ranch to a premier guest ranch according to the wishes of her aging mother.  She is also the caretaker of her mother and has several other irons in the fire.  It seems an overwhelming task for this lovely lady, and we are glad we have signed on to help.

She seemed tearily grateful and though it may be more work than we really anticipated, we are up for the challenge and the opportunity to really make a difference for this family, for this ranch, and for the preservation of such an outstanding section of the Colorado wilderness.

Plus, we get to live in secluded beauty for free with tons of recreational options all around.  And we have negotiated the same schedule as we had at Arches (three days on, four days off, four days on, three days off) so we will have time to explore.  And we will get paid a little bit as well.

We left Karen at the ranch as she was interviewing another person.  She has hired one guy to live onsite and do heavy maintenance which is a relief to her and us.  :)  But she still needs some temporary help to get things into condition to open for the season prior to our return.

It should be interesting!  I told Linda it will be good training for the caretaker job position that came today on one of our daily emails:  Dragonfly Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii on the Kona Coast.  :)

Don't be surprised if we actually take one of those type positions someday.  :)

As we headed back to town, we stopped at nearby Williams Creek Reservoir for a look.  Hey, I didn't think any of the National Forest campgrounds here were open yet.

But the Teal Campground clearly is.  Wow!

We could've stayed there if we had known.  But I think we were ready for hook-ups, so it's probably best we didn't know.  :)

And it's no bargain anyway.  Fifteen dollars a night for no hook-ups and an extra $5 a night for our extra vehicle.  But it might have been worth it for the views and the great fishing I keep hearing about.  :) 

Back in Pagosa, we were looking for dinner.  The visitor center closed about five minutes before we arrived, but we were able to pick up a dining guide.

In the mood for some fine dining and rationalizing it as "research" for our upcoming workamping, we chose J.J's Upstream.  All we can say is we will know where to send our dicriminating guests at the ranch when they want great food.  It was delicious!  A bit pricey for our current lifestyle, but well worth it.  :)

It was a long day, so we decided to skip our grocery run and head on home.  We'll get to that tomorrow.

Back at the rig, Linda joined a large group on the Chat Room, and I continued reading Jane Goodall's Reason For Hope which I started this past week.

The book is subtitled "Spriritual Journey" and discusses Ms. Goodall's reconciliation of her religious background with her scientific career.  And of course the book discusses her work with chimpanzees in Gombe, Africa and her conclusions drawn about chimpanzee behavior as it might relate to human behavior.  At least I'm finding it interesting.  :)

It's been a few months since I've read a book, but boondocking and conserving electricity is good for reading.  :)

And reading is good for sleeping.  So it wasn't long before we were off to bed.  But I'm sure we will wake up early again tomorrow with all kinds of ideas on how to make Poma Ranch an even more inviting place.  :)

   

Funky Weather Travel Day - (Pagosa Springs, CO)

We actually had thunderstorms overnight and rain off and on until morning.  Not exactly what you want to see when you are parked back a dirt road and need to get out.  :)

But the desert sucked up the moisture.  The road, which is really more fine sand than dirt, didn't turn to mud.  The rain actually kept the dust down.

We were packed up and ready to go by 10:00 am.  Ara moved his Tioga so we had enough swing room to get out.  And with hugs and handshakes and waves, we were off.

The first order of business was finding a place to dump.  The Needles Outpost a few miles in the opposite direction has a dump station, but we had checked it out and decided we wouldn't want to take our rig in there.

So I had done a little research and we decided to dump at an RV park in Monticello - The Bar-TN RV Park.

It was cloudy and a little sprinkly as we drove the forty miles to Monticello.  But of course it started pouring as I pulled up to the dump station.

The RV park was easy enough to get in and out of, but the dump station wasn't in the most convenient location.  I had to back up and pull forward to get close enough for my sewer hose to reach - I wasn't about to connect multiple sewer hoses in the rain.

Now this RV park is completely self-service.  The sign on the office says "Open", but there is basically an automated kiosk where you choose your service and pay.

It was $3 to dump, but we didn't have three singles.  So Linda put in a $5 bill.  The machine doesn't give change, just a credit to be used at the park.  So it was $5 to dump since we will never use the $2 credit coupon - anybody want it?  :)

Don't let the website fool you when it says "guest house and ranch" on the homepage.  It's in town and covers about a half a block.  :)

From Monticello, we headed east on Hwy 491 toward Colorado.  The rainy weather continued until we passed through the town of Dove Creek at 6,800 feet elevation.

At that point the rain turned to a snowy, sleety, rainy mixture that we certainly weren't expecting.  We found ourselves driving through about an inch of icy slush for about five miles as the temperatures dropped from the low forties to the mid 30s in seconds.

Thank goodness that stretch of road has plenty of sections where there are passing lanes, 'cause we weren't moving too fast.  :)

It warmed up into the fifties as we descended into Cortez and got on Hwy 160 which took us all the way to Pagosa Springs.

As we traveled, we noticed there is still a lot of brown in Colorado as many of the trees and plants haven't leaved out yet.  That, along with the gray skies, made me long for sunny Utah for a few minutes.  :)

We weren't exactly sure where we were going to stay in Pagosa.  There are no state parks or Corps of Engineers or other federal parks in the area.

With our new boondocking capabilities, I looked at some of the national forest land at ForestCamping.com, but the area campgrounds don't open for another couple of weeks.

I found a Passport America campground about 9 miles west of Pagosa called Happy Camper RV Park.  Since it was on the way, we would check it out for $13 a night and decide.

Nope.  Not my kind of place.  It was right on the Hwy, it was surrounded by man-made ugliness, and it had no ambience at all.  I won't compromise our standards for places to park and go cheap unless it is only for one night, and you know we rarely do one night.  :)

We continued on through Pagosa and headed south for 10 miles on Hwy 84 toward our next possibility - Blanco River RV Park.  It is also next to the highway, but it looked much better than the other place.  Plus we will be heading down Hwy 84 when we leave, so it is convenient.

Blanco River is a little steep at $30 a night, but they offer a 15% Escapees discount which makes it $25.50.  Before we even checked in, Michel was there to help me park.

He guided me into a large site along the river, but we wanted a back-in site.  Folks often assume that you want a pull-through if you have a thirty-nine foot fifth wheel.  :)

So he put us in a back-in site next to the river.

I make it look a little better than it is since the highway is right above us on the other side of the river.  And if the park were full, the RVs would be pretty close together.

But it's not bad.  They have four washers and dryers in a nice laundry area.  And Linda says the bathrooms are immaculate.

Michel and his wife, Sherley, are very nice and told us to just park our truck and Jeep in any of the other sites since they are not yet busy.

As you can see, the skies cleared up for our set-up and the temps got up to about 60 degrees.  The rig was filthy from our drive through the funky weather, so I washed all the windows while Linda did laundry.

Michel says we can wash the rig completely while we are here.  All I have to do is let him know and he will pump water out of the river.  It remains to be seen if I will get that ambitious.

The priority today was the windows.  We could hear birds, and especially hummingbirds, all around.  So we wanted to get our feeders up on the windows ... and be able to see out.  :)

Within minutes of getting the feeders mounted, we had hummingbirds at both of them.  Linda was very happy.

For some reason, we were not getting a good internet signal when we arrived.  I couldn't figure it out, so I just used the free Wi-Fi here at the RV park at first.

But a little later, our satellite signal was fine and everything was working properly.  It can be fickle sometimes.  :)

It is nice to have full hook-ups with 50 amps and great water pressure.  Our low flow water pump I installed last summer is great for not filling up our gray tank too fast when boondocking, but it's not so great for showers.  :)

So we will be power hogs for a few days.  We can use our electric heater and electric fireplace as the temps will be around 30 at night.  And we won't have to be constantly monitoring our battery usage - although it is kind of a game to watch the consumption and charging numbers.  :)

We are settled in for a few days.  Though the RV park doesn't quite have the "it" factor, it's not bad at all since it isn't crowded.  And it never hurts to have a river running next to the rig.  :)

Tomorrow we will visit our place of employment for July through October.  We're looking forward to seeing what we've gotten ourselves into.  :)