Ruth's Life is Good: Tuesday 8-30 Big Meadow Campground

Hi, welcome to my home

We woke up with temperature being 51 degrees. I woke up at 6:40 and made pancakes for breakfast. Then we got ready to leave. We weren't in any hurry our next destination was Big Meadow, which was 60 miles up the road.

Before leaving we walked over to Walmart to buy a few things. We were very surprised by how well stocked it was. They even had Great Value brand items in stock, things like their breakfast pork sausage, we hadn't seen this item since the pandemic started. We like the bakery mini pies and cakes and this was also well stocked with an assortment of different pies and cakes. We hadn't seen any pecan pies in months, in fact we hadn't seen hardly any of these in many months. They had Louisiana Crunch cake, it was a cake we hadn't ever seen so we picked one up. We also picked up a couple of pecan pies, cinnamon crumb cakes and an apple pie. We didn't buy too many because if you don't eat them fairly soon they dry out. At home we freeze them but the freezer in the Minnie is full. The employees were friendly. We had a great experience at Walmart.

After Walmart we went to the Alamosa Recreation Center to take a shower. It is a gorgeous facility. It has been there since 2003 and is well maintained. It didn't look 19 years old. The lady who assisted us was very friendly. The facility has a gym and showers with lockers, an upstairs track and numerous rooms for other activities. There was a sign that told you the fees for the use of the facility. If you only want to take a shower it is $3.00. The showers are clean and the water was immediately hot.. It was great to have a shower in a nice place. South of the recreation center there is an ice skating rink and north of it there are soccer fields. In front there is a sculpture of a cowboy riding a bull and a plate saying 14 seconds. Next stop was at the Maverik to use their dump station, we're going to be in Big Meadows for six days and there isn't a dump. Maverik has a beautiful free dump station.

Welcome sign to the Alamosa Recreation Center

The family recreation center building

The bucking bronco

Larry checking on something at the Maverik dump station

The ride to Big Meadows was a four lane highway surrounded by mountain ranges. When we got to South Fork we filled the Minnie up at Rainbow, it was the most expensive fill up. It was $108.02 for 25.127 gallons at $4.29 a gallon. But what can you do when you need fuel and it was convenient.

Big Meadow Recreational Area in the San Juan Mountains is about 15 miles up the mountain. We have been here multiple times so we knew where to go. It is down a rough dirt road for about two miles. But it's well worth it because there is a gorgeous reservoir. During the day the lake is always busy with people fishing on the banks or in small boats on the lake.

The campground has some first come first serve sites and other reservation sites. You can stay at the reservation sites if it's not reserved but you may have to move. We found a great site and parked the Minnie. Larry had to block the driver side of the Minnie to level it out. We decided to stay six nights, this weekend is Labor Day Weekend and we would certainly have problems finding another campground. There are no hookups here, we are dry camping but there are vault toilets and water spikets at the restroom to fill your water bottles. We really enjoy Big Meadows because it has great hiking trails, one goes around the lake, another one is a service road and another is the Archuleta Trail, it is a wilderness trail that is 6.5 miles long one way.

After setting up the Minnie Larry setup the solar panels. I had power so I played the Microsoft Solitaire Event: Easy Street of 30 games. It took me 1 hour, 3 minutes and 51 seconds, which put me in 16th place in my group. Larry went outside and read. Before Larry went outside we had a visitor, it was a fox trying to catch a chipmunk for dinner. When Larry was reading a chipmunk came to visit him on his chair and scared him. What a wonderful afternoon.

The fox

The chipmunk that out foxed the fox

After I finished my games I walked around the campground for 45 minutes. When I got home Larry barbecued sausage links for dinner. Then we went for an hour walk around the campground and to the dam. As we were walking we met a couple and they asked about the hiking. Larry gave them excellent information. He told them about the trail around the lake and the service road. After we got home I rested then I walked around for an other half hour. Then I finished my steps by walking in place outside. I ended up doing 26,000 steps, which put me in 5th place in my group.