Weather

We had a sixty degree shift between the high yesterday, and the high today.

Winter

With this change in the weather, I was shuffling things around to accommodate the cold, and realized: we have five furnaces running!

Fires

California was getting all the attention. Colorado made it through the entire summer major-fire-free. That ended today. Suddenly there are big fires all over the front range.

Castle Rock, where we were last weekend. The foothills above Boulder. The mountains in Jefferson County.

Tinder dry, and winds gusting to 70 miles per hour. So far, I think the firefighters are mostly well trained spectators, evacuating residents.

Trip postscript01

There is more.

The mystery box displayed the number 45 when we pushed the button, while we were hooked up to shore power. Later, when we were not hooked up to anything, I pushed the button again. The display showed "LL".

LL What???

Trip postscript

There was one new mystery. We opened the cabinet on the side above the driver's head. There is a box inside. It has wires running in and out of it. It has a button on it. There is a digital display on the box. The display is dark. Until you push the button. Then the display says 45.

45 what?

Trip

Took off on another weekend trip. Strictly pleasure. We meant to drive to Utah on Saturday, hike a slot canyon on Sunday, and drive home on Monday. We got a bite on the Bounder though, so we hung around for a while Saturday morning. Our prospective buyers spent an hour in Shamu in the driveway Friday, and spent another hour Saturday morning driving around in it with me, talking.

Sounds like a perfect fit to me. They get to think about it this weekend.

We left the house by noon. The weather has cooled to more seasonal. It is still dry, but they were making snow at the Loveland ski area when we drove past. It was thirty degrees when we stopped at the Dillon Lake overlook for lunch. The sunny sixty-five degrees at Grand Junction felt toasty warm.

Stopped for the night at our Colorado River State Park just west of Grand Junction. At the foot of Colorado National Monument. I like this park. Asphalt and grass. I love to go off in the wilderness exploring, but I’m developing a great affection for home base in a campground that is not dusty. I get to wash it off and not breathe it for a night, before going back out to play in it again the next day.

We never made it to Utah. Well not very far inside Utah anyway. Just to the first exit. We had a leisurely day scouting Highline Lake State Park in Colorado, watching some Broncos, and checking out the put-in and take-out for a gentle Colorado River float we can do in the kayaks. The float starts at the westernmost exit in Colorado, the Loma exit. You can see it from the road. The river and the road split at that point, and you don’t see the river again from I-70. The float is a twenty-six mile meander through a remote high desert canyon. From the easternmost exit in Utah, you can drive down a back road about ten miles to the take-out at Westwater. The take-out happens just before the leisurely meandering float turns into a whitewater nightmare. We mean to come back here next summer with the boats. We want to be sure we recognize the take-out before we float this the first time.

Found a couple pictures of a high desert lake, and some campground fall color.

No clicking mysteries. There was clicking, just no mysteries. Had an uneventful ride down from the high country on the exhaust brake. Made it home in time for some racquetball and Monday night football.

Better spend the next few weekends home cleaning up the yard, and putting it away for the winter. We have a heavy decorating schedule. We’ll need to shift from Halloween, to Fall, to Thanksgiving, to Christmas. We can hang the icicle lights on the eaves now, but not plug them in until later. Good to get the high work done before it gets too cold and snowy. I can’t do anything about Christmas train tracks until the trees are through with all their leaves. The trees will put their leaves on the ground. We’ll put the leaves in the gutter of Roosevelt Street. The City will drive by and suck them up with their new leaf-sucker truck.

It’s all good.

Trip postscript

We have not gone off on another trip, but we haven't moved back into the house yet either. We've been sleeping in the driveway every night (in the motorhome in the driveway), to solve the clicking mystery.

We found it! It does have to do with the heating system. We haven't heard it before, because we haven't needed the heater on at night, or there was more background noise. When the furnace needs to ignite, there is a noticeable "click" from the thermostat in the hallway, a heavier "click" in response from the cold air return on the other side of the bedroom, followed by another "click" of recognition from the thermostat. Every time. The sound of the heater fan blowing isn't all that noticeable, so I didn't connect the clicking noise directly to the furnace cycles.

I think there are other clicks involved as well as all this digital electronic stuff communicates with each other, but I haven't sorted them all out yet.

But we have identified the source.

The solution is simple: turn on a fan for background noise; or suck-it-up, get over it, and get used to it. I think it was the mystery keeping me awake more than the actual clicks.