April 15-30,2025 Texas, Colorado, Utah

The last blog ended with us about to do a hike. It was a pretty short hike to a big cave at the Palo Duro State Park in Texas. The hike was awesome and the cave was pretty cool.

We stopped at the gift shop on the way out and decided to start collecting those flattened Pennie’s. We see them everywhere and probably should have started collecting them YEARS AGO. But better late than never. Our very first flattened coin. Here’s to many more.

We headed about 90 minutes north to Lake Meredith in the town of Frisch, Texas. There’s a bunch of dispersed free camping all around the lake. We found an awesome spot overlooking the lake. It’s absolutely beautiful and not crowded at all which is weird because it’s Easter week. Every other campground in Texas is booked solid for this week. And did I mention this place is FREE!! It’s a little windy but still nice. We had a nice dinner and then went for a walk. We stopped on the way here to load up on some food so that we can stay a while. There is no reason to leave here and the next two days are supposed to be pretty nice weather. 

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the weather and Colorado is going to get hit this weekend with a winter Storm so we will stay out here a bit longer. The wind here coming off the lake is BRUTAL!! Thankfully the temperature was 90° so it wasn’t a cold wind. But still. There were gusts of 50 mph. Insane. At dinner time I went inside the van to cook dinner. Cooking outside would have been impossible. When I went to turn on the stove, it would not work. The switch was not allowing the propane to come into the stove. We tried everything to fix it but it just wasn’t fixable. It served us well these past 5 years. But now we were in a bit of a predicament because I need that stove to make coffee in the morning. We packed up the van and headed out to the nearest town which was about 10 minutes away. We checked 3 stores and none of them had camping stoves for sale. So we headed another 15 minutes to the nearest Walmart and picked up a butane stove and a few cans of butane. Our old stove worked on butane and/or propane. This stove was just butane so it will be a temporary stove for now. I ordered a dual stove and had it shipped to the Moab, Utah post office as a general delivery. We should be there in about a week and hopefully will be able to pick it up. This butane stove we can keep on the boat for heating up hors d’oeuvres  at Quaker Beach this summer.

After dinner we decided to watch a little tv and put the diesel heater on for a bit to warm up the van before bedtime. Much to our surprise, the heater would not turn on. Many Google searches and YouTube videos later, we were still unable to get any heat. This is our diesel heater not the vans heat. If we had an emergency, we could always turn on the van and get some heat. 

We made it through the night. We have really great sleeping bags. We decided to drive in to Dumas, Texas where there is a local park that has electric rv sites for free for travelers passing through. We have a small electric heater. So that did the trick. We also stopped and got some laundry done.

We headed next to Pueblo, Colorado which apparently is a town of rules. There’s no overnight parking allowed anywhere in this town including Cracker Barrel. We ate at Cracker Barrel and then pulled into one of the many hotels right over there by the Cracker Barrel and then we went into Stealth Mode. Closed everything up, covered the windows and went to bed. We were anticipating a knock from security which we weren’t planning on answering. They never knocked, so all was well. The next day headed to the Red Rock Open Space in Colorado Springs. This was an awesome area for hiking. Right up there with Garden of the Gods which is nearby. 

We had a nice lunch in the parking lot after hiking and then headed another hour north to a State Park called Chatfield State Park. The site was 50 bucks which is pretty pricey for a State Park and that was just electric, no water or dump hookup. But it was beautiful surrounded by the mountains with tons of walking and biking trails and hot showers. I washed half the van with a couple of buckets. One with soapy water and one with clean water for rinsing. It needed it bad because of the wind off the lake. The van was filthy. so now half of it is really clean.

Next day we headed to the Red Rock Amphitheater. We decided to go have lunch there and check out the parking situation for the Mercy Me Concert. It’s pretty high elevation and on the way up we smelled a burning smell that we thought was coming from the van. We pulled over and opened the hood. Greg thought he heard a weird noise and smelled something weird and may have possibly seen some kind of leak on one of those hoses. The thing is, we aren’t really sure if the smell was us or the workers that were at the venue. But to be safe, we sat there and let the engine cool. We then headed down to our Harvest Host location where we would be spending the night. We had an awesome dinner there. (Front Range Inn) we decided to call an Uber to take us to the concert and also made an appointment for the next day to see a mechanic and get the van looked at.

The Red Rock Amphitheater is SPECTACULAR!! Our seats were perfect. High enough to see the skyline behind the stage roof but not too high to not see anything on stage. 

The movie “Imagine” is a movie about the life of the lead singer Bart. At today’s concert they were filming for the movie “Imagine 2.” So after the first set by the band, the actors came out and they filmed the part of the film that takes place at Red Rocks with all the audience as extras for the movie. It was a long and tedious process!! Many many takes for each scene. Finally after they were satisfied with the takes, Mercy Me came back on stage and performed again. It was a late night. Concert didn’t end till after 11 and then we had to walk half an hour to the parking lot that allows Uber pickups. We got back to the van around midnight.

We woke and headed to the Mercedes Mechanic in Denver to get some work done on the Van. We have already put on 14,000 miles on it this trip so needed an oil change and also needed the rear brakes done. We had a 1 o lock appointment and we’re done by 3:30. The burning smell apparently was not the van. They did a thourough inspection of everything and all was well. We hit the road and drove all the way to Glen Springs Utah. We stayed overnight at a beautiful rest stop on the Colorado River.

The next day, we woke up early and Greg went to the Glenwood Springs Spa. It’s the world’s largest Hot Spring Pool. While he was there, I went to do some food shopping and explore the town. (I don’t like hot springs.)

I picked him up later in the day and we headed out to my favorite place in the world, Moab, Utah. We arrive and walked around the town for a bit. They added a lot more parking since we were here last which is awesome.

We went and filled up water at the GearHeads outdoor store and then headed into the desert to claim a free spot for the night.

Next day we did the same but on Saturday we decided to splurge at a campground in town. We were lucky to get a tent site. We set up our spare tent so as not to get spoken to about the van being in a tent spot. We have had issues with that in the past. Oh and my stove finally arrived at the post office!! 

We settled in and then I rode my bike to church and then we headed out for some dinner and live music. It was a fun night. Plus there’s a classic car show going on this weekend so everywhere you look are old cars. It’s pretty cool.

Today we are heading towards the Canyonlands National Park. It’s under an hour drive from here and hopefully we will be able to get a spot for the night over that way. We drove about 45 minutes and headed down a dirt road toward the Lone Mesa Dispersed camping area. didnt quite make it to Canyonlands but didnt really need to, atleast for today.

The next morning, Greg found another dispersed camping area that was up a little higher and also closer to the road. He had read on one of the apps we use that this area he looked at had the potential of having a cell signal plus the views are supposed to be spectacular so we packed up the van and headed out. Everything that Greg read was true and this new spot is the best!! Hands down, the best spot in the Moab area. The views and the hikes are unbelievable. 

Today we are leaving this spot and heading back into town to do some food shopping and to go to the library to send out the blog. We are staying two more days in Moab and then heading back East. Our Camping totals for this month were pretty low at $140. A lot of free spots for the month. Gas, on the other hand was pretty high as we did a lot more driving than usually. Our gas totals for April were $498.