Thursday, July 06, 2006
A beautiful (but wet) day
It rained hard most of last night and continued raining this morning. I certainly didn’t measure it, but I’d guess we got >1 inch of rain at Molas Lake. We fished during the morning, often in rain or drizzle. Jessie was the most impressive. She sat for at least an hour and a half with her pole, patiently waiting for a fish to bite. We didn’t catch anything.
We were planning on staying an extra night there (and taking a night away from Ridgeway), but Kelly starting feeling pretty pad (from the altitude I assumed) and the weather was pretty bad. So after lunch we sadly (because it was so beautiful) packed up and headed north to Ridgeway. We passed through Silverton and than Ouray.
The drive from Silverton to Ouray was beautiful. We’re now in the Ridgeway State Park campground. It’s very modern, with well spaced out sites, electrical hookups, a playground, laundry, showers, etc. However, it’s not nearly as beautiful as Molas Lake was. We did see a great rainbow this evening and had a very nice campfire and dinner outside (ignoring the intermittent showers).
Tomorrow we will get up early, drive back to Ouray (14 miles), and go for an 8:00 jeep tour of the mountains. I had really wanted to rent a jeep and drive, but there are no more jeeps available, and I think Patty is happier having a “professional” drive us around anyway.
I talked to the Las Vegas Chevrolet dealer while in Ouray. They replaced the oil pump and think that fixed the car. They really wanted to test it thoroughly by hooking the trailer up, but I discouraged them, and when they looked at what it would take, they didn’t want to try it either. So we’re going to have to hope that was the problem. I think they really wanted to try to make sure it was fixed, which I appreciate, but they say they didn’t have a trailer of their own to hook up to it (which I think would have been the best solution). So Rory will drive it up some mountain tomorrow and if he doesn’t hear anything, will assume it’s fixed. He seemed pretty confident this was the problem. He claimed when he first rode with me that the 8.1L engine just never dies and was shocked that I was having a problem. He thinks it’s quite believable that too low oil pressure caused the valves to make noise, but that they weren’t damaged (they inspected them visually). I hope he’s right.
We were planning on staying an extra night there (and taking a night away from Ridgeway), but Kelly starting feeling pretty pad (from the altitude I assumed) and the weather was pretty bad. So after lunch we sadly (because it was so beautiful) packed up and headed north to Ridgeway. We passed through Silverton and than Ouray.
The drive from Silverton to Ouray was beautiful. We’re now in the Ridgeway State Park campground. It’s very modern, with well spaced out sites, electrical hookups, a playground, laundry, showers, etc. However, it’s not nearly as beautiful as Molas Lake was. We did see a great rainbow this evening and had a very nice campfire and dinner outside (ignoring the intermittent showers).
Tomorrow we will get up early, drive back to Ouray (14 miles), and go for an 8:00 jeep tour of the mountains. I had really wanted to rent a jeep and drive, but there are no more jeeps available, and I think Patty is happier having a “professional” drive us around anyway.
I talked to the Las Vegas Chevrolet dealer while in Ouray. They replaced the oil pump and think that fixed the car. They really wanted to test it thoroughly by hooking the trailer up, but I discouraged them, and when they looked at what it would take, they didn’t want to try it either. So we’re going to have to hope that was the problem. I think they really wanted to try to make sure it was fixed, which I appreciate, but they say they didn’t have a trailer of their own to hook up to it (which I think would have been the best solution). So Rory will drive it up some mountain tomorrow and if he doesn’t hear anything, will assume it’s fixed. He seemed pretty confident this was the problem. He claimed when he first rode with me that the 8.1L engine just never dies and was shocked that I was having a problem. He thinks it’s quite believable that too low oil pressure caused the valves to make noise, but that they weren’t damaged (they inspected them visually). I hope he’s right.
# posted by Craig @ 7:09 PM 
