Mammoth in the Land of Ups and Downs, Day 8

August 30
Today was a "stay in camp day" but we took a quick trip into the park to see wildlife and ended up crossing the Continental Divide again.  Just briefly. We also saw a moose in the time-honored way of spotting wildlife in the National Parks--you drive around and look for a line of cars pulled off the road and people gawking with cameras.

 

Lake at the top:

 Pretty flowers back at camp

Molly in the Colorado River near camp

Bye-bye, moosey
 

Last day at Sun Outdoors -- Mammoth over the "lake"

Nothing much to say otherwise.  I did make these comments:
This has been an awful second half of the trip. Our brakes started making an awful scraping noise on the driver's rear side, where Ed said the brake pad was thin. Thin, indeed. We noticed it on the drive to Pueblo Lake--I think--and at that point we probably should have headed straight home. But we went on, up to the southern bypass for Denver and then on I-70 up into the mountains. We took state highway 9, the longer way around, so as to avoid the US-40 "scenic" route.

It turned out that was a good decision, because US-40 is indeed scenic and it also has a road construction 1-lane closure up in the curvy part.  We took it when we went to Mt. Evans.

Anyway, at some point the ABS light came on. We stopped and added a little brake fluid but it was basically full. So we limped on and arrived at the KOA campground. After setting up camp and thinking matters over, we decided that it would be impossible to take those brakes on the Massachusetts trip.

I really didn't want to throw away all those non-refundable reservations and also screw up Edward's plans to join us in Niagara Falls. So I started looking into RV rentals. I soon found that our nearby RV dealer would only allow a 1500-pound tow--we couldn't take the Jeep. I insisted we could drive two cars, but that idea was really silly.

Eventually we realized we might be able to rent an RV up north somewhere, so I checked 1-800-RV4RENT. Their maximum tow was 2500 pounds, so still no Jeep, but we could at least rent an RV in Worcester and do the short trip.

Anyway, all these worries and concerns totally destroyed my concentration and ability to put two logical thoughts together. I fell into my distracted habit of saying ridiculous things, forgetting stuff, having trouble sleeping and waking up with nightmares, and other horrid stuff.

I finally calmed down and started thinking rationally. Things weren't so bad--we'd take a severe financial hit if the plans had to be cancelled, but there are alternatives. We'll see.

And there we leave it until we know something for sure.