Welcome to the Southeastern side of Colorado in a June that turned hot quickly.
John Martin Reservoir is a HUGE body of water with tons of birds and tons of sun. I really did enjoy hearing all of the calls of the birds that I was not familiar with and the reservoir is extremely popular with birders due to the diversity of species. There were lots of people with jet skis and boats. This is clearly an area for water toys!
It hovered in the high 90’s, low 100’s while we were there. It’s the plains, folks: hot, humid and windy.
While there are two campgrounds in the park, the upper campground on John Martin reservoir has no hookups. Since Little House of Big was not yet ready for the full boon-docking experience, we chose to stay at the main campground, Lake Hasty, it has hookups, trees and is below the dam, on the Northern end. We were on the loop closest to the dam (the spillway, as John called it) and we had one small tree on our site. The picnic table did have a cover which curved around one side. We were very happy for that protection when using our grill. The wind howled on Friday and Saturday. Sunday it was calm but you could tell early on, it was going to be another scorcher. If you visit Lake Hasty Campground, we suggest Sites 30+. The under 30 loop we were on is pretty barren. The other loops have large trees spread around. We could hear the kids laughing in the evening and see flashlights bobbing here and there. The park is extremely well maintained and our spot was cleaned and in order before we arrived. Click here’s a link to the Lake Hasty Campground at John Martin Reservoir:
And I should tell you — don’t forget your bug spray and your bug etiquette. The bugs were on a rampage. We didn’t realize how bad they were when we were setting up and unfortunately, some got in the camper. We lit the citronella candles and sprayed ourselves but still came away with some pretty good bites that first night. Who knew that citronella candles work if only to drown them?
Bent’s Fort is a Great Experience
A very bright spot in our visit was our excursion to Bent’s Old Fort. What a great place! Rebuilt in the 1970’s, it was a great spot to learn about the West and the culture of the area. Bent’s Fort was a trading spot filled with many different types of people and activities. I highly recommend adding Bent’s Old Fort to your list of places to see!
Just an FYI for all you new RVers…… We had a couple of trailer tire issues this trip. The trip out was about 240 miles from home. When we arrived, John noticed that one of the tires on the driver’s side had serious outer wear. No problem, we have a spare — but the lug wrench to the truck does not fit the trailer. Fortunately, a fellow camper had a lug wrench that fit and he let us borrow it. John changed the tire and the first stop was to buy a lug wrench for the trailer. We were being really cautious and stopped several times to check the lugs and the tires. Did I mention the wind? We choose to go a different route home, a major interstate highway so if we did run into problems, there would be people and resources nearby. The trailer was really fighting the wind and at one point started swaying pretty badly. John slowed way down and we came home at about 60 mph (versus the 75 mph noted on the highway). Once home, we discovered that we’d lost the tread on a totally different tire. We were so lucky not to have a blowout!
Check those DOT date codes on your trailer tires
John looked up the DOT numbers on the tires (there’s a date code what week of what year) and discovered that two of the tires were manufactured in 2004 (!!), one was 2009 and the others were 2012. Trailer tires have a 3 to 5 years life span — from the time of manufacturing. Yikes! These tires were grossly out of date and we were really lucky not to have a major issue. So, keep track of those trailer tires! 3 to 5 years — then replace them!
