Colorado Springs, CO: A Glorious Day In The Springs

The morning and early afternoon was absolutely gorgeous today, followed by lots of clouds and now some thunderstorms. The ground here get so little rain it becomes very hard-packed and water does not easily get absorbed into the soil. Most of the water simply runs off the hard/rocky ground, usually into the culverts, ditches, and stream beds.

Dry stream beds here can rapidly become raging rivers of water combined with debris that's been carried down from the higher elevations. It's hard to believe when you are standing in a dry stream bed that you can be only minutes from serious trouble. Storms 30, 40, even 50 miles away can create massive amounts of water that get funneled from high up in the mountains into the very stream bed where you might be enjoying a beautifully sunny day.

There are numerous signs posted about selecting your campsite very carefully, to avoid being in/near a dry stream bed. Dry stream beds are appealing because they usually have a layer of nice soft sand that looks and feels like heaven. If you are not careful, it can be a ticket to heaven as flash floods can and do happen regularly here, and they happen, well, they happen in a flash. Before you know it, a wall of water and debris can land on top of you.

Seeing a sign that says in the event of a flash flood you must climb to higher ground is a little spooky, especially when the sides of the hills around you are very rocky and so steep you cannot imagine climbing them. That said, I suspect a raging wall of water would be a powerful motivator.

We have a stream bed behind our RV that I have been keeping an eye on. I have seen the volume of the stream change rapidly, both up and down. All while the sun shines and there are no signs of any stormy weather in our immediate area.

I've also seen this stream bed become flush with water when it rains here, and it happens far faster than you would expect.

Still, signs encouraging self-rescue by climbing to higher ground give me the willies.

I used to get to Colorado Springs once/twice a month when I worked for HP to visit the call center located here.

Earlier today I was able to get together with Brian B, the Public Sector call center manager. He's a great guy and I had always enjoyed working with him and his management team. We shared a lot of stories about HP and he updated me on all the happenings in his part of the world.

Brian also provided lots of advice for what else MLA & I should do and where else we should go in Colorado. I'll start looking for campgrounds in some of the areas he mentioned first thing tonight.

It was really great to see him and hear how well he and the rest of the Public Sector team are doing.

Last week I went to Camping World to buy a replacement cartridge for our water filter. Think of Camping World as a huge Toys'R'Us for RVers. It has everything you need for your RV and a lot more.

In any case, I had no idea there were so many types of water filter cartridges to choose from. Of course, like anyone concerned about the safety of their drinking water, I eventually selected the cartridge that filtered the largest number of chemicals, bacteria, sediment, etc. I need hardly mention it was, of course, the most expensive cartridge.

Feeling very superior for having selected the filter that would provide the most protection for myself, MLA, and Dobbie the Wonder Dog (price be damned), I came home and installed the cartridge. It only took a few moments to discover that this cartridge was so effective at removing 'stuff' from the water that water itself could barely get through the filter. The trickle that came through the filter would have been OK if this was an under counter water filter that only filtered your drinking water. But that's not the case here; this filter is on the incoming supply of water that is used for drinking and everything else: Showers, Sinks, Toilet, etc.

No wonder the manufacturer could guarantee you wouldn't get sick from the water coming through this cartridge; there was no water coming through the cartridge. An RV toilet in particular does not perform well with little/no water flow. Of course, once you open and begin using a filter cartridge you cannot return it for a refund, so we waited a few days to see if things would improve when it was 'broken in'. It didn't.

So today it was back to the store for another marathon session of trying to select the best filter for our needs that also actually let water get through the filter. There must be 20 different filters from two or three manufacturers.

Each with their own way of describing the effectiveness of the filter, the types of contaminants the filter removes, how much water pressure the cartridge could handle, the type of media the cartridge used to perform its job, if the factory used child labor, recycled it's trash, etc., etc., etc. Everything you could possibly want to know about a water filter cartridge was written in extremely small type on the box. Everything that is except what type of water flow one could expect from this filter. Way to confusing for something so simple.

So I did what any red blooded American male would do. I closed my eyes, flipped a coin, asked a stranger for advice, and finally, using the "Good, Better, Best" method, selected a middle of the road cartridge. Who knows if there are elements in the water (it changes at every RV park) that get past the filter. All I know it the toilet once again has decent water pressure and that is always a good thing....

MLA still feeling a little under the weather; hopefully she'll start feeling better tomorrow. We want to use the great morning and early afternoon weather to go exploring on the motorcycle.

BTw - MLA just wandered in from the bedroom where she WAS taking a nap. First thing she says is "Hey, you fixed the toilet" (These days, I'll take any kind of credit I can get); then she looks at all the rain outside and says "I'm sure glad we are not in a pop-up".

Gotta say I agree with her; nothing worse than being in a pop-up (think tent on wheels) when it rains. The tent keeps the rain out however condensation forms on the inside of the tent roof and water ends up dripping on you, the bedding, and everything else. You feel like you are in your own private, gentle rain forest, complete with humidity. Been there, done that.

Until tomorrow, See Ya!