Welcome to USAFA

Friday, 12 June 2015
Peregrine Pines FamCamp; USAFA, Colorado Springs — Colorado
Temps: Hi 68F (20C) / Lo 56F (13C)

Get used to references to USAFA.  Why?  Because United States Air Force Academy is simply too much of a mouthful to say for the 30 days we will be here.  Actually, 25 days now, since we arrived here five days ago.

Boy, time sure flies fast.  I’ve said that before, haven’t I?  Well, it’s true and repeating it doesn’t seem to slow time down; or speed it up, for that matter.

Almost at the USAFA South Gate.  It won’t be long before we’re settled for a month!     

So, how did we get here and what have we been doing since we set up camp at USAFA?

Trinidad to Colorado Springs (CoS) …

After a thoroughly enjoyable weekend stay at Trinidad Lake State Park (TLSP) and a wonderful drive on the Highway of Legends, we broke camp Monday morning (June 8).  Before leaving our site, we went for one last walk on the Park View Trail to stretch our legs.  When we returned to the coach, Mui took care of a bit of maintenance — topping off the hydraulic fluid for our pax-side slides (electric slides on the driver’s side).  Not that he needed to add much fluid, but he felt better for doing it.  Proactive maintenance is better than any reactive steps that might be required to resolve mechanical issues ;-)

Opening the generator slide is the only way to access the hydraulic fluid reservoir.

Both the trucker’s GPS as well as Streets & Trips wanted to take us through Trinidad to get us on I-25N.  An OK route, I’m sure, but we decided to go back the way we came, crossing over the Army Corps of Engineers dam instead.  Bonus: a nice view of Lake Trinidad with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the distance.

No place to stop with the coach, so a drive-by-photo of Lake Trinidad has to suffice.

The drive from TLSP to USAFA was a mere 148 miles (237 km).  A pretty strait shot once we got on I-25; with little traffic along the way.  We sure aren’t missing the congested traffic we used to have to endure on the East Coast.

Our directions from the FamCamp Manager said to take exit 150 off the interstate and use the south gate to enter USAFA.  She also alerted us to the possibility of having the rig searched.  The guard, however, was satisfied with just checking Mui’s ID and welcoming us with a smart salute.

USAFA is a city in and of itself and covers quite a bit of acreage.
The top left inset shows our site at the FamCamp; click the map for a more legible version.

It didn’t take us long to check in at the Peregrine Pines FamCamp, pay our camping fee ($24/night summer rate for 50A FHU; no weekly/monthly discounts).  The sites are sprinkled around a forest setting, which makes satellite reception problematic.  At the time we made our reservation, we put in a request for a site with a clear view to the southeast.  No problem; they said … and they delivered.

As is our habit, I drove in with the toad first to get the lay of the land.  While I was off checking the site, Mui took advantage of the propane station behind the office to top off our tank — might need to use our propane heaters to break the chill in the morning ;-)

Site 59 is parallel to the road with our patio looking out on the forest.

The curve on the site wasn’t as bad as it looked on the map, and with a little jiggling back and forth on the long site, we were able to park so that the rooftop dish had a clear view to lock into the satellites.  The sites here are gravel; and not very level.  But the jiggling we did for the satellite dish also left us reasonably level and the jacks took care of any remaining adjustments.

Love all the space we have on the patio side.
Our closest neighbor to the rear is the rig you can see behind us, and …

… the closest site in front of us is quite a bit aways, and is perpendicular to us.

It wasn’t long before the set-up chores were complete and we were ready to go check out the facilities — commissary and BX … the grocery store and department store, if you will; and verify the process at the on base post office for receiving forwarded mail.  I also wanted to stop by the ITT (Information, Tickets, and Travel) Office to get a list of discount tickets available for area attractions.  And since the Outdoor Recreation store was adjacent to ITT, I also picked up some trail information.  Looking forward to stretching our legs.

But before we did all this, we needed to feed ourselves.  Most military installations we’ve been to have had a food court — nothing fancy, usually a sandwich shop and maybe a pizza counter; and perhaps a fast food chain restaurant or two.  Turns out USAFA does not have a food court; and the only fast food place is a Burger King.  Hmmm, what to do?  Just then, I noticed that the Bowling Alley across from the BX advertised a grill.  That would do.  The menu was limited, but the burgers we ordered were good, so no complaints.

Burgers at the Bowling Alley to tide us over until dinner time.

Returning to the campground, we took the rest of the afternoon easy.  The temp was a comfortable 75F (24C), with no humidity — the latter is my nemesis more than the former.  Perfect weather for sitting on the patio.  The only problem was the sun — you see, site 59 has an east-west layout.  Mui put his brain to work and soon had a solution.  Ingenious, I must say.

You might recognize the umbrella as one of several we have at our GWRVR site.  …

… Mui uses a spare handle — bent to fit the pole — to affix the umbrella to the picnic table.
This baby ain’t goin’ anywhere even if the winds pick up!

[Why aren’t we using our awning and sun shade?  Because the awning motor is on the fritz.  It extends the awning, but doesn’t retract it.  The two mobile services we contacted can’t do the work until the first week in July!!!  Busy guys.  Mui will either need to do the work himself, or wait to have it done since the repair is covered by our extended warranty.  He’s debating!]

Four Days Since Setting Up …

When we left Port A on June 1, we thought we were also saying goodbye to the heavy rains and thunderstorms that battered us through much of May.  Not so fast.  No sooner had Mui set up the weather radio here that the alerts started to blare!

The mornings have been dry and very nice — comfy daytime temps ranging from 68F to 79F (20-26C); overnight lows of 44F (7C) requiring a quick blast of the propane heater to break the chill.  Feels great; no complaints.  Most afternoons have been rainy — anywhere from drizzles to downpours; with steady rainfall almost all day on Thursday.  The thunderstorms haven’t been too bad; most passing to our east and west, with the worst of it hitting us on Thursday … with just a little bit of pea-sized hail to add to the racket.

One benefit of all the rain — it tamps down on the pine pollen flying around.
only briefly, though — both the coach and the toad are sporting a light sheen of yellow.

An added level of storm warnings here come from the Command Center.  Whenever lightning is ‘observed’ within 5 nautical miles (6 miles/9 km) of USAFA, a gentleman comes on the P/A system that broadcasts USAFA-wide.  He was especially busy Wednesday and Thursday!  Who or what the Command Center is, we know not.  But the message never varies … methinks someone simply pushes a button when an alert is warranted.  No matter; we appreciate the advance warnings.

Although we were chomping at the bit to get out and see the sights, we reined ourselves in.  After a week of overnight stays, and a weekend in an electric-only site, laundry was calling my name.  In between loads, though, I made the most of our screen shelter to work on a few blog posts, and continue the research on blog thefts … more on the latter at the end of this post.

With the screen shelter up, I don’t mind …

… spending my time on the computer — although I do have to keep wiping the pollen off the screen.

Could I have put off laundry and computer work for a few days?  Sure.  But the more important reason why we stayed home was because Mui had some more maintenance stuff to take care of.

We love our pad in Port Aransas, but all that salt coming off the ocean does a number on all things metal.  Rust is our enemy.  As it was so wet in May, Mui was unable to do much about the rust spots he was finding here, there, and everywhere.  So, taking advantage of the warm, sunny mornings, he set about scraping off the rust on the basement door jambs and the tow-assembly.  Next, he brushed on some Permatex rust treatment.  The final step was to paint it all with Rustoleum flat black paint.  Good as new.

Got to get rid of the rust on the tow assembly!

All the outdoor work was put on hold, however, when the Command Center ‘observed’ lightning and came on the P/A with the warning to ‘seek shelter immediately.’  Mui’s not one to buck such orders.  Besides, he found other ways to occupy himself …

… such as cooking up a batch of zeytinyağlı yaprak sarması (grape leaves
stuffed with rice, pine nuts, and currants; served at room temperature).

We were not entirely homebound these few days.  We took walks around the campground, and drove up to the cadet area to get some information from the Visitor Center.  While there, we stayed to watch a short documentary about life at the Academy.  At some point during our USAFA stay, we plan to wander around the cadet area.  And of course, there is the beautiful chapel to visit, too.  The plan is to keep these activities and the hikes on trails that run through USAFA grounds for the weekends.  That way we’ll have some quiet(er) places to explore when all the popular Colorado Springs sights are otherwise overrun with visitors.

Weather permitting, we’ll explore the USAFA grounds on weekends.

Speaking of CoS.  We’re going into town tomorrow to drop off my Mac, which has developed an intermittent screen flicker that is accompanied by a bzzzt … that’s my best guess on how to describe the sound.  We worked with the online chat support for an hour earlier this week and the consensus is that it is a hardware issue.  Who knows how long I am going to be without my go-to computer for photo processing — sigh!

But worry not.  The other thing I did during these past four days was to process as many photos as I could, so that I can write at least a few more blog posts — in the event inclement weather keeps us at home.  That said, I am keeping my fingers crossed that I will be out and about more than I will be home writing ;-)

How Goes the Blog Post Theft Research?

Slow!  I think I have determined that my blogs have not been stolen in their entirety.  That’s my conclusion after searching the web using the titles of my blogs.  However, I have unearthed two blogs that have a number of posts from both Phaeton Journeys and Two to Travel, and a couple of others that have a post or two here and there … the latter are more difficult to uncover.

Google has already acted on my DCMA violation report, and has removed the Phaeton Journeys posts from the offending blog.  They didn’t, however, shut the blog down as I was hoping they would.  Not sure why as it’s quite obvious that the author is simply bulking up by stealing posts from a variety of blogs.  I alerted a few other authors whose blogs I was able to locate that their posts were being stolen.  Hopefully, they will decide to take action.

I still have to write up the DCMA violation for Two to Travel.  But I back burnered that for now and focused my attention on how to keep blogging publicly.  I changed several settings — including privacy options that allow me to not list the blogs on Blogger and make them invisible to search engines.  As well, I have added a copyright footer to each post (already had one for the entire blog … fat lot of good it did).  And I changed the RSS feed from full to “jump break.”  This, I have read, should stop the blog from being scraped — we’ll see.

What is a jump break and how does it affect you?  A jump break is where I put an intentional break into the post.  After a few sentences … a paragraph … a picture … wherever I want to.  The break is followed by a link that readers can click to continue reading the post.  Whether you see the break or the entire post depends on how you access my blog.  I’d be interested in your experiences, so do drop me an email or leave a comment.

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And all that brings you up to speed with where we are … what we’ve been doing.  I hope to have interesting stories to tell in the weeks ahead as we set about exploring CoS and the nearby areas.

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