Yeah, we made it to Fort Myers Beach but it was not a good day! It started out okay. Only a 2 hour drive from Sebring so we have an easy morning getting ready and decide to take a scenic route on a two lane road. And then it gets scary.
We are cruising along when John checks his rearview mirrors and says, "Why can I see the Jeep? It's going down the shoulder!!!" This is NOT good! John very cautiously slows the RV and pulls over to the side of the road at a commercial driveway. One of the arms holding the Jeep to the hitch has come undone. The pin is gone that would hold it in place. We very quickly unhitch the car and then drive separately to the nearest hardware store. We get a new pin, re-hitch the Jeep to the RV and are on our way! We were very, very lucky that we did not flip the jeep off the road, or worse, into another car. Considering we were on a 2 lane road it was just a miracle that we still have a Jeep and there was no damage to it or the RV. John now has 2 locking hitch pins so this will never happen again.
The traffic onto Ft. Myers Beach is horrendous and it takes us another hour to get across the bridge and onto the island. Then we have to unhitch again so we can park the RV on top of the neighboring RV.
But we are right on the beach and it is lovely. The first order of the afternoon (3PM) is go for a walk on the white sand. We went about a mile and half, turned around and started back but the beach bars looked really appealing so we stopped to have a beer and an appetizer before continuing back. Then for dinner we found this dive of a seafood restaurant and had a great fried seafood dinner! Tomorrow we will try riding our bikes on the sand!
We drove about 4 hours on Wednesday to this park near the town of Chiefland. We are pretty much out in the middle of nowhere. We have no cell service, no wifi and television is very spotty! Ah, the good life.
We left Destin late morning and took our time driving to St. Joseph Peninsula State Park. This is a very narrow and long piece of land and feels more like an island. You will notice on the map that it is positioned north and south. There is a trail down the middle and one that goes all around the northern tip. The park covers about 6 miles in length.
Then today we rode our bikes around the camp grounds until it warmed up enough to sit on the beach and enjoy the warm weather finally!! When it started cooling down, we hiked about 3 miles along the beach. White sand, shells, seagulls, wind and the ocean air -- jealous yet?!
We got up early this morning and took a sunrise hike on a path around the campgrounds. We saw more arches! Broken Arch (not really, just a crack), Sand Dune and Skyline Arch. It was cool, no wind and no people. 
The scenery is indescribable! Upheaval Dome is a green mountain of salt, Green River Overlook shows the Green River going thru great canyons carved into a flat mesa, and Grand View Point shows the Colorado River carving it's route thru the canyons. I hope our pictures tell the story better than I can.
We arrived in Arches National Park on Thursday afternoon and since we had reservations we easily found our camping spot. It is a good thing too as the area is very busy. We sometimes feel we are in Europe instead of the US as there are so many of them in our National Parks. August is their holiday time and they rent RV's to explore our great country.
We were on the trails at 8 AM both Fri. and Sat. and got a lot of sightseeing accomplished. We hiked out thru the Devil's Garden Area where we saw the largest arch called Landscape Arch. Part of it broke off last year so this is a popular place. 2 miles down the path is the Double O Arch and another 1/2 mile took us to the monolith called Dark Angel. On this 6-1/ 2 mile round trip hike with side trips to see the Navaho and Partition Arches. Later in the day we hiked up to the Windows Arches and the Turret Arch. The day was very windy and dusty so we were happy to take showers in the RV.
On Monday we drove to Gypsum in the Vail area to camp. It is the closest place we can find to Edwards where our friends John & Susanna and Jack & Mary are staying. The next days were busy with golfing, biking, shopping, jeeping and eating! We biked along Glenwood Canyon where the trail runs along I-70 and the Colorado River. One day the girls went shopping and the guys went 'bouldering' in the Jeep. We really enjoyed being with our friends, enjoying the mountains, and the 'vails'.
We are down to only 5 Jeeps in the caravan today. We had an easy morning with our leader taking us to several mines and historic sites. On the Last Dollar Rd we saw beautiful homes and green valleys. We went up to Alta Lakes which is another mining community around a beautiful lake. Narrow Gauge RR trains came thru this area and there is a water tower and bridge trestles to mark its passage.
This time we are going the opposite direction from the way we went on Sunday. Coming down is a car covered in snow and the surrounding mountain peaks have obvious new snow on them. What are we getting into?? It rains off and on as we travel the pass. The traverse is not as scary today as it does not have as much water on it but there is evidence of snow.
Along Hwy 550 south of Ouray used to be a town called Ironton. Over 300 people who worked in the mines lived there. Once the mines closed down, the town died and now there is nothing left. We climb up thru the forest and stopped near a beautiful, flat glade where our leader and his family used to camp. We turned onto Corkscrew Gulch road and it lives up to its name -- lots of switchbacks to get around Red Mountain. We then turn onto Hurricane Pass which goes by Lake Como. It is the bluest lake I have ever seen. From there we take California Gulch all the way to Animas Forks. 
This is another huge mining area with some building still standing -- mills, homes, boarding house and stamp mills. Several trails converge here. We head on down the mountain and stop at a campground to have lunch. Unfortunately rain cuts our BBQ short and we all agree we are ready to go back to our RV's. On the way, we stop in Silverton just in time to see the narrow gauge train from Durango come into the station.
Today we got to do two of the most difficult trails in the Ouray area -- Black Bear and Imogene. The front 1/2 of Black Bear is tough but not a horribly steep climb, lots of rocks to go over. But then we have to go down! The first 120 or so feet is called "The Stair Step" and it is very steep and has very loose rocks that could slide. John did great job driving but I white knuckled it. Then came the switch-backs where we have to back up the jeep into the mountain in order to make the very tight turns. And its not just one or two but about 10 of them. It was a "Woo Hoo!" moment when we got the the bottom of Bridal Veil Falls. From there on in to Telluride was a piece of cake.
Today we took Engineer Pass to Lake City, a moderately difficult trail that climbs to 12,800 ft. But to get to Engineer Pass, we had to first climb Mineral Creek which is quite steep and rated difficult. It was very narrow in places. Coming out of Lake City, we are on Cinnamon Pass Mountain Loop. It has been an absolutely gorgeous day.
First off, its pronounced 'Your-Ray'. We arrived on Saturday after shopping and washing vehicles. We know 2 other couples in the group that will be caravaning together for 5 days. Our leader has included his 3 sons and their families, and there are 6 other Jeeps. We are from MO, NE, FL, TX, MI, MN, OR, OK, and CA.
Today was supposed to be easy introduction to mountain jeeping. Actually our first trail was easy. Called Yankee Boy Basin, it had some really spectacular display of wild flowers. Our second trail was Ophir Pass and it would have been easy except that it poured down rain, sleet, hail, thunder and lightening the whole time we were on it. One part of the trail traversed a rock fall on a very narrow trail. We didn't do much sight seeing along there as we were both concentrating on where we were going and not looking down! John did a great job of driving thru rivers of water. We saw flowers, sheep, deer and rushing water!
Oh, wow, what a day! We are camped outside of Crested Butte in a National Park campground. The 3 miles of gravel corrugated road rattled us to death in the RV but it is worth the drive as we are right on a mountain stream. After we got settled we drove on up the road to see what it was like. There were a lot of jeeps and ATV's coming down as we went up so we figured it would be safe for us to try out this trail the next day. We then had a nice afternoon and evening in the city of Crested Butte drinking wine and eating sushi!
Today we packed a lunch and set off in the Jeep up Cement Creek to Reno Divide and down Italian Pass almost to Taylor Lake. It was a 24 mile drive that took 5 hours! About 30 minutes into the trip and on a fairly difficult part of the trail we came upon a tree across the road. As we were contemplating what to do, 2 men on motorcycles rode up and between the 3 men and our wench (a machine -- not me!) the tree was pulled over to the edge and we continued on. Most of the roads were considered easy or moderately hard so we did not have any other trouble. The views were awesome, the people on the trail were nice and the weather was nice.
We have been in CO for 5 days now. Our drive out was uneventful (that's a good thing) and we stayed at the
