In reply to bigdaddylee82 :
All photo credits to TLR3 Photography aka bigdaddylee82.
In reply to bigdaddylee82 :
All photo credits to TLR3 Photography aka bigdaddylee82.
We left Monarch Pass, headed east again, and mostly down hill now. What a drive!
We were treated to a break in the weather, sun shining through broken clouds, and rain in higher altitudes, creating some super vibrant rainbows shooting out of the tops of the mountains. I've never seen anything like it, and photos don't do it justice.
We eventually caught up with the Arkansas River, which was a trip, since growing up in Arkansas we are quite familiar with the river, but boy does it look different on our end of it. It's A LOT bigger, by the time it reaches the Mississippi. Hwy 50 basically follows the Arkansas through the canyons all the way from Salida to Pueblo
We found a camp ground with a one lane bridge over the Arkansas, and stopped for some glamour shots. Brian already shared this, but it's worth showing again.
Speaking of Salida, our next fuel stop was in Salida, Brian calculated the MPGs, and we were a few decimal points north of 20. Surprised the heck out of me, all the down hill out of Monarch must have helped, and Lead Foot Lee hadn't been behind the wheel yet. 
It was dusk by the time we reached Cañon City. SWMBO and I have some friends that vacationed in CO a few years ago. They discovered a brewery out of Aurora, called Dry Dock. Apparenlty they make an apricot beer, "Dry Dock Apricot Blond," that's delicious, and isn't distributed in AR. SWMBO was having supper with said friends while Brian and I were trekking across the country. When said friends found out I was in CO, they just HAD to have some Apricot Blond. So, Brian and I found a large, trendy looking, liquor store in Cañon City and stopped to see if they had the beer. Sure enough! They had 6 cases on the shelf, so we left them 2.
In our minds this was now a Smokey & the Bandit kind of situation, we were east bound and down, loaded up and Jeeping! 
I took over driving when we left the liquor store. It was dark now, the headlights are mediocre at best, and there weren't a lot of stops. I got a feel for the Jeep, only missed gears a few times, my crazy wide feet (4E) took some getting used to, I managed to gas and break at the same time a few times. My personal TJ, Muffin, is an auto. I had to get accustom to all the quirks I mentioned earlier.
It was basically all business after a stop for some fast food in Pueblo. We were south bound on Hwy 25, I set the top speed record for the trip on a long gradual down hill between Pueblo and Trinidad, GPS indicated 82 MPH. 
By the time we stopped for fuel again in Trinidad, the Jeep was already spunkier, we weren't using 3rd gear for hills anymore. It was amazing what a difference altitude makes.
We drove through Raton, NM and Brian suffered through me "singing" a Townes Van Zandt song to him, "Snowin on Raton," it was late and we were delirious. I like the Pat Greene & Natalie Maines cover too. 
We headed east on Hyw 87 out of Raton. I'd gotten the laptop out and booked a hotel room in Clayton, NM when we were at the top of Monarch Pass several hours earlier, so we had a destination.
We rolled into the Clayton, NM not so Super 8 at 12:30 AM on Friday morning.
We'd just put in a ~22 hour day if you account for the time zone change, on 2.5 hours of sleep. We really didn't care where we stayed, all we wanted were beds and a shower.
We slept in on Friday, compared to our super early morning the previous day. We were on the road by 8:30 AM. Disappointed in Super 8's free "continental breakfast" consisting of cereal and toast, we decided to get breakfast elsewhere.
Brian was behind the wheel again. We left Clayton, NM and stopped for fuel and food in Dalhart, TX. One of the busiest Mc Donald's I've experienced. We fought with the GPS a little bit in Dalhart, but were soon on our way south toward Amarillo.
I've got family and friends in the Amarillo area, it just so happened that we were going to be in Amarillo at lunch time. What's a trip through the TX Panhandle without some TexMex?
We had a brief but good visit, and some good grub.
We still had a lot of miles to cover, so it was pretty much just driving from here on out.
We noticed that the seller, might have over stated the Jeep's A/C's capabilities earlier in the day, but by the time we were in Amarillo it was 99° and we were getting pretty uncomfortable. We stopped at an Advance Auto Parts on the east side of Amarillo, and as Brian so eloquently put it, "bent over and let Advance break it off in him," for a $$$ can of R134a with a gauge on it.
The A/C was marginally better, and we were pretty well on a mission to get home from that point. I was behind the wheel now, east bound on I-40, headed for Oklahoma City, with a couple of fuel stops on the way. Fairly uneventful, until we got to OKC, we managed to time it so we got to OKC during rush hour. That was fun, and reminded me why my daily drivers are autos.
We survived OKC rush hour, and got on I-44 toward Tulsa. About 10 miles east of OKC the dash beeped and the "check gauges" light came on.
We checked the gauges, and as best we could tell nothing was out of sorts. This did get us to pay extra close attention to the gauges though. A few dozen miles later we'd decided that the voltage gauge might be going down, and a couple dozen miles after that the gauge had moved enough that we knew it wsa going down. We shut off all electronics, radio, A/C blower, etc. and rolled the windows down.
Brian got his phone out and found the nearest parts store. There was an O'Reilly's a few miles ahead of us in Bristow, OK. We exited off of the road at Bristow and quickly found the O'Reilly's. The O'Reilly's employee came out and tested the Jeep's battery, it was down to 11.5V, so that pretty much confirmed that the alternator wasn't charging. Bad news, O'Reilly's didn't have an alternator in stock, and the only other parts store, NAPA, was closed. Some Bristow locals told us there were more parts stores about 20 miles to the east in Supulpa, OK.
We were east bound again, and Brian was calling parts stores in Supulpa. I had already decided we were going to get as close as we could to Tulsa and Uber to a parts store. Thankfully, Brian found an alternator in stock at the second parts store he called. Autozone in Supulpa, OK was the winner.
We put the Harbor Freight tool kit to work, and had the Alaternator swapped out in about 20 minutes. The employees at Autozone were friendly and helpful, let us borrow a couple things, and tested the old alternator just for peace of mind. The alternator was indeed bad.
New alternator charging and the ceck gauges light no longer illuminated, we were ready to hit the road again. We stopped at the Supulpa Walmart to use their facilities and clean up.
Then it was on to Tulsa!
We made it through Tulsa, got on the Cherokee Turnpike (Hwy 412).
One last fuel stop in Inola, OK and Brian took over driving. I figured he needed to be the first one to drive his Jeep in AR.
We had a minor hiccup going through the toll both on the east end of the Cherokee Turnpike, it was late so none of the booths were maned. We didn't have correct change, and the smallest bill either of us had was a $20. There's a change machine at the booth, but we didn't want $20 worth of quarters. We held up traffic long enough at the toll booth, digging around the Jeep for $3.25 in coins, that some really nice person (or perhaps really annoyed person) came up to the Jeep and handed us 3 $1 bills. We think the Colorado tags on the Jeep probably helped.
A short time later we were back in Arkansas.
Brian dropped me off at my car at the airport, and we parted ways.
Here's a blurry cell phone picture of Brian driving away from me.
The adventure was almost over, but we each had 2.5 to 3 hours of driving to get to our respective homes. After 2 days of driving the Jeep, I about gave myself whiplash the first time I hit the brakes on my VW, it doesn't require near the pedal force to stop.
Fueled up, and well caffeinated, I made it to my house about 2:20 AM Saturday morning. Brian made it to his house about 30 minutes before me.
As I lie in bed at home that morning, my whole body still felt as though it was vibrating from the Jeep, and I could still hear the mufflerless drone of that 2.5l for a day or two later.
It was a heck of an adventure, I'm glad we did it, but it's not something I want to repeat anytime soon. Brian and I both intend to visit Colorado again, probably with 4x4s, what a beautiful part of the country!
It's a week later now, and I know Brian has already done some minor modifications to the Jeep, and has some parts ordered.
My work colleagues are probably tired of hearing about it, because the Colorado trip is basically all I've talked about for a week.
Thanks for following along everyone, and thanks for inviting me Brian!
In reply to bigdaddylee82 :
Glad you were able to join me. Thanks for your contributions to the trip and I look forward to seeing Colorado again in the future. The Jeep is now known as "Token" and I have parts on order to repair the rear locker, new rear taillights and I ordered new front dash speakers. Why put a muffler on it when you can just make the radio louder right?
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