Camping @ Mueller State Park

A 47-mile drive + a 1:00p check-in = a quiet morning at home before we set off for our camping trip to Mueller State Park in Divide, Colorado.

The drive on US-24 was an easy one ... pretty much uphill most of the way, but with comfortable grades that we were familiar with from having driven to Woodland Park previously. Light mid-morning traffic from our house to Woodland Park gave way to negligible traffic once we were through the town. After we turned onto CO-67 for the short stretch to the park's entrance, there was no traffic at all.

The brochure welcomes visitors to the state park, which is located on the western foothills of Pikes Peak, with the following words … "You are surrounded by over 5,100 acres of spring-fed meadows, mixed forests and massive rock outcroppings of Pikes Peak Granite."

And that’s exactly what we found here. Our site — #132 in the Grouse Mountain Campground … the only one that was available at the time we made our reservation — is set in a forest … with enough sky peeking through to charge our solar panels and give us a view of the southern sky for the satellite antenna Mui recently installed. The half-moon pull-through site is electric only — 30A. Water spigots for those who need to fill up their tanks are plentiful and there is a dump station as well. Our patio is spacious … facing the forest. Plenty of distance between us and our neighbors, and with the site situated parallel to the road, the Cruiser serves as a buffer for additional privacy. Perfect.

We were settled into our site by 1:00p. No sooner had we decided on an al fresco lunch that it started to rain, so we had a quick bite to eat indoors instead. Of course, had we known that the rain would be over and done with minutes later, we would have waited. Oh well!

After lunch, we decided to check out the nearby area. Divide and Florissant are both census-designated towns with populations well under 200 people. Turns out that neither town offered anything that caught our eye. Except that Florissant is just a couple of miles from Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which we explored in depth in 2015.

When Mui said that his memories of the national monument were a little fuzzy, we decided to head over there next. As it was just past 4:00p and the gate closes at 5:00p, we had just enough time for a quick look-see and a walk to where a collection of petrified redwood stumps rise out of the ground. Short though our visit was, it was enough for Mui to have his "aha, yes, I remember now moment."

This national monument doesn’t get the numbers of visitors that others do ... maybe 300 people per day ... less these days. I remember noticing the lack of crowds last time we visited. Today, arriving late in the day as we did, there were maybe a total of 3-4 couples wandering around. A good place to go for social distancing during a pandemic.

[Photos from our 2015 visit to FFBNM, including the excellent visitor center exhibits that were closed today, are in this online gallery: https://eenusa.smugmug.com/WeGoA-Rollin/Fulltim….]

From here we continued on the Teller One Road, which is one of the four routes that make up the Gold Belt Tour National Scenic Byway. The drive was indeed scenic, though places to stop along the way were few and far between. We did manage to find a spot overlooking a particularly scenic section where there were large outcroppings of the pink Pikes Peak granite that was created by magma cooling deep inside the earth.

Arriving in Cripple Creek, a historic gambling and mining town, we drove through the old town. Where once there was a rush to gold, today the rush is to the one-armed bandits and roulette and card tables in the many casinos that line the street. The rush has diminished since the pandemic and today we found a town that was ghostly quiet. Though there were a few people wandering around, there was no sign of the donkeys that are a popular photo subject for tourists. Seeing no outdoor dining opportunities, we decided to continue on without stopping.

Returning to Mueller State Park, we drove the road up to the campground slowly, keeping our eyes peeled for wildlife. No sign of black bear, fox, eagles, hawks, or elk ... but we did have a friendly encounter with a mule deer buck that was grazing roadside.

We were back to our home-on-wheels in time to enjoy the warm afternoon sunshine — at some 9,600 feet, the park is at least 10 degrees cooler than nearby areas that are at a lower altitude — and have happy hour on the patio. Small birds were flitting from branch to branch, joined by Steller's jays hopping around the base of the trees. Golden-mantled ground squirrels were not shy about scampering around the site ... looking for a handout that they went without today. A great way to wrap up our day.Read more