You can file this one under the “It could never happen to me” category. Talking with other full-time RVers, you hear stories about blown tires, unexpected repairs, and the like. And occasionally you hear a story that you think would never happen to you. Well, that’s what happened to me.
I was leaving the Colorado Valley Hemp Farm, a Harvest Host location in Colorado, and was planning to work my way to Breckenridge for a few days. This meant I had to travel east on I70. It was a nice Sunday morning, and I headed out with little to no traffic on the highway. After driving about an hour or so, I suddenly started seeing detour signs, the first one in a town called Rifle, Colorado. I exited the freeway and worked my way around the detour, hopped back on the I70, and proceeded east.
As I reached Glenwood Springs, I was forced off the freeway again, but this time, it was different. Huge signs saying I70 closed were everywhere. Orange cones, DOT trucks, everything. I exited the freeway, thinking I could get back on again like I did in Rifle, however, my GPS re-routed me and added 5 hours onto my trip.
I drove this way for a bit, thinking I would be detoured back onto the freeway. When that didn’t happen, I pulled into a vacant grocery store parking lot and hopped on my laptop. This is when I saw it. I70 closed in both directions due to mudslides.
I did my best to try and find a workaround to make it through to Breckenridge, but it didn’t seem like that was going to happen, no matter how hard I tried. The good news is that they said the road should be open by Monday (tomorrow). So I had to decide what to do, wait overnight one night, or take the detour.