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The first half of the trip, well, even the first three quarters of it were relatively uneventful.
The first sign of any issue occurred after we stopped for lunch in Winter Park.
Winter Park was very beautiful, and the perfect place for a pit stop. There was a really neat walking path near where we were parked, and the weather was comfortable.
After piling back in to continue our journey, Nathan started the truck, and a message came on the dash: Coolant Low.
We hopped out, checked the reservoir, and yes, it looked slightly low, so we added a little distilled water thinking maybe the coolant system “burped” over some of the massive climbs and grades we had already been through, and continued on.
When we reached the bottom of the grade going into the Steamboat Springs area, however, the “Coolant Low” message came on again. This time, looking into the fender well near the reservoir, we could see what appeared to be coolant leaking.
Rather than taking the turn-off that would have routed us to Stagecoach, we went ahead and drove into Steamboat Springs looking for a dealer so we could by some coolant just to be safe. At this time we were thinking, well, maybe we overfilled it when we added our distilled water, and it bubbled out because of that.
We stopped by a dealer, picked up a couple of gallons of coolant, and while we were there we received a couple of references from the service department to visit a local Chrysler tech at his own shop and get his opinion. So we dropped the trailer at an N.A.P.A. (they had a large parking lot and said it was okay for a while), and went to visit.
When he was able to look at it we came to the conclusion that yes, we probably just overfilled it, and just to keep an eye on it, and it was good we had extra coolant. He was somewhat perplexed, as in his experience, these things just don’t happen with these Ram trucks.
So, after spending a couple of unplanned hours in Steamboat, we picked back up our trailer, crossed our fingers, and headed to Stagecoach State Park for the night, knowing our next leg on our trip home which will take us to Soldier Creek Campground at Strawberry Reservoir had the potential to be a hairy one.
Stagecoach State Park was very nice. We had electrical hookups here. The lake was within a very short walk, and there was even a little Marina. I wish we would have been able to spend some more time here, I would have loved to go on the water.
Some pictures from this leg of the trip.
