Merino, Colorado, United States
Sunday, September 7, 1980
After giving Bill the painting of Pike's Forest I went downtown to the book store again. I left three paintings there to see if Harvey could sell them, then I headed north on 76. It's hard to avoid the interstates in parts of the west because they converted the regular through road into the interstate and the side roads often dead end. But once route 6 split off on it's own I followed it. I stopped at a picnic table in Hillrose and had lunch. Then a little further northeast I stopped at Prewitt Reservoir. The mosquitos were pretty bad so I stayed pretty much in the van but I thought it had a good potential for a painting the next day. With the mention of mosquitos I want to mention the screens I had made for the van. I cut out nylon netting for each window that opened-the two roll down windows in the front and the pop out windows in the back. Then I sewed velcro around the edge of the screens and glued the other part of the velcro around the windows making them easy to attach and remove and they worked really well and with the two ceiling vents I called my van the flow through tea bag. It made the 90 degree plus days and nights bearable without being bothered by insects.
133.2 miles for the day, average daily expenses down to $7.52 with about $60 left.
