Tin Cup, CO

Yesterday, Terry and Lisa took us on a scenic drive over Cottonwood Pass to Tin Cup, a semi-ghost town.  The Pass is through the Collegiate Peaks of The Sawatch Mountain Range.  The Peaks, all 'fourteeners', are named Yale, Harvard, Columbia and Princeton.  My alma mater didn't make the cut.

We visited the Tin Cup cemetery, which is in a beautiful setting with graves scattered here and there in a couple acres of woods.  There are separate areas for Catholic, Protestant and Jewish. 

Tin Cup was one of the many mining boom towns that came and went in the late 1800s.  It once had a population of 1500.  Now, it has several seasonal residents and a handful of full timers.  Should you be in the market for a small home with lovely views at 10K+ elevation, there are plenty of vacant vintage log cabins to choose from.  Bring your own porta-potty, ice chest and generator. 

Our stop in Buena Vista to hang with T&L was open-ended; we were thinking 5 days or so, enough for a nice visit without overstaying our welcome.  Turns out we'll be overstaying our welcome big time: 14 days or more.  That's because the RAM has the sickies and is going into the shop today.  The transmission's gone rogue/spastic.  Most of the time it's fine, but sometimes, for no obvious reason, it goes bat shit crazy: engine roars and revs up, transmission won't downshift, no pattern, no rhyme, no reason.

I've checked RAM forums, Technical Service Bulletins, recalls, found squat, no history of sibling RAMs having this problem.  Hopefully, the problem will be isolated and corrected in short order.  Or: that little rogue/spastic sumbitch that's hiding in the drive train totally eludes the techs, they can't find anything wrong, don't do anything to fix it, we continue on our way, the tranny goes totally tits up on a remote mountain road, we kick both RAM and Cougar over the cliff, we stick out our thumbs, we hitchhike home.

On the bright side, the dealership is providing a loaner car so we won't be stranded or begging rides from T&L.