Getting further behind in blogging…. will update the notes below later.

Checked out of the hotel, drove out to fuel up again at Pioneer Natural Resources (PNR) which is 20+ miles out of town (there was 1 of 20 bars of fuel left).

Called the Colorado number on my Clean Energy (CLNE) fueling card for Colorado stations, and found that Citibank Mastercard had declined a 16 Oct charge for fuel in Denver on our eastbound trip.  We had overlooked notifying Citibank before set started this trip so they declined out of state charges as a security precaution. Gary had called Citibank after the first occurrence (13 Oct) in Grand Junction (at the wineries) and we thought the situation was resolved.

Called Citibank again, called CLNE Denver again, called CLNE corporate office in California and thought the issue was resolved.

Headed to the Trinidad court house to meet with local city and county folks interested in a public CNG station. Missed getting a picture of Tara.

Trinidad city and county officials, and others interested in a public CNG station

Headed west again and problems with CLNE fueling card discovered again at Castle Rock.  More calls, more time lost.   Finally decided to skip CLNE altogether and head to Firestone to fuel at the only non-CLNE station which accepts regular credit cards.  That was another 1/2 hour north of Denver, but we didn’t want to lose more time on finding another CLNE station, only to find that the card still didn’t work (apparently reinstatement of an account normally takes 24 hours to take effect, but after the first calls from Trinidad, they were supposed to push through an immediate update to the Castle Rock station this same morning).

After fueling at Sky Blu in Firestone, we headed west on I-70 going an average speed of 60 mph to ensure enough fuel available to reach Rifle (the distance from Firestone was expected to be further than from Castle Rock, but was unclear as Google Maps on our iPhones no longer functioned properly;  Thank you, Apple… I should have stuck with my iPhone 3 instead of buying an iPhone 5 for this trip).  Using the CNGprices.com trip planner on the iPhone was less than optimal, but we were able to discern the distance (208 mi).   The elevation gain on I-70 west was a concern in impacting the estimated 280 mi range of the 2012 Honda NGV.

It was almost 8:00 pm when we approach Glenwood Springs. We had plenty of bars (11 of 20) of fuel left; there were only 27 miles left to go to the next CNG fueling station in Rifle, and then 61 miles to Grand Junction where the original plan had us lodging, but being somewhat worn out, we crashed overnight in Glenwood Springs.

Will add pics later (still need to review, filter and add captions).