Colorado: July 1-6, 2009. Morning walks, sightseeing and 4th of July Weekend.

Most mornings, Al takes a one hour walk along the forest roads and thru the open forest hillsides. On one of his walks he got lost! Well not according to him, he wasn’t lost, he just wasn’t sure where he was. He knew basically which direction to walk to get back to the Bug. He was just not sure if it was ½ mile or 1 mile to the Bug and if he would be some several hundred yards N or S of the Bug when he found the road. As it turned out, he was only about ½ mile from the Bug and found it easily.

The forest and country side here are beautiful. The forests, populated by Ponderosa Pine trees, are separated by large open meadows. The forests are not like the forests of the eastern US or even east Texas which are fairly dense forests where the sunlight rarely reaches the ground. The ponderosa forests here have the trees widely separated and a lot of sunlight reaches the ground, giving a very open feeling. The wildflowers are coming into full bloom in the meadows right now.

Some wildflower and forest pictures taken on Al’s morning walks:

Meadow with little stream

Ponderosa Pines on hillside

Ponderosa Pines by our camp

Lupine with Meadow in background. (The Texas Bluebonnet is a lupine)

Closer look at the pretty lupines


Indian Paintbrush & Field

Closer look at Indian Paintbrush

Blue Flax with Lady Bugs

Field with Mountains in background

There is even a little tiny cactus here. This is about the smallest cactus I have seen.
The camera lens cap is a little larger than a silver dollar.


There are a number of mine claim posts in the woods near our camp.

Close up of the marker with the claim information

Other posts have a plastic tube with more detailed mine claim information


We did a fair amount of sightseeing in the Blazer. This gives Sharon the chance to view some of the country side and sights.

The headwaters of the South Platte River near Weston Pass


A little farther downstream the South Platte flows through Elevenmile Canyon. Note the beautiful blue sky and white clouds



Many of the roads we drive on are good gravel roads with pretty Buffalo Peaks mountains in the background


Pronghorn Does

Pronghorn Buck


A herd of Elk far above us on a mountain ridge


Sharon’s dream home. Kind of a fixer upper. That should keep Al busy for a couple of months.

And Al’s workshop out back.


After a long hard day, it was nap time


Friday July 3rd, the Fourth of July weekend, is starting in earnest! It was quiet until about 8am then the ATV and dirt bike traffic started and continued all day on Friday & Saturday. There were small dirt bikes with 6-7 year old kids, larger bikes with 9-11 year olds and small ATV’s with youngsters. Then there are a large variety of ATV’s or other off road vehicles with teenagers to folks in their 70’s riding past. Occasionally a pickup with 20-somethings will roar by. The folks seem to be enjoying themselves. It IS a major holiday after all.

The noise is bothersome, but it is not the end of the world. After all, everyone who came up here for the weekend is taking a welcome break from their day to day lives to have fun.

Sunday evening we were the only ones in the area. Friday and Saturday nights there were about 8 or 9 groups of people camping. Probably a total of about 50-60 people.

Ah! The trials and tribulations of fulltimers. It is a hard life, but someone has to do it.

Monday, July 6th is our 13th day boondocking in this campsite. Time to dump our sewer tanks and fill our fresh water tank. Since we need to dump this is a good time to move to a new location. We probably would have moved earlier, but with the 4th of July weekend approaching and we really like the campsite we are in, we stayed put. We packed up the Bug, hooked to Blazer to the back and drove into Lake George, to an RV Park, and paid $10 to dump our tanks and fill up with water. From there it was about a 35 mile drive up CR77 to another disbursed camping site with beautiful views of the mountains to the west.


Until later,

Al & Sharon