Friday

On our last day in Breckenridge, we went to The Crown cafe to work and see our one friend in town (who we met last week). It was raining when we left the trailer and during the time we were in the cafe it had started to snow pretty heavy,  then it would stop snowing and melt and everything would look normal again. By the time we left, at around 6:30, it had started snowing again and the air had gotten cold enough that it was sticking. It was the first time in our 8 months in Colorado that we had seen wet snow (let alone good rain), and there was lots of it. We had made plans with our friend to have dinner at 8:30 but first had to go back to the trailer, load my motorcycle into the back of the truck and pack everything else around it. We had expected rain, worst case scenario, but the windshield of the truck had a half an inch of heavy snow already and the drive back to the trailer was practically a white out.

I’m not sure we went inside the trailer for more than a minute when we got back. Long enough to get my motorcycle keys and useless fingerless gloves. It took just a minute to start the snow-covered bike, putting a towel on the seat and wiping off the handlebars. I was expecting to be able to ride it to the loading hill we used last time at Tiger Run, about a half a mile away – since the bike had been running pretty well. Eventually I got it to idle enough to warm up but unfortunately I had started it too early and Ross wasn’t done unloading our load from the cabin. When I finally decided to just go and wait at the hill in the cold wet snow flurry, the bike stalled.

After that, it had no intention of starting. I put in more gas, attempted to kick-start it and even had Ross push start me, but when I noticed the towel I was sitting on had somehow got soaked in gas and a rainbow puddle covered the concrete below the bike at every juncture I popped the clutch, I realized it was futile. Ross had to push the bike all the way to the hill in the snow while I ran inside and put on some jeans, my leggings and dress soaked now. The hood of my hoodie was full of snow and not realizing in the rush, I put it up and received a full pile of snow down the back of my dress. No time to change, I grit my teeth, and met him with the truck a few minutes later.

The metal ramp was so slippery that when I tried to walk the front of the bike up the now slight incline, I realized I had no footing (my pretest was a lie) and the bike was starting to tip towards me, 350lbs. I was able to step up on the tailgate and continue walking the bike somehow without being crushed. By then it was well after 7 and we still had everything else to load. Our studded tires, ladder, outdoor rug, gas, water and black water tanks, trailer cover, bike ramp, hoses and our 10+ pieces of wood for our jacks – then to somehow arrange it all to fit around the bike and not fall out on the drive. This took the longest and by the end we were both soaked and cold and had about 10 minutes to get dressed and meet our friend at the restaurant.

Saturday

We left Breckenridge at about 10am with dry roads and most the snow melted. After dinner we had done most of the inside preparations, making sure everything wouldn’t smash on the ground as soon as we left the lot, so by morning we were pretty much ready to go. The landlord decided not to come up because of the prospective weather, so we had no choice but to leave town without our deposit; Something that would come in handy in the following days.

Ross had been worried about the brake controller for the trailer for months, but a recent visit from an RV Medic seemed to do the job because they were working as they should as we approached the freeway. We had only gone west once to check out Vail, Colorado and never went back out of disappointment, so we didn’t really know what the road would be like from Frisco on.  This new truck has a “tow mode” which uses gears differently and has a sort of engine braking when going down large hills, which we thought to be a benefit till the first large hill came along. What it seemed like to me, was that the truck started engine braking faster than the trailer brakes could engage and it felt like the truck was being pushed by the trailer, and the trailer started to sway a bit – even with out anti sway hitch. It was a little unsettling and we made sure it didn’t happen again. Otherwise the trailer brakes, aside from a delay, worked OK and we didn’t rear end anyone so that’s a plus.

As soon as we got a little ways away from Summit County, where Breckenridge is and where a severe drought has been official for over a month, we saw what spring in Colorado was actually supposed to look like. Even the aspens had bright green leaves where in Summit they were still mostly dead looking. The ground was covered in green grass and wild flowers, where Summit looked like a high desert with only sparse green, and even the golf course near the cabin was struggling to stay green. I had thought it was fairly normal but it’s now clear that the area is at major risk of wild fires and water shortages for a while.

Runaway Truck Ramp up Ahead. Scary Brakes Suck.

We came to Glenwood Canyon we had an especially great view for miles. The canyon walls were high on both sides, and narrow, one area so narrow that it barely fit a railroad track, the Colorado River and the Freeway comfortably. Soon after the Canyon and another strikingly green Colorado town, Glenwood Springs, the terrain started to look more like Utah (It was from Glenwood Springs on that I had the “Green Acres” song stuck in my head…).

Glenwood Canyon

It was around this time that we started to really suffer from an overheating problem with the truck. I had gotten Ross a
Kiwi Bluetooth Android Phone Car Diagnostic Kit for Christmas because of his concerns about the truck, and he was making good use of it on this trip. There was a lot of climbing from the beginning and the truck (which was looked at for a possible head gasket issue recently) had gotten a new radiator cap that was supposed to solve the problem of “puking” coolant at times.

We had to stop at least 5 times before arriving in Springville for the night (a town south of Salt Lake) to check and replace water in the overflow tank, making much of the trip a worrisome time for both of us, but while the truck was cooling down we got a chance to check out a few Eastern Colorado and Western Utah lookouts and rest stops. Utah had really started living up to its name the deeper in we got, with towering mesas and strange volcanic looking hills.

After spending over 10 hours on the road we arrived at what can only be described as the largest and busiest Walmart I’ve ever seen. I understand it was the night before Mother’s Day but I don’t know the last time, aside from Black Friday, that I’ve ever seen a store so full of people.

We went to bed around 10, after we made a small pizza on an artisan corn meal pizza crust.

Sunday

Since our trailer running lights (side lights and tail lights) were not working, again, we could only leave as early as the sun, but wanted to get as much cool air out of the day as possible for the engine. We got up at 6am, stumbled to the Walmart bathrooms, packed up whatever was laying around and headed out. Our first goal was loosely to try and find some coolant for the truck. After we found an auto parts store, and were officially back on our way to West Yellowstone, time seemed to rush past.

The trip through Salt Lake City, a very spread out area, was surprisingly uneventful. We couldn’t see the Salt Lake or any giant Mormon churches from the highway and before we knew it, it was gone. As we got closer to Idaho, the terrain quickly went from stark to green, and I don’t think in all our travels that I have ever seen so many cows as in southern Idaho. Utah had its share, mostly hungry or lost looking things in the desert, but in Idaho there was nothing but cow and horse farms on both sides of the road all the way to Montana.

About 3/4 the way through Idaho I started to look for the Tetons, a spiky mountain range we were planning to live near when we were first looking for a cabin. We passed signs to Driggs, a town where we had even made plans to see cabins, and eventually Mack’s Inn, a tiny little place (literally an Inn in the middle of nowhere) where we had almost committed to a cabin (but its distance from everything and absolute need of 4WD to get to were drawbacks) before we decided to stay in Breckenridge. From the freeway the Tetons seems to be a 100 miles away, not even worth a photo but one day we’ll see them up close.

When we got to the Montana border at the top of a long mountain pass, it started to look like the Montana I lived in as a kid. Dense trees, lakes with rocky beaches and people in cowboy hats. Chocolate covered Huckleberries, syrups and preserves line the shelves of every gas station and coffee shop and stuffed animals, not the plush kind, on every wall in sight. From the border to West Yellowstone, we already had the feel we were in the greatest national park in the country. Passing what looked like a cracked lava field of monumental proportions, dirt roads that went off into the wilderness where no doubt Grizzlies and Eagles await, and sparkling rivers and mountains within reach again as they were in Colorado.

As long as the truck wasn’t completely overheating, we didn’t stop to top off the tank very often on this last jump. It was puking coolant as badly as the day before, but aside from getting to West Yellowstone in one piece and finding someone to work on it, there wasn’t much we could do about it.

We had possibly made our earliest arrival at a destination, getting into Hideaway RV park around 5pm with enough time to set up, talk to the park manager for a while, and walk downtown for a pizza at Wild West Pizza.

Wednesday was to be the really painful day, where we would have to clean the cabin well enough to pass is off as a vacation home again. I hadn’t cleaned the cabin in a while, just minor cleaning in anticipation of the move. I knew I would be vacuuming everything in the house, from pillows to cushions to couches, to crevasses, trying to get rid of every single piece of cat hair. We went over around 10am, taking our computers with us, but I never turned mine on. I couldn’t wait to get the job done and have the whole thing over with. We actually finished everything that we could think of by around 2:30; Apparently cleaning a house is easier and quicker than cleaning a trailer. The trailer has so many details, spaces, gaps, cabinets, each one full of dust and hair…a winter’s worth of dirt. Now that all the worse parts are over, and the trailer is moved, we just have the deposit on the cabin to sort out.

My only plan for the evening, after cleaning the cabin and a full weekend of cleaning and lifting things, was to sit in a hot tub at Tiger Run for at least an hour – but the locker rooms, and therefore the pool and hot tubs, were closed and will be for another day or so. The trailer hot water heater is only good for about a 5 minute shower ( I timed it) so there will be no muscle relief there. Time for an Aleve and an ice pack.

next.
1. Meet ex-landlords tomorrow (?)
2. Leave town Saturday morning!!!

Wide angle view inside the trailer (cell phone)

Last summer the bike started running terribly, requiring the use of the choke while simultaneously adjusting the idle screw to get it started, not to mention a gas leak it’s had for nearly a year, but it still ran and as long as you didn’t stop, it wouldn’t stall. When it does stall it’s easy enough to get restarted, if you don’t mind getting gasoline all over your hand. Every time you wanted to stop somewhere you had to remove the gas line from the engine and stick a screwdriver bit in the open line, blocking it from leaking all your gas away while you took a photo. It leaked slow enough that I could go a few miles without being afraid of running out but after filling the tank halfway yesterday, it was basically pouring out the weak end of the line at a pace that my gas would be gone in a half an hour.

When we were in New York (and Ross was in Seattle) a guy from a neighbouring RV helped me come up with a couple solutions to get the thing back on the road, the screwdriver bit idea being one of the solutions, carrying a flathead with me everywhere to adjust the idle, another. They were definitively not long-term solutions but would work, and as time went by, I forgot what I needed to do to fix these things permanently and eventually the bike became more of a burden than anything.

I started yesterday by putting in some gas and seeing if it would start after sitting pretty much outside all winter. I expected the battery to be dead in the least but the lights came on as soon as I put in the key. I held open the choke and pushed the start button, and it started right away, as long as I was holding the choke. A few adjustments of the idle screw and it was running on its own. It was at this point that I noticed the gas leak’s rate of loss was much faster than before, so unfortunately instead of a ride,  I had to stick the screw back in the hose and start on other things.

I washed the bike, shined up the chrome (rusty chrome) with BlueJob powder, shined up the plastic and seat with Armor All leather cleaner, greased the chain, used tire restorative on the tires and checked the oil (oh and drank Rhubarb soda). Ross asked why I hadn’t gone for a ride and I told him about the hose leak now being worse, and that I couldn’t even remember if that was the main problem or if it was only one of the places the gas leaked from. A new fuel line wouldn’t fix the starting/idling problem but it would mean I could drive it without catching on fire or running out of gas. We bought some new hose at a nearby motorsport shop and after a few recuts, we got it right and the bike was good as used! (“used” being one step up from junk or parts haha – it will never be good as new).  I also picked up a new helmet (AFX FX-100S Helmet) because the helmet that came with the bike is pretty much embarrassing - a small black skullcap that sits on top of my head like a riding helmet (equestrian). I wear a large helmet apparently, it’s no wonder both of my previous helmets, both smalls, were painful and annoying to wear. Having a comfortable helmet with ventilation, a sunscreen and clear shield is like night and day and going faster isn’t so uncomfortable when you can’t feel a thing. In the south I was always afraid if I went too fast and one of the many huge bugs hit me in the face, I’d not only be physically scarred but traumatized. I have swerved around many a hand sized dragonfly.

I decided not to check the tire pressure because.. .well… I can be lazy, but they weren’t giving any signs of being low under the weight of the bike so they seemed OK – then I booked to the nearest mountain, which conveniently was about 2 blocks away.  Our road and the road up to the fancy mountain houses is dirt but mostly packed. If you’ve ever driven a bike on gravel you know what a disaster it can be, especially since my tires are original from 1981 and bald as hell.  When I came back down the mountain the intersection, which was at an angle, was also all loose dirt. You don’t want to brake on that stuff, especially with bald tires and old brakes so I downshifted to 1st and made the slowest and widest possible turn I could make to avoid skidding. I think when I get some new (used) tires, I will also get new brakes and calipers. I also ordered a speedometer cable, hoping that is all I need to get that working because it’s really horrible riding on highways and main roads with no clue as to how fast I’m going.

The bike (yet to be named) at the top of a nearby road

If you made it this far into the post,
you can now enter the Name My Bike contest!

As soon as the snow started to melt I’ve wanted to leave. The cabin was our winter home where we were to have a long epic winter with deep snow, skiing, low weather/deep snow hikes and the woodstove going from dusk to dawn, so when the winter ended, so did the point of being here.

I know there is 1000 things to do here in the spring and summer but my mind has already been resigned to “winter home” and what we want out of our summer we can get somewhere else, almost anywhere else. We only really require warm enough weather so sit outside and work and beautiful places to hike (a good rv park isn’t bad either). This country has so many gorgeous places to see, hike and photograph, so many little towns to discover, so many different people from one state to the next that staying in one place seems like such a waste. A person could literally travel the US all their lives and never stop discovering, if they were actually interested in doing so. If you drive past a little town with 100 year old buildings, riddled with mining shacks and go “meh” or think that every trail looks the same, you might have a hard time traveling full time.

For me, going to the same restaurant, coffee shop or trails over and over again gets old sooner than it should, and generally I don’t feel the need to have the familiar around me, people or places, so I don’t miss anything much when I travel which I think is one thing that holds people back from doing it. Me family lived in 30 houses and I went to 12 schools by the time I was 18 so I imagine that is why, as I never know the same people for very long and always had to adapt to a new house, new environments, all the time. When I was younger I just wanted to stay in one school, have friends for more than a year and maybe settle in somewhere but as I grew older and tried settling down I found it boring and ultimately depressing (my choice of place being a big reason – Portland) and my travel anxiety was bottling up.

Now we are getting back out there, belonging to the road, living in RV parks with no “home base” (that’s a great feeling to me) and I anticipate a great Summer of showing Ross some of the places I saw or lived near as a kid, Yellowstone, Glacier, Makoshika, Libby and eventually the Badlands of South Dakota. We anticipate difficulties finding internet for work in the desolate state of Montana at times, but it will be worth it.

We recently had to vacate the cabin for a week to accommodate some pre scheduled guests. We have known for 4 months but that didn’t make the moving any easier. We started moving things in about a week ahead of time but due to the cold temperatures, there were many things we didn’t want out there yet. Mostly electronics and craft supplies, which is honestly more than half our possessions. The weekend before we were to leave, Ross started to work on taking off the enormous trailer cover to find a thick layer of ice covering nearly the entire roof. After hours of slowly chipping away at it, without damaging the roof or cover, he was able to remove it and attempt to melt the remaining chunks.

We left the following  Tuesday afternoon and headed just a mile up the road to Tiger Run RV Resort where we stayed before moving into the cabin. Since my recent neck injury skiing, taking loads and loads of things to the trailer caught up with me quick and with the trailer already being not such a comfortable place, I wasn’t looking forward to being in it at first, but we ended up with a spot right next to the rec building where there was a pool, 2 hot tubs and endless hot showers.

By the time we setup a bit, heat was on and Susa was comfortably laying in the sun, I remembered how much I like the trailer and all it’s faults, breezes and lack of space. During the day, even when it didn’t get over 20, as long as it was sunny, the gas heat almost never came on. Our little Dr. Heater space heater did all the work of maintaining the room during the day. As soon as the sun stopped hitting the west side of the trailer, the gas was on much of the night (until we ran out that is, which happened twice). Trying to find a comfortable place to sit and work was once again a challenge since the options are a springy couch, our dark and claustrophobic bedroom or our table seats which have cheap foam cushions, I decided to try another option and make the table into a bed (because it does that). We’d never bothered before because I usually have my monitor on the table but we weren’t setting all that up this weekend and I needed more options. With pillows for back and neck support and my lap table, it turned out to be a pretty great place to work. Thanks to an awesome blanket from Ross’s mom Isabel, it looked like a luxury day bed.Susa was super happy to lay in the sun all day, which I swear made the bed and the side of my leg at least 90 degrees.

a happy kitty.

We only made it to the hot tub once, using the pool first while we waited for people to leave. The rec building was much busier than in the fall. Many of the chalet/cabin owners and their families were there for the winter, skiing or whatever other reason they paid $300,000 for a “double wide trailer sized house” that is 3 feet away from the next “house” – seems silly aside from the all day access to the rec building and gym, great for distracting kids I imagine.

We worked all week as usual and nothing much happened, but our weekend was full of the usual excitement, goings on meant for their own blog. The weather was agreeable the entire time we were at Tiger Run, aside from a little fresh snow, lucky for us because the wind storm that was to come would have been unbearable in the trailer…

Breckenridge is a cool little town with all the amenities a couple of west-coastified vegantarians could want. Good food, several coffee shops with great coffee,  lots of awesome brew pubs and tons of outdoor activities year round.

We may not ski or snowboard, yet, but the area has more to offer than just a world famous 13,000 foot peak – for one, hiking (while it’s still snowless), the things I mentioned above, and about 300 inches of snow to play in all winter.

Our first weekend here we were ready to explore the area. After taking a trip to Denver on Saturday (80 miles each way) to look for a truck – a trip which turned out to be a disaster, we happily found a hiking trail on Sunday to make up for the 60+ hours of sitting at computers and truck seats we do every week.

There were tons of trails to choose from in the area so any was as good as the next as far as we knew- but based on its general description, McCullough Gulch Trail was one of the most interesting and fairly moderate.

On the way to the trail, the aspens, bright yellow and scattered throughout the pines like sunshine in a swamp, lined the scenery like a  cartoon gateway to the stony, rocky mountains we pursued. The road itself was riddled with potholes but nothing deadly, and several areas were lined with cars where other trails, hiking and ATV, were located along the way.

Mccollugh Gulch Road

The elevation had already been taking a toll on my lungs over the week so I didn’t know what a climb up to 10k feet would feel like (Breckenridge is already around 9k). The trail is only about 3 miles round trip but full of steep inclines and a more than a couple surprises.

At first I had some trouble breathing. We’ve been hiking all summer so my legs were ready for the job but my lungs have always been weak. It was frustrating not being tired but not being able to breath. Considering I wear pretty much whatever I want when I hike (aka neither of us wear the “hikers uniform”…), I felt like a serious amateur -  knowing I could hike the trail without incident if it were about 5000 feet lower, but looking like I’ve never hiked before. After we got about a half a mile in, something changed or kicked in and I didn’t need to stop as often and had no problems the rest of the way up or down.

First part of the trail

At first the trail seems uneventful (aside from the awesome views of course) wide and well worn, but soon enough you come to a great little wood bridge, and a small cabin with a couple of flags outside. When we were there, there was a box truck (like a uhaul) next to the bridge and cabin and a man making repairs to.. some structure with pipes (haha, me construction worker). The trail had been wide but it was hard to imagine the truck making it up there safely, but it had made it – even around one corner on the trail that was nearly hairpin and had trees on the cliff side that a truck would probably hit trying to turn. Slightly confused and curious, we continued on and the natural part of the trail began – also known as “the part with way less people”.

This part of the trail is riddled with rocks, roots and numerous ups and downs – you pass small watering holes and, in our case, dried up creeks, and see random traces of (like… scat) animals. Neon yellow lichen is scattered over the stony hillside and, my favorite, gnarled trees, are scattered about like a small hurricane hit Sleepy Hollow (gallery).

After a while you come to a mini cliff – that we choose to go over rather then through – it’s so mini, you can just go around without incident – after that you come to a small valley of rocks, another place we stood in wonder, trying to imagine how the rocks got there. Behind you is a large mountain but between you and the mountain is a flat area – in front of you is a ravine that leads to the base of the mountain in front of you so the chances of a landslide seemed null – maybe the miners? Anyway – from there we could hear the waterfall and by that time, we were not going back and missing it so we ambled over the stones – about watermelon size and grey, avoiding twisted ankles with more ease than expected.  Sometimes I think I’m older and more fragile than I am – but usually it’s just the opposite and I hurt myself trying to scramble up some cliff or jumping down 3 feet farther than my spine can handle.

After the valley of stones the water became louder and we came to a strange wavy hillside/mountain side. The whole area was a grey stripey stone that swirled and waved like nothing I’d seen. Again we wondered how that had happened, it’s obvious I need some geology books..

From here we could finally see the waterfall, which apparently leads to a glacial lake. Had it not been nearly dark already we would have continued on but having no light of any kind and temps below freezing at night, we didn’t need to be the next people in the area on the evening news – missing and presumed dead.

Although the trail is marked easy/moderate we started the hike near several people with kids, and by the time we reached the first lookout, we left them all behind. It’s not a difficult hike per say but your kid will bust their lip if you know what I mean.

The walk down was an ease after the climb up and we ended up the second to last vehicle at the trail head.

With the recent launch of tours in the 10th U.S. city – Portland, Oregon – Stray Boots continues to lead the way in interactive tours. Portland joins Boston, Chicago, New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC in a portfolio of nearly 40 fun and fact-filled interactive tours. And that’s just the beginning: Stray Boots is engaged in a major expansion that will bring “The Game” tours to San Diego, New Orleans, Nashville and London, UK, in 2011. 2012 promises even more options with planned expansion to more US cities, Canada, Germany and Australia.

“I started  Stray Boots because I love visiting new places but I found most tours just fed me dull facts and led me around on their schedule,” said Avi Millman, the 28-year-old CEO and founder of Stray Boots. “We’ve created a new way to explore a city through mobile technology and ‘gamification’ that immerses the player in a real-world interactive experience that challenges them to learn about the city while having some fun at the same time.”

Stray Boots’ tours are conducted by text message, so people can play using virtually any U.S. mobile phone. Players are guided with text messages that include riddles, puzzles, photo opportunities and trivia questions as they tour the points of interest along the route. Each response earns the participant points, making it possible to compete between groups of friends, family members, or pre-assigned teams. And since each tour is a completely self-guided experience, players can start when they want and set their own pace as they go. Each tour takes about two to three hours to complete.

Stray Boot’s tours are meticulously researched and designed to appeal to locals and tourists alike with intriguing facts and amusing activities. For locals looking for something different to do, they make a great date, family outing, or just a day out on the town with friends.
For more information on Stray Boots or to purchase a tour, visit www.strayboots.com.

About Stray Boots:
Called a “Game Changer” by Fastcompany.com, Stray Boots was created to deliver the cure for the boring tour. Stray Boots’ interactive, cell phone-based tours challenge users as they see the city, learn interesting facts and have some fun along the way. Tourists and locals are giving Stray Boot’s tours rave reviews in Boston, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Portland (Oregon), San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, DC. Many more cities are coming soon. Stray Boots is the proud recipient of a TripAdvisor™ Certificate of Excellence. Stray Boots also offers private tours for corporate team-building and special events like birthday and bachelorette parties.

Visit:  Stray Boots.com to find out more!

We left Carbondale, a surprisingly cool little Illinois town, with a somewhat set plan to make several 2 week and 1 week jumps through Missouri, Kansas, Colorado then finally Jackson. I even made a google map and planned the towns and RV parks we would probably stay at but as is our nature, a night or 2 before we left, we decided Kansas City had little to offer in Green areas (google maps state parks and national forests) and what it did have to offer had no water or sewer hookups.

We changed our plans and decided to spend the weekend driving to Dodge City, Kansas, crossing almost 2 states.
It may have been under 700 miles but it’s tough on the truck, animals and us to go that far – and who knows how Susa manages not to pee all over the truck when we make jumps like that. We have a catbox in the back of the truck but she hates the thing and just sleeps next to Chena (usually after a 20 minute meow-fest when we leave a place) and just holds it the entire time, snacking on treats here and there and sleeping in strange positions. Much of our time is lost when We have to stop every 70 miles or so for drinks, gas and to let Chena out to pee.

Somewhere in East Kansas

On the way to Dodge City, while finding out things about the town, I saw that Willie Nelson would be playing at the Dodge City amphitheater. I grew up on his voice and have over the years grown to appreciate his music, as well as many other ‘original’ country artist (like Dolly and Hank Williams), so I bought us some tickets for what would be the first live music we’ve seen in the 2 years on the road, minus the brithday party at Smokey Bear Campground in Gatlinburg for the owner, Chong, where our neighbor, a guy from the Tonuenes, and the guy who wrote the King of the Hill song played a couple sets.

Minus the concert, which was pretty great and opened by Junior Brown, a country rock master of a custom steel guitar, the first week in Dodge City was all work, warm days and cool nights. The park, Gunsmoke RV Park, was a bit of a gravel pit but had some serious southwest/high plains charm that we had missed over the last 18 months or so. Wagon wheels, cowboy cutouts, false front buildings, horses and even cactus were somewhat evenly placed around the scrubby campground. Dodge City itself overall wasn’t quite as cool but definitely was holding onto its historic roots as a town of gunslingers and lawmen like Wyatt Earp. The downtown and Boot Hill made up for the highway full of fast food, motels, and coffee shops that charge way too much for coffee and vegetables on a bagel.

Gunsmoke RV Park

We again changed our plans and decided to leave Saturday rather than spend our usual 2 weeks, partly because of the lack of nearby hiking or outdoor actifities, but also because of our rush to get to a cabin. As far as things to do in town, there is basically the Boot Hill Museum and little more. The museum is basically an entire small western town with cemetery, jail, church, school house – and a working bar and restaurant. There was almost no one else in the Museum and no guides which was great. You were just left to your own devices to wander around, poke at exhibits and artifacts, and even, yes, get a beer (piano player and all). It was 94 degrees on that last day in Dodge City and the last bit of real heat we will see for a long while.

The Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City

Ross locked up in Boothill Jail

Boot Hill

I always try to picture myself living many of the places we stay, thinking I could make the best of even the smallest and least cultureless towns, and although Dodge City wasn’t very modern, it had internet, coffee and an awesome, though short lived, history that they’re proud of  (the 1870s made it famous basically), I can imagine making an effort at helping that place into the 21st century, without it turning into some horrible place like Gatlinburg or Virginia Beach – places where any sense of culture and history has been replaced by novelty mugs and “authentic local art” (soullessly manufactured by some poor artist, strictly to appeal to tourists so they can make it through another off season).

Although Iv’e heard Kansas referred to as a “fly over state/drive by state”, I liked it. It disturbs me that nearly all of the state is privately owned by farmers and ranchers and not a single wild bison roams free anywhere where there used to be millions, but it still brought up thoughts of western films and old west history, and somehow kept me from cringing too much. Plus it reminds me of eastern Montana where I lived for a few years and my sister’s family is from. A flat golden place where the skyline goes on for miles and miles (hence the Big Sky State), the sunsets are always inspiring and the terrain will surprise you with canyons, cactus and rattle snakes.

But we left the high plains Sunday morning, and were on our way to Colorado anyway. Again I spent much of the drive looking for RV parks or campgrounds, with all the same issues lately, no running water (what?) and no sewer (not that odd), or places that were booked solid or even closed for the season already (its still 80 in Denver so that was odd). After spending more time staring at my phone screen than I like to during a drive (a time where I’d rather be staring outside and pointing at cragly trees in fields of cows and looking for antelope) I gave up on finding something near Denver and we opted for Tiger Run RV Resort in Breckenridge, a place far up in the mountains west of Denver 80 miles. Inconvenient because we wanted to look for a new truck in Denver, but convenient because of the price and its great distance from the massive amounts of people in Denver. We called ahead and got our spot, knowing it would be late when we arrived, and made our once reasonable day trip into one around 470 miles.

The truck nearly choked and died on the way up the mountains and is now leaking oil. It took a beating while climbing  upwards of 10k feet, making 6 degree descents and climbs, one for 6 miles straight – probably working harder than the truck has ever had to work. We arrived around 11pm, having seen none of our mountainous trip, worn out as ever and worried about the truck. We spent a while setting up, the weather significantly colder than Denver already, and went to bed curious about our new 2 week home.

Luckily, we woke up to this and there were no more regrets about finding a place so far from Denver and our Jackson Wyoming route (try to ignore the RV in the picture, this place has a large number of owned spots with stored RV’s and empty Chalet’s).

Tiger Run RV Resort

So here we are, and basically everywhere you look looks like this or closer (in proximity). From downtown you can see the ski runs and Breckenridge offers more to do, and more vegetarian options than any town I can remember since maybe Asheville, NC. Thank you Western U.S.!!!  So, since we like it so much.. we’ve been looking for cabins here and should have a code tomorrow to go inside one highest up on the list. We may not make it to Jackson (or probably Victor Idaho area) after all, but who cares. Apparently there is almost no cell reception for Verizon there and we have 2 verizon phones and 2 mifi units, which cost us enough every month that it would be a waste to pay for them and not be able to use them just for cheaper rent. Plus when you can take a bus to town year round, get 11mb internet (and probably higher but that’s what the cafe we go to gets)… great views..less gas costs because everything is close.. why go to East Idaho. Wish us luck that this place is awesome tomorrow.

After a while of walking through dense forest, fallen trees and wild flowers and observing steep drop offs on both sides of us, we started to wonder if the “Little Grand Canyon” was actually buried deep underneath the miles of piles of vines and post inland hurricane disaster (2009?) and not actually visible, per say. After a while we caught up with the couple who left before us at the Mississippi overlook, one of the highlights on the map, and has to ask if we were on the right trail. Well informed, unlike us, they told us that the true treasures lie ahead and that we were about 1/3 through the hike that totaled 3.5 miles. We decided to carry on and as we left, the couple parted ways and we were joined by a well prepared man who would prove to be good company as well an an informed nature lover. This was our first hike with another human being and a welcome change. I’m a bit of a know it all when it comes to nature. Even if it’s in a state I’ve never been to before, I try and fill my brain with as many local species as possible but usually just sound like an ass no doubt. We saw one snake – I think a bull snake (used a website for that one), a few small tree frogs and one sloppy giant one, one baby skink, potential coyote prints (although later some hiker brought their boxer on the hike so.. may have just been a dog) and some trapped fish who will hopefully make it through to the next rain, oh, and one giant spider.

Through our last few weeks of hikes in this area we’ve seen several caves and canyons, strange rock formations/anomalies and places where gorgeous waterfalls the likes of raging rocky mountain glacial creeks would be if there were not such a drought. The Little Grand Canyon was one of the best so far and it surprised me we had not been told about it by the retired volunteers we ran into last weekend nearby. Maybe because they were older and possibly had not seen it in person. The hike is a little difficult and not what I expected when we entered the trail. I’m glad we both have good hiking shoes now and that the hikes of the past have started to make the more difficult ones easier, humidity permitting. The full canyon trail is a little demanding but doesn’t require any special skill. At one point you have to step/climb down a small waterfall (dry of course) to continue the trail, and at another point, to get out of the canyon, you have to walk up a 90 foot waterfall (that’s a guess and it was also dry) of smooth rock with conveniently placed and mostly natural stair like qualities up the most of it. Some of the steps were hard for a short legged person like me to get up, though even in jeans I managed. Then the incline continues for another infinity or so, my lungs wanting to jump out of my chest, we polished off most our water but took only short breaks. Luckily it was actually a really mild day due to some rain which made it much easier to breath than on our usual hikes this summer. Yesterday had been almost 100 again and our shorter 0.9 miles or so hike at Giant city had wiped us out for the day.

This hike was probably the coolest weather hike we’ve had in a long while, and maybe the longest hike we’ve had in a while as well. It also went more quickly than our usual hikes, where we spend half our time staring into spider holes, harassing beetles, counting rings in trees and taking tedious hdr pics with my new droid app (PROHRD).

We left Little Grand Canyon at around 6pm, just an hour and some before sun down and continued our search for Larue Pines. When we found it, it was about the same time we had been looking for it last weekend, and it was basically the same place we had already been. We did however come from a different direction this time and saw some great cliffs, oddly situated across from farmland. I stood in the back of the truck and made a video for later editing.

Our drive home from there was through some great Amish/non Amish country. Horses, buggies, and roads with names like Rattlesnake Road and Pitbull Lane. Illinois is a greatly underestimated place.

G’night!