COLORADO: Days 5 and 6

Kebler Pass

This scenic byway has its own Tripadvisor page: 5-stars. I had wondered if I should really take the camper up and over this winding road, but after I learned that the Cottonwood Pass was closed for repaving (a different scenic byway I had wanted to take), I decided I'd do it. I headed up to Crested Butte, a quaint town at 8,300 feet. I grabbed a coffee and some Ibuprofin to stave off the altitude-induced (or was that alcohol-induced?) headache that was coming on, then headed out. Not far outside Crested Butte, the paved road turned into a barely-paved road and grew more and more narrow. I was having serious second thoughts when the song “Try Everything” came on my playlist. I decided I would.

The views over this pass are absolutely breathtaking. There were times that I came around a bend in the road and just had to stop the truck right there (luckily, it is not a well-traveled road). The snow-capped mountains, the blue sky with puffs of white clouds, the meadows of yellow and orange wild flowers, and the forests of white-barked trees…. It was as though an artist had painted a masterpiece of color and composition and then waved a wand so that it appeared before my eyes. A true masterpiece. Well done, God. Well done. I wish these photos did it justice.

  

Life at High Altitude

The entire trip has been between 8,000 and 12,000 feet. Turquoise Lake and nearby Leadville, where I spent two days, are at 10,000 feet. Leadville is an adorable mining town, with a mining museum, cute shops and historic buildings downtown, and also an Oxygen Café. I know this has been a fad in the “lowlands,” but here it actually makes sense. Crested Butte, at only 8,300, also boasted oxygen: "Don't let the altitude ruin your trip!"

Turquoise Lake

One thing I've learned about: High-altitude diuresis. That is a thing. I couldn’t understand why I had to pee every 30 minutes. And, like – NOW. I needed to pee now. It’s a good thing I have a toilet essentially in the back seat of the truck! So at a point when I had an Internet connection, I looked it up – overactive bladder at high altitude. Yes, it’s a thing. Apparently it is a sign that you are acclimatizing well. But when you can’t even hike for 45 minutes without having to squat behind a tree, that is extremely inconvenient! And when you are at an altitude where the trees are sparse, and they are really just tree trunks, with no branches or foliage at “squatting” level, you have to apologize to man and beast who might have the bad luck of passing by at that moment. “I have high-altitude diuresis!” I say into the wilderness. “It’s a thing!”

Today I arrived at the second of the two national parks I’ll visit: Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It is an extremely deep and narrow gorge carved out by the Gunnison River. The rim is at about 8,300 feet, but the gorge drops by a couple thousand feet at points. I've yet to drive past all the vistas, but a short hike upon my arrival was impressive enough.

Lying and Stealing

When I was in Kuaui with my 5-person hiking group, we made the somewhat snap – but also completely reasonable – decision to pool our grocery expenses and do an accounting at the end. However, that meant that if you were the only person who wanted something, there was a kind of peer pressure not to get it. So when I learned I was the only person who takes sugar in her tea or coffee, I felt peer pressure not to spend the pooled money on it. And so began my criminal activity of quietly putting sugar packets in my purse when we stopped at cafes or coffee shops. I mean, we were buying coffee and pastries there, so is that really stealing?

Traveling alone now, it has just made sense to engage in similar criminal activity – I buy a coffee, and then slip a couple extra sugar packets in my purse for my tea the next morning. Then a couple of those tiny salt and pepper packets. Then at the Safeway deli section, some packets of gourmet mustards to have on my campfire-grilled sausages later (which I did purchase at the Safeway). I'm traveling alone, so... it just makes sense, right?

I typically don’t advertise that I’m traveling alone. When I ask for directions or mention which way I’m headed, people will say, “Oh, are you guys going to do X, Y, Z.” Or, “How did you guys like X, Y, Z?” Well, “we guys” liked it a lot. I have in my backpocket the fact that my brother, who just got out of the Marines, is asleep in the camper. You see, he doesn’t sleep well because of the PTSD he suffers from the time he beat someone up for harassing a woman who just wanted to travel around Colorado by herself. So he takes a lot of extra naps in the back of the camper. But he doesn’t take sugar in his tea, so I don’t need to steal too many extra sugar packets for my ex-Marine brother.

COLORADO: Days 3 and 4

I arrived a bit later than planned at campsite #2: State Forest State Park, a place so nice they (almost) named it twice. This little campground had gotten good reviews online and seemed to be, on the map, just on the other side of RMNP. It is, as the crow flies, if the crow could fly over the 12,000+ peaks between there and here. For me, the trip was about 109 miles.

State Forest State Park is what might be considered the “foothills” of the western Rockies, being at only about 8,500-10,000 feet. It was a peaceful campground on a fishing lake, overlooking a meadow. The only town for miles is Walden, calling itself the “Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado.” I stopped at the Moose Visitors Center, and considered going to the Moose Overlook. But exhaustion and altitude limited my hiking excursions. Instead, I tried hanging my hammock to rest and read. But weak trees, fat human (wait – I mean full figured!), and gnatty little bugs put an end to that attempt. I did build my first campfire of the trip (I am an excellent campfire builder – one of my hidden talents). I also perfected the sleepwear formula that allowed me not to freeze my ass off. The temperatures here swing from the 30s to the 80s in a 24-hour period.

Sunday morning I went on a wildlife expedition (aka, a leisurely hike across the meadow and through the wood in hopes of seeing a bull moose). I was armed only with binoculars and camera. No moose sightings, but I did see beautiful wildflowers and got a decent video of a chipmunk.

My next hunting expedition was for high-speed Internet. I broke camp and headed back to Walden, a town in the middle of nowhere with no apparent reason for existing. Seriously, it is the only incorporated town in the entire county, with about 700 residents. I could not figure out what industry could support a town to have sprung up in this location. Surely being the "Moose Viewing Capital of Colorado" is not sufficient to support 700 people. There is definitely ranching. And there is recreation from the nearby state and national parks and wildlife refuge. I did not see immediate evidence of mining or farming. Why is this town here? 

Walden. That's it. There's nothing else

On Sunday, as I pulled in with hopes of finding Internet, there was a parade going down mainstreet, and all traffic was being directed onto side roads. It was truly a town-in-the-middle-of-nowhere parade. Smoky the Bear walked down the road (no float or even back of a pickup for Smoky). Some guys on Harleys. Some decorated pickup trucks. I headed for the public library, but it is closed on weekends. The library is closed all weekend – when people are not at work and might like to get a book or use the Internet. That’s when the library is closed.

I pushed onward to my next campsite. Sunday’s drive took me back over the Rockies, this time west to east, to a campground on Turquoise Lake, at 10,000 feet, my home for the next two nights.

CHORES

Camping always involves a variety of chores – setting up and taking down tent, packing and unpacking gear, fetching water. All of these chores are made obsolete with a camper!! I LOVE that I don’t have to unpack and repack my gear. As long as it is securely stowed inside the camper before I start driving (especially the refrigerator), I’m good to go. And I LOVE having running water!! Perhaps the thing I love the most about the camper is being able to change my clothes standing up and in complete privacy. I detest changing my clothes in a tent. I cannot stand trying to squirm in and out of pants while seated on the bottom of a tent. I hate not having privacy as I try to give myself a sponge bath. And of course, having my own tiny little bathroom, shower, and toilet is wonderful. But those amenities mean a camping chore that is new to me: the “dump station.”

There is a control panel in the camper that allows me to monitor my “levels” – fresh water and battery should be high, gray and black water should be low. Gray water is the soapy water from doing dishes or using the shower. Black water is, well… you know. I watched Cruise America’s tutorial videos and got a walk-through at the rental center, and then I asked a guy at my first campground if I could observe operations at the dump station there. Apparently there is a scene in the movie “RV” that the man’s little girls did not mind describing in detail. I wish they hadn’t.

So when my “levels” indicated that I could no longer postpone my destiny with the dump station, I was glad it was at the remote and less crowded State Forest State Park. I took my time hooking up the hose and read all the directions twice; then I released the black water valve and stepped waaayyyy back. There were sounds of swishing and water flowing, but no hoses came loose from anything. Thank God. I then released the gray water valve, which essentially serves to wash out the hose (remember, it’s my dishwater). Success! But now that I had gotten over this hurdle, I was more liberal with my use of the gray water tank (I had been avoiding overuse so that I could put off the dump station as long as possible), so now it is full again already. Ugh. Dump station, here I come.

The benefit of having Cruise America’s logo all over my camper is that it is a billboard announcing that “She doesn’t know what the fuck she is doing.” When I’m moving slowly up the inclines on the highway, or backing in and out of parking spaces, or pulling up to the dump station, I feel my newb status is self-evident. And I’m OK with that.

EPIC COLORADO ROAD TRIP

DAY 1

What do you do when you’ve had 4 hours of sleep and then 12 hours in transit to reach the first stage of your Rocky Mountain solo road trip, to find yourself in the middle of a summer hail storm? Hole up in your home on wheels with a bottle of wine and your Kindle, and then sleep for 12 hours, that’s what!

I’m now well rested, acclimated to my little truck camper that will be my home for the next 10 days, and preparing to hike a bit in Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) before driving over the alpine ridge that the brochure calls “Nature’s Knife's Edge.” The Trail Ridge Road is only open 4 months out of the year, and will take me across the “Continental Divide,” where the snow melt that chooses to flow east will eventually make its way to the Atlantic and that flowing west will reach the Pacific.

TINY HOUSE STORAGE

I have always thought that RVs and campers are renown for their clever storage nooks. This little camper has a shocking dearth of storage. And I have already broken 5 nails trying to pry or twist open the few storage compartments there are (#firstworldproblems). And the biggest storage fail of Day 1 was the little refrigerator. I had provisioned myself at Safeway before hitting the road and stored a few items in the little fridge. When I arrived at RMNP a couple hours later and opened the camper, I found strawberries, blackberries, and cantaloupe pieces splattered all over the interior of the camper. Not. Joking. The fridge had flown open, and although nearly everything had fallen out, only the little fruit bowl I’d purchased had popped open, flinging fruit everywhere. Luckily, I had also purchased handiwipes and paper towels. So while the hail pounded the roof of my little home, I was on hands and knees cleaning mushed blueberries. I am still finding them 2 days later.

I will blockade the fridge door much better today.

Home away from home

DAY 2: TAKING THE HIGH ROAD

Literally. The Trail Ridge Road through RMNP reaches 12,183 ft. This makes it the highest continuous paved road in the United States. It was a truly spectacular drive. I stopped at the many vista points and took about 50 photos. Here are a few:

12,000 ft, just off Trail Ridge Road. Just the morning before I had been at sea level back home.

Elk, right off the road

Alpine tundra. Apparently the rock formations here are a specific pattern found in the tundra, created by... the freezing and thawing of the soil? Or was it by snowdrift patterns? Or something.... I'm not sure I see it.