We spent the weekend camping up in the Colie-radda mountains. I know what you're thinking. ME? CAMP? I questioned my sanity more than a few times, trust me. Scott likes to say "Kate's an indoor girl" and really, he's mostly right. My idea of being outdoorsie is mostly confined to drinking beer on patios. But here I am Colorado! Watch out.
Day 1: We arrived at the campgrounds after a fun 2.5 hour drive from Denver to (Fairplay/Southpark area) Drive was filled with CB talk and making up handle names. Scott was Mack Daddy and Chuck was Daddy Mack. You can guess what song erupted after that. Jump, Jump! Drive was also filled with just about as many South Park references you can imagine. Anyone who's spent even 5 minutes with Scott knows the intensity of his love for South Park, so you can imagine he was at a level 10.
Once we arrived at camp we started to set up. This was our inaugural run with our gear which included a new tent, 2 thermarests, and my personal favorite, the double sleeping bag. Our friends Chuck and Jill are great people to camp with. They pretty much brought all the fun camping stuff like the hammock and the shade tent thingie. But we totally had the best camping chairs. I don't know how we scored such luxe chairs considering we've been camping together a total of like 2 times, but these chairs are the rolls Royce of chairs. Once everything was set up we started "camping" which basically meant, drinking, talking, and staring like zombies into the fire. Really, the only bad thing about the evening was my preoccupation with the bathroom situation.
I was told that this site had great bathrooms, and I'm sure that's correct, but anytime I have to go where someone else has just "gone" and there's no flushing capabilities, I can't help buy dry heave. I'm not being dramatic about dry heaving. There was lots of lurching going on and I found that to really put a damper on this whole "camping thing". I was so disturbed with the toilets that I really dehydrated myself, and when you're at 10,000 feet dehydration is not your friend. The first night of sleeping was no bueno.
Day 2: We woke up, ate breakfast and then the guys were off and hiking while Jill and I sat around talking for the better part of the afternoon. When Scott and Chuck came back they found out that a hiker had been missing for nearly 2 weeks in the area. He was going for a day hike and never returned. We determined that he was either likely dead, or didn't want to be found. There were rescue dogs and people looking for him and every 30 minutes or so you'd hear a little prop plane fly over looking for the hiker. It was eerie. I don't know how you could even survive one night out in the open in that area. It gets REALLY cold at night. After an exhausting afternoon of lounging around, we all collapsed in our tents (jill in the hammock) and slept for a good two hours.
After napping, we woke up, started a fire and had dinner and s'mores. The s'mores and campfire made up for the bathroom portion of the camping program, but not by much. It started to drizzle just after dark which was fine because we all were ready for bed. We got in our tents and about 2 minutes later it started pouring. I'm talking like raining so hard you can't even barely hear the person 5 inches from your face. It was not just raining but really thunder storming. Lightening EVERYWHERE and thunder so loud the ground was shaking. We were just hoping our tent wouldn't leak, and it didn't. It even hailed. Did I mention it was loud? It was. You spend you life feeling like the center of your universe and think you've got control over everything, and all it takes is one night camping in a massive thunderstorm to realize that you are seriously nothing. It was equal parts cool and humbling, and very scary. It's a wonder we even slept a wink with the noise level, but we both slept great. I think the storm lasted for a solid 2-3 hours and I fell asleep probably after the first 45 minutes-hour. Throw a pillow over my head and I turn into rip van winkle.
Day 3: I was ready for my own bed, and a good shower. We packed up, and were on the road by 11:30. Camping was fun, but I was ready for home. Overall camping gets a 6 out of 10. I would do it again, definitely, but damn if the bathroom situation doesn't put a serious damper on things!
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