First Camping Trip of 2016!

We planned our first camping trip of the season for Memorial Day weekend (if you don’t count the aborted trip to Moab in May). We’d never been to Collegiate Peaks Campground, so we chose a site by looking at the little map and guessing which would be nice. We’d planned to drive out to the mountains after work on Friday, but the weather report suggested very cold temperatures and the possibility of precipitation, which sounded a lot like snow. We decided to give ourselves another day to pack by leaving on Saturday morning.

We got out of town around 9:30, after our usual breakfast of Santiago’s burritos at the coffee shop. The campground is only about three hours away, so we got there for a late lunch after a stop in Buena Vista for a cup of coffee. Our campsite turned out to be really nice! We set up the tent and played around the campsite all afternoon. Phoebe and I went on a bike ride around the campground, and we went on a few little walks. Dave had the brilliant idea to turn the other direction inside our tent, which means that the kids can sleep on the outside instead of head-to-toe in the middle of the two of us. Much roomier! We’ll need a new tent next year, but with the new configuration, we should be able to make this one work all summer. Those darn kids keep growing!

I’m getting tired of having hot dogs one night and pizzas the other, so I decided we should try barbecued meatballs this time. They weren’t much of a hit, so I guess I’m still looking. After a few days of meat and starches, I’m always craving vegetables!

Saturday night was pretty cold—in the 30s. As always, Dave and the kids were plenty warm all night, while I woke up shivering too many times to count. Benjamin didn’t sleep all that well either, but Phoebe could sleep through a train wreck. She had no idea he’d woken up screaming several times.

On Sunday Dave cooked us a lovely pancake-and-bacon breakfast. Once that was cleaned up, we packed up to head into Buena Vista for a bike ride. Dave and I had ridden the Midland Trail, which used to be a railroad grade, so we knew it was pretty flat and went through a few old railroad tunnels. A very good destination for the three of us on our bikes and Benjamin in the Chariot. We brought a picnic lunch and set out. The weather wasn’t perfect; it was windy, chilly, and threatening to rain, but it wasn’t too hot! Phoebe did a great job with her new bike, even shifting a few times as we rode along. We all really enjoyed the ride. Afterward, we went to the Buena Vista History Museum, since it was too cold to play outdoors. We saw lots of historical artifacts and a wonderful model train scene that depicted many of the old mining towns in the area.

By then it was dinnertime, so we went back to camp for our pizzas and mashed potatoes. I slept better that night, and Benjamin only woke up once. In the morning, I went for a run (although the altitude was a killer, and I ended up “ralking” most of the way uphill). The run down was nice and fast!

On the way back to Lafayette (sort of), we checked out St. Elmo, a ghost town in the mountains. It was a mining community, and the last permanent residents departed in the 1950s. Phoebe has long been fascinated by ghost towns, but she found it fairly scary and didn’t want to stay long. She didn’t realize the buildings were going to be crumbling. The drive home was uneventful, and it was a fun long weekend! Nice to spend more time together than usual.