More Camping and Losing Softball

It’s been a while since we’ve been able to update the Gribblog with any regularity. So, of course, you’re getting several posts in a short time; sorry ’bout that. At any rate, we’ve now been on two camping trips this season, and the Marauders are yet to win a game. On the softball front, we’ve now lost 5 games (including the 2 that we replayed after they were postponed due to inclement weather). That’s right, it’s been so rainy in Boulder that the field was like a rice paddy. The 2nd week’s game (following two straight rain-outs) still featured some pockets of mud scattered around the foul ball line. Sadly, we’ve lost two of our games to the mercy rule.

Last weekend we packed up the car on Friday night so that we could get an early start Saturday morning. We were heading toward the Angel of Shavano campground just outside of Poncha Springs, which doesn’t take reservations, so Jess was more than a little apprehensive. We’ve camped there several times; it really is a hidden gem of a campground, and it rarely fills up, but it was Memorial Day weekend. Regardless, the campground was about 1/2 full when we arrived Saturday afternoon, and we were even able to get one of the relatively wooded sites along the creek; it was lovely.

Luckily we were all able to avoid any bouts of illness this time around–I’d thoroughly cleaned the water jug with soap and bleach just in case. After we got everything setup in camp, Phoebe and Jess took a nice nap. Jess actually tried to sit in the camp chair and read for a few minutes, but ultimately surrendered to sleep. It was nice and cool in the tent due to both the altitude and relative shade of the campsite. While they napped, I pulled down the bikes and got everything ready for a ride. I was thinking we could continue up the dirt road to the North Fork Reservoir, but I discovered that I had left the adapter needed to pull the chariot on Jess’s “road” bike. This is one of the downsides to having so many bikes. So I took a short ride up part of the Colorado Trail (heading West) while they continued to nap.

After everyone was awake, we piled back into the car and headed down to Salida. There’s a great bike shop in town, and I was hoping they carried Chariot parts. As luck would have it, they did, so we picked up a second adapter bracket and pumped the locals for some baby-trailer-friendly ride ideas. They were nice enough to print us out a map and even hooked up Jess with a free pair of Christmas-themed bike socks from the clearance basket.

To keep a long story short (relatively) we slept pretty well both nights, although the first night I did wake up at around midnight to find Phoebe crawling all over me! Our plan for Sunday morning was to ride up to an old mining town above Salida, but Jess smartly vetoed that plan in favor of riding north out of Buena Vista along the east side of the Arkansas River. It was a pretty good dirt road that passed a few rock climbing sites and some primitive BLM campgrounds. It even featured several short tunnels blasted into the hillside for trains running to and from Leadville. It was steadily uphill the whole way out, and we were ready to cruise back downhill after our lunch stop, but a wicked head wind came up just in time to thwart those plans. It felt like it was uphill both ways, but we managed to make it back to Buena Vista anyway.

We would have liked to get some more riding in on Monday, but because of the way we had to pack the car, it was too inconvenient to get the chariot out once all the camping gear was in. So we headed back to Lafayette. It was nice to get back early in the afternoon—it gave me time enough to cut the grass (woo-hoo) and get everything unpacked and put away.

Phoebe recently started “reading” her books out loud. We were highly amused to discover what she must think we sound like!