Camping on the Colorado River

Last night was an adventure.

Actually, let me preface that by saying this: Lily is a natural camper. In fact, I think I am literally watching her devolve from civilized member of society to cavewoman right before my eyes. For one, she keeps commenting on how long it's been since she's showered with a strange sense of pride in her voice. But even more importantly, she gets super psyched when the only campsite we can find is "primitive," and lacking in water and electricity. All I can say is, good job, Lydia, and keep it up.

Anyway. We arrived in Arches National Park to discover that all the campsites in the park were full (this was unsurprising - it was already 7pm). We proceeded to get some more campfire food/supplies and drive up the east bank of the Colorado River until we found our primitive spot. It is - legit - gorgeous. Check it out:


That's taken this morning immediately following me exiting the tent.

Anyway, despite the site's aesthetic bona fides, some problems cropped up. First, I failed at making a fire. This was mostly because we didn't have enough kindling or small wood for me to get one going, but I'm still ashamed about it. Second, and more importantly...well, let's just say lily and I consumed lots of beverages until, when it wad pitch black outside, we realized that our tent was about to blow into the Colorado River. It was really windy! Here's basically how it looked AFTER we repaired it, so imagine how bad it was before:


Double-fail. The best part of this story is when we noticed the tent was about to become airborne, we ran over to it to secure it, and I exclaimed, "WE NEED TO TAKE ACTION IMMEDIATELY!!!" Lily then shined her flashlight in my face to expose me chugging a beer. Apparently, that was my idea of action. Anyway, we managed to both secure and sleep in the tent and everything turned out swimmingly. See? Happy in the morning.


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Location:N Main St,Moab,United States

On the road again

We departed RMNP. It was grand. Originally, we planned to spend the day taking scenic tours of Colorado, but after a midday picnic and some tumultuous thunderstorms, decided it would be better to just head straight to Utah, land of a thousand Mormons or something. That meant that within a span of a about three hours, we went from landscapes that looked like this:


to this:


We both like Utah a lot. It's red.

Miles: 2,300
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Location:Unnamed Rd,Moab,United States

12,000 feet

That's how high Lily and I got as we drove the Trail Ridge road through RMNP. That is high. It is higher than trees grow. It meant that the terrain we were in was the same as you'd find in Alaska or the North Pole - the arctic tundra.


How many trees do you see in that picture? Exactly. (the answer is zero, smartass)

We did a lil hike high into the tundra to take in some mountain views.


And did you know that there are flowers in the tundra? Well, there are:


Also, Lily and I realized that we have taken almost zero pictures together as of yet. So here you go:


Lastly, I like posing like I'm king of the world whenever possible:



Miles: 2,000
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Location:Trail ridge road,CO

Hunt for Megafauna

Megafauna means large animals. It's one of my favorite words - I generally enjoy words with the prefix -mega.

Anyway. After the bear sighting, we were too psyched to go back to sleep, so we took a sunrise drive to search for wildlife. And we were VERY successful. First we found a group of four bull elks:


Then we stumbled across a mid-sized coyote:

We saw more deer and elk throughout the day.





Oh, and I don't want to forget the two giant bull moose:

Location:County Rd,Grand Lake,United States

BEAR!

I woke up early this morning (5AM) and had to pee, which is odd in and of itself because, as lily will testify, I litcherally pee about once a week. I think my bear sense was going off or something. When I exited the campground bathroom I saw...A BEAR ABOUT 30 FEET AWAY!

And it was walking directly toward our campsite. Unfortunately, I didn't get any great video or pictures of the guy because he proceeded to first sniff around our bearbox (where we keep all our food). This was a little nervewracking.



You can kinda sorta see him to the left of the bearbox. Then I stopped filming bc the bear literally walked right over to our tent - with lily still asleep inside. He got close enough to touch the tent, thereby awarding lily the prize of Closest-To-Being-Eaten-By-A-Beat. Fortunately, he then ambled away looking for more food. I woke lilster up and we had a nice lil gander of the bear a he moseyed along, but he was a skittish little fella and quickly hightailed it back to the woods.

Love bears.
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Location:Aspen St,Hot Sulphur Springs,United States

Campfire talky times

One of the best parts of camping is campfires. Everyone knows this. You get in touch with your inner caveman/cavewoman and harness the power of fire, like Prometheus.

You go from this:


To this!


See what I did there? Anyway, there are a few things you can add to a fire to make it better. These things include 1) beer 2) wine 3) whiskey 4) cards, and 5) marshmallows. Now, we are not flawless campers. We have forgotten such essentials as sponges, paper towels, and...plates. But we dang sure remembered campfire augmenters 1-5!


1) beer


4) cards

I don't have pics of 2, 3, or 5, but I do have a picture of me looking happy/proud of my campfire abilities.


We talked about lots of things, including pop psychology, how the sky looked like the ocean, a movie starring the moon - and most importantly, what to do if a bear tried to enter our tent and eat us during the night. Why was that important? Well, read on, faithful gartfollowers...
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Location:Glacier Pass Campground, RMNP

Smokin' Dave's

After our big ole hike, we realized that we were frikkin starving, so we headed to Smokin' Dave's BBQ & Taphouse. I have no idea what a Taphouse is, but that still has to be one of my favorite restaurant names ever. I consumed two margaritas and a chili cheeseburger. It was awesome.


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Location:Estes Park, CO