Its been a long hot, fun summer, and its not over yet. A brief overview.
Monument Valley was so impressive. What a wonder. Its so vast and big and open and empty that its impossible to describe or photograph. This was some of the best free camping we have seen. You can't camp in the park but just out side in a lesser known but of equally or even greater awe and beauty known as Garden of the Gods.
We added more solar panels to the array while in Moab around the Memorial day time of summer. Moab was awesome, until the heat hit. We were enjoying 80 degree days and 50 degree nights while boondocking on some BLM land. It was open range and the cows would bump up against the camper every morning that they pushed through the meadow. Utah has a grass known as cheat grass. It is the bain of every dogs existence in the area. Z got one between the ball and socket of his eye. The vile weed is barbed so its impossible to remove. Good times!!
First, the biting gnats came. Only you don't feel the bite, until about 12 hours later. I chose this time to ad a hitch to the front of my f350 to carry a little dirt bike. that meant laying on the ground for a few hours of gnat torture. then I also added some more solar power panels to the roof which was another afternoon of gnatastic fun. The next morning I awoke covered in large bites. Having a weird natural pesticide since birth I have never really gotten any bug bites. I know its weird, everyone else gets bit but me, I'm just not tasty. So I have never had to develop any will power for scratching. By the end of the next few days, the hundreds of open wounds on my legs and neck had me looking every bit the meth head. Then the heat turned on. 104 by 11 AM? no thanks. They only sell 3.2 beer in utah? We are outta here. Silverton colorado and a campground at 10,000 feet next to a stream? Yes please.
we love our vintage trail bikes around here! 75 KL 250, honda post 110 and the mighty 95 TW 200. We camped on some friends land out side Cardwell Montana, near the little hamlet of Mammoth. for a couple of weeks around the fourth of July. It was a great few weeks. We crashed their family reunion which brought Jamaicans, Australians, Australia-Jamicans, and American-Aussie-Jamicans. Its no ting man! Don't trust those Jamaicans when it comes to rum punch though...We had a blast dining on jerk pork, shooting bows and arrows (not at each other though, so), hiking to alpine lakes, exploring the Bitterroot Mountains on the dirt bikes, cards against humanity, late nights around the fire and just general vacationing.
When moab heated up, we headed for the hills. Literally, this campsite is at almost 10,000 feet in the San Juan National Forest, outside Silverton Colorado. The moving water is known as mineral creek. This was mid June, 80 degree days and 40 degree nights. perfection. All of the rivers and creeks were fattened with snowmelt from the upper reaches of the mountains. Its quite the phenomenon to watch the rivers swell all day to a raging wall of water when the snow is at its meltiest, around 3 am. After that the melt as run off and the snow begins to refreeze and slow the flow. By the time we left (16 days) the snow had all but disappeared. When we first got there most of the road into the forest was not passable due to 2 feet of snow. Colorado spring was amazing. We were surrounded by wildlife here. Beavers, blonde black bears, moose and cut throat trout called us neighbors. Really magical spot. Hit me up and Ill send you the GPS co-ords.