Kebler Pass

This weekend we took a road trip to Kebler Pass, which is about five hours west. Since we live in the desert, you have to drive far away to see trees that change colors in the fall. They call it "the changing of the Aspens," because the Aspen trees turn gold. We left Friday around noon and drove drove drove. I really wanted to take a nap in the car, but I couldn't because I didn't want to miss anything since we have never been that far west in Colorado. It was very very pretty! When we finally got to Kebler pass, it is just a 50 or so mile gravel road with no houses or anything. We are not really sure why it was ever made, other than a scenic road. We stopped about every 3 minutes to take pictures of the beautiful trees. The pictures definitely do not do the colors justice!

Our main goal that day was to find a place to camp, so about 12 miles down the road we picked a spot. We set up camp and had Velveeta shells and cheese for dinner. We also noticed at this time we didn't have a can opener for our beef stew, so that was going to a goal for the next day! We went to bed pretty early because it was cold and dark. It took me about an hour to get warm, but after that, it was the best sleep I have ever had in a tent.

The next morning I made breakfast burritos and coffee. Boy was that coffee good and hot! It was pretty cold the whole time we were there, so the hot coffee was perfect. Good thing we just bought a camp stove and a coffee peculator! Our plan was to drive the rest of Kebler Pass, and camp in Crested Butte, so we packed everything back in the car. We stopped again about every 3 minutes to take pictures, so it took all day. Definitely worth it though!

When we arrived in Crested Butte, we were shocked to see it was a little crappy hole in the wall town. We had two goals for Crested Butte, one to get a can opener so we could eat that night, and two I wanted a Crested Butte shirt. I think that is a silly name for a town. It reminds me of "Crusty Butt", and I'm sure other people thing of similar things, so I just don't understand why they would name a town that! We found a can opened, and I got a cute shirt. Since the town was a hole in the wall, we had to drive back to Kebler Pass to camp. We ended up camping in the same spot, so too bad we had packed everything up!

We had beef stew for dinner, and made a huge roaring fire. The wind kept blowing and almost catching us on fire. It was very very cold out, and if you moved about two feet away from the fire, you were too cold. Even the dogs sat by the fire, and they are usually scared! I think we ended up going to bed around 8:00 (not much to do in the woods when it is freezing and dark!) and I never ever got warm. It was the worst night sleeping in a tent ever! (Best night followed by worst night!) The best part, is when we woke up there was SNOW on the ground! I have never been camping in the snow. It was so cold I didn't even want to make breakfast, just get in the car with the heat on!

We drove back home the same five hour way we got there, and I wanted to take a nap the whole time again, but this time I couldn't get comfortable. I finally took a little nap from Vail to Idaho Springs, which is maybe an hour :( We got home okay, and everyone had a bath or shower. Now tonight we have to do all of our weekend things (Steve run, grocery store, etc.), because it is back to work tomorrow!

Make sure to look at the 269 pictures!

~*~ Ashley ~*~

Camping/Dog Park

This weekend we went camping with a couple from church (Rich and Jamie) and Jamie's family. I'm not exactly sure what the name of the place was called where we stayed, but it was on National Forest Land near Estes Park. Not many people know, but you are allowed to camp for free anywhere you want on National Forest Land. I really liked it because you had the amenities of car-camping (PILLOW, real food), but the feel of back-country-camping. There are not actual campsites, you just park your car where ever you want and set up camp. It was about an hour away from our house, and I hope we go there often!

There were 4 dogs on this trip (Lilliann, Tinkerbell, Tritan, and Peanut), so we decided to see how our dogs would be off leash. They did really good, especially Tinkerbell. She was off of her leash 95% of the time. Lilliann we had to keep on her leash most of the time, because there was a 3 year old with us, and she would most likely knock her down. Now we know they can be off their leashes in this type of setting without running away, and they actually listen to us for a change!

One really weird thing about the National Forest, is people can pay to raise their animals on the land. So the animals just roam around wherever they want. While we were driving on the Forest Road to find our camp-mates, there were suddenly a bunch of cows in the road. Steve yelled "Holy cow what are those?!" and I said "COWS!" We had to inch forward until they moved out of the way. A few minutes later, we came over a little hill, and there was another cow laying in the road. Steve didn't seem to see it (it was dark, and the cows were black) so I yelled "COW! COW! COW!" and he finally slammed on the brake about a foot away from it.

All that night I heard mooing close by, so I knew the cows weren't too far away. That morning I was awaken to Jamie yelling "Tritan! Tritan! Tritan!" and cows mooing like crazy. The cows had been a few feet away from the camp, and Tritan got a little too close. He got kicked in the neck by a mom cow with a baby. That made Tritan very mad, so he chased the heard of cows about a mile away. Jamie had a hard time to get him to come back! Luckily, that is the last we saw of the cows.

On the way home today, we stopped by a dog park in Estes Park that had agility equipment, and a lake to swim in. The dogs didn't care much for the agility stuff, we only got them to climb up a triangle. I'm not sure if they liked the water or not, but they did get in. Lilliann ran right into it, but Tinkerbell never got very deep. Neither of them actually swam. They seemed afraid to take their feet off the bottom. It sure was funny to watch though. I put up a million pictures of it if you want to take a look!

~*~ Ashley ~*~