Colorado Without Camping

 2021 has been extremely busy for us.  At times heartbreaking, stressful and exhausting.  It was time for a break from "life" for a week.  But we sold the teardrop trailer earlier this summer to squirrel funds away for when we get back into working on the Revcon.  Yep, that project is still waiting for us to finish it.  

We booked an AirBnB in Ouray, packed up the pups and slogged north.  We knew we were on the tail end of fall for the Colorado mountains, but at least there were some fall colors to greet us.

We got in late and settled into our little A Frame for the evening.  Tomorrow we'd start exploring our favorite haunts.

Snow already dusted the San Juans, and we knew we were in for more this week.  We started up Red Mountain -

The sun was high and bright, but the wind was kicking.  It was a no drone day.  

But we got to explore some of Mike's favorite mine structures.

This is our new boy, JB.  

We headed towards Silverton, to run up to our favorite little lake.  

This Isn't Iceland: Why Go Home?

Today marked the last day of our vacation.  We woke to heavy frost, zoomed into town for chai and breakfast and hoped the rising sun would dry off our awning.  Thankfully it did.  But sadly, that meant we were starting our journey back south.  

It's always bittersweet to end a vacation.  We desperately needed this vacation.  Not only were our bucket list international plans dashed, but we worked our tails off to finish two Ford F100 projects this year, on top of our day jobs.  

Not wanting it to end, we stopped for the night back along the river in Mexican Hat.  This time we were early enough to enjoy a soak in the river in the full sun.  And were greeted by a mountain goat dining along the shore.  

We stayed up late into the evening, enjoying the solitude and watching the moon set and stars rise.  

One last sunrise along the river - then home.

Obligatory Monument Valley shot:

This Isn't Iceland: Rainy Red Mountain

We woke to frost, again.  And gloomy skies all around us.  Not looking to put ourselves in a complicated situation, we stayed low and close to town and played around Red Mountain again.

On our way back down 550, we stopped off and climbed 821.  The waterfall is much more impressive in the summer, but for some reason, this is the first time we've ever decided to run this trail.  We started up the switchbacks past the waterfall, but the rain started coming harder and the trail was really steep.  Back down and into Silverton.

By the time we made it through town, the sun was emerging.  We meandered down Cunningham Gulch and scouted campsites for future visits with our Revcon.  (We will hopefully get back into that project shortly). 

Tonight, pizza was on the agenda.  So a stop to the Gold Blok Brewery for pizza and a growler was on order.    

This Isn't Iceland: Landing in Silverton

After a few hours on the road, we made our way into Silverton.  The closer we got, the prettier 550 got.  We've only been through Colorado during the summer wild flower bloom.  To see the aspens in full fall glory was incredible.  The air crisped up and we made our way to a secluded camp spot just outside of Silverton.  

We had to cross a creek, which ensured that this spot would remain ours the entire trip.  In fact, we only had 3 other campers near our site the whole week. Perfection.  

Bad weather was on the forecast, so the teardrop setup was fully deployed.  We were ready for the week ahead.  We explored around camp before the sun set, made dinner and tucked in for the night.  

A day to Explore Tooele

Mike returned from Park City after dark last night and told me that his race day wasn't until Sunday, so we would have all day Saturday to explore.  We woke to another chilly morning, although not quite as frigid as yesterday. 

Breakfast, coffee and a bit of ambulatory exploring.

 


Our exploration turned into frustration pretty quickly.  Warning: I am super prejudiced against ATV riders.  This camp site encapsulated why.  Garbage.  Garbage everywhere. There were empty alcohol bottles, beer cans, water bottles and other assorted trash strewn throughout the woods and cluttering up the stream.  This is a persistent theme in wilderness areas frequented by ATV riders.  Mike and I cleaned up our campsite and creek the best we could.  The amount of garbage I saw this weekend could fill a pickup truck bed. 

We loaded up in the Jeep and headed west on the road. And we drove as far as we could until we realized that these roads were better suited for narrow ATV's.

It was a beautiful mountain range and it made me sad to see how people treated it.

We drove into Tooele, so Mike could gauge how long it would take him to drive to the Miller Motorsports Park in the morning.  We stopped into visit the museum, but I'll dedicate a whole post to car stuff later. 

We stopped at a farmers market and were disappointed by its small size considering the amount of farms and ranch's nearby.  But we landed apples, squash and eggplant.  After gallivanting we made our way back to camp to relax.

Elly was less than thrilled with the 50 degree temperature.

We enjoyed a great sunset and good times relaxing together.

After enjoying the fire for a while, we turned in.  He had the Octane Academy in the morning and needed rest. Unbeknownst to us, weather was moving in and it would be a bitter cold night.