A few days in the wilderness was just what we needed! It started out like the beginning of a joke: “Three Jeeps and a Subi headed into the mountains...”
...but some simple downtime around the fire, family, friends, good food, and amazing scenery made our Memorial Day weekend 2017 one to remember!
Although a bit of a drive from our home in Fort Collins, the Westcliffe, CO area (Custer County) is beautiful. Nestled at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Range, we camped on private land owned by friends. (By the way, and importantly, all camp photos in this post were taken on private land, not off trail – here’s why that matters).
And the view! The mountains were spectacular and SOOOOOO breathtaking!
Our tent performed well in the wild too, and kept us dry despite night-long heavy rains on Saturday night. Temps were colder than we anticipated, though, and we awoke Sunday morning to everything covered in a layer of ice.
Even the dogs were chilly -
But hot coffee helped [the humans at least]!
There were a few improvements that we’ve made for future camping trips too. As it turns out, the outer window flaps on the tent annex windows remained open at the bottom and the wind blew right in (the outer flaps on the upper roof-top tent windows have velcro on the bottoms to keep them shut). So, I’ve added velcro to the annex window bottoms and next time the kiddo and dogs should be a little warmer.
Another item we’re adding is a bottle of eye wash in our first aid kit. On day two last weekend our son got something in his eye. Friends had eye drops which we used to try and flush it without luck, so we also used bottled purified water. After the fact it appears his eye was scratched by whatever was in there (which we apparently did flush out) so he spent the rest of day two in pain but was fine the morning of day three when he awoke. Nonetheless, some eye wash solution would be a useful first aid addition.
Day three breakfast was another amazing spread -
All too soon it was time to pack up and head home. Our set-up/take-down skills need some practice but we’re getting quicker with the roof-top tent, and we’re slowly figuring out the best and easiest way to pack it up (unzipping the annex and folding it separately really helps!).
Hopefully you headed into the Great Outdoors too for Memorial Day! Here’s to the start of summer adventures!
Happy Trails!