Labor Day Weekend 2013

Did I miss the last two weeks of August?  I'm getting as bad as my two girls who always have to "catch up" on their blogs!  And they have KIDS along with jobs - what's my excuse??  WORK - more on that in my catch up blog!

 

Labor Day weekend arrived and we were heading to Buffalo Peaks again - but the other side!  The camper was packed the night before except for the last minute stuff - and when we arrived at work that Friday morning, Glenn told me we were closing it down at noon!!!  WOW - of course I had to SEE that to believe it!!

 

We did manage to get out of there at 12:30 - a record I'm sure - and raced home and finished packing up!!  As we were heading through Florissant, I reminded Glenn that gas was MUCH cheaper there than in Hartsel but he drove on by anyway.

 

We arrive in Hartsel and guess what???  THEY'RE OUT OF GAS!!!!  So the next 40 minutes was spent driving out of our way to another town to get gas for the ATV!!! 

 

We found a lovely place to camp and I would love to show you a picture of that perfect spot but my camera conveniently forgot to take that picture........sigh..........Just know it was off the road around a bend all by itself, surrounded by aspen and fir trees!! 

 

After setting up and then going for a quick ride on the ATV, Glenn started a nice campfire and we roasted hot dogs and ate with a yummy salad I had picked up at the store - and then it was on to marshmallows - yum!!!  And it was a good thing we enjoyed that campfire!!

 

Glenn headed to bed early and I read till my normal bedtime and then was too lazy to go back outside and bring in my night light, a solar light...........which means I did NOT sleep well - because of the close ceiling in a camper, I get quite claustrophobic, hence the solar light!  I won't forget it again, trust me!!

 

It's always fun cooking breakfast and enjoying coffee before heading out on the ATV - we hit some nice trails and even though it was clouding up, we decided to head for Weston Pass!!  Funny thing is, once we started up it, we realized we HAD been on it before!!

 

We stopped for a quick picnic and by this time, it was really getting dark out - we were just packing up when the thunder, lightning and rain started!!  WOW can that thunder reverberate in the mountains!!  We sat under a couple of trees for a while but it continued to rain and we KNOW how it can rain at Buffalo Peaks (remember the family camp out????) so Glenn donned his rain pants and coat and I put on my wonderful $1 disposable poncho and we headed out!!

Of course Glenn had the raw end of the deal as I huddled behind him!!  BUT at least he was covered in rain gear where my poncho only hit to my knees - by the time we made it back to the camper, the bottom 1/2 of my jeans was soaked, along with my tennis shoes...........and yes, that's the only pair of jeans and shoes I brought!!  We had to turn on the furnace in the camper to get warm and hung wet clothes up to dry - only they wouldn't dry because the rain went on and on and on and on..........

Glenn grilled in the rain - and then when it stopped for a little bit, he started a fire and put my shoes by it to dry them a little - but it didn't stop enough to enjoy the campfire so we were basically stuck in the camper the rest of the afternoon and evening!!

It rained most of the night - (I slept much better!!!) but by then the canvas on the pop up part of the camper was saturated and the end of our bed was wet, including the sleeping bag and sheet!!  I laid it all back so it would dry while we were gone!!

Sunday we ATV'd the other direction - it was beautiful weather as usual in the morning but pretty chilly riding and I wore 3 layers both days!!  We drove by this huge pile of what I thought was sawdust but it was actually chipped wood!!  The grand kids would have had fun playing in that!!

We saw some beautiful territory that day!!

And this is what Glenn does every so often - stops and looks through his binoculars at the mountain to see if he can see any wildlife!

We made it back to the camper just as it started to sprinkle around 2:00 - (I forgot to mention that my jeans never dried because it was SO damp inside the camper so we turned the furnace on in the morning and I held my jeans in front of it till they dried!!) -  and it never stopped raining the rest of the day............Glenn took a nap - I read - we played a game of Scrabble (and yes, he beat me by one point!!) he grilled in the rain again and I don't think I left the camper because of the rain!!  By late afternoon I was getting cabin fever!!

The sleeping bags and sheets were wet again but we just had to use them anyway and we fell asleep to the lovely sound of rain!!  By Monday morning, everything was saturated and there was no hope of it drying out before we packed up so we cooked breakfast, had our coffee and packed up all that lovely outside wet stuff and headed to the other side of the mountain!

We parked just off the highway and unloaded the ATV to head over to where son in law Brad was hunting to see if he had gotten anything yet - but he was already gone - he'd had enough of the rain too................so after another ride, we packed up and headed back home.

It was still a fun weekend but we're sure tired of camping in the rain - I guess we should be thankful we have a camper though and not a tent - because I KNOW I wouldn't have lasted long then!!