Hi, friends! Today I’m so excited to share with you our first camping trip of the Fall 2018 season. We have a few favorite spots to camp at here in Colorado, but we decided to start this camping season off with a new-to-us spot. If you recall from the previous two falls, I was preoccupied with studying for my prelim exams, so this was the first fall in over 2 years that we were free to travel without the constraints of my strict studying schedule. Yay!! (It felt so good.) And as you can see from the photo below, I was quite excited to get back out into nature!!!
For our first camping trip of the season we traveled to Uncompaghre National Forest and camped at Big Blue Campground. It was a bit of a drive to get out there (~5.5 hours south), but we ended up loving both the journey and the destination. Our route took us through Gunnison, so it was only natural that we would stop at Mikey’s (now Gunnison Pizza Company) for a giant slice of pizza for lunch! It’s become an type of tradition for us now every time we drive through. (You can read about the first time we went there here!)
So delicious!!
After our quick lunch stop in Gunnison, it was back on the road for us! And it could not have been a more beautiful day for the long drive. Just look at those blue skies!
For healthy car trip snacks, I packed some carrots in these reusable silicon bags (I’m trying to stop using plastic baggies!), these amazing sour cream & onion rice crisps that I’m addicted to, and my new beautiful baby blue YETI tumbler with a colorful reusable straw. I’ve been trying to find a way to get myself to drink more water on a daily basis (for years!), and let me tell you–this has been the game changer! I saw someone in my family (hi, Kenzie!) drinking out of a bright pink YETI with a blue straw over the summer and loved how fun and colorful it looked. So I tried it out for myself and had great success! Who knew all it took was to get something colorful to make drinking water fun for me! Haha.
I also think the straw helps because you don’t constantly have to decide to open up or unscrew the lid of the water bottle to drink it–the straw provides an instant means of drinking. I know all this sounds so silly, but it has legitimately worked for me, friends! The setup is great for Allen (the driver) too because he doesn’t have to hassle with unscrewing a lid (or making me do it) when he wants a drink. And when we would go through the water in the tumbler, I just refill it with cold water from our nalgenes, which only happens at most once an hour. So it saves me from constantly twisting a cap over and over, which doesn’t seem like a huge deal but can get quite annoying.
Once we left the paved road and entered into Uncompahgre National Forest, my excitement for camping started to build! Especially when we saw cows grazing freely in the forest. I mean…how cute are they!? We had actually just gotten back from our Germany hiking trip in the Alps (recap coming soon!) where we stayed in little huts in the mountains and listened to the cows grazing with large bells around their necks. It was very reminicent of that trip and made us both giddy to see what our new campground would be like for the night!
Wow…love love LOVE those tall aspen trees so much! Can’t wait for the changing of the leaves at the turn of the season! (See our first trip to Aspen here.)
We also spotted a couple rutting buck in the trees with their beautiful antlers! So pretty and always such a joy to spot wild animals in nature when we are out.
Allen always gets a little nervous about finding a camp spot for the night since most of the campgrounds are on a non-reserved, first-come-first-serve basis. Luckily he has every other Friday off and we try to use that to our advantage and leave fairly early on Friday mornings of camping weekends. Since the drive was so long from Boulder, we arrived at the Big Blue Campground around 2:30pm, which was a little later than normal. Luckily though there were plenty of spots to choose from. This campground was actually one of the few in Colorado that allowed camground fires during the strict bans this summer/fall, so we felt very blessed to have found a spot! We chose a spot that was a little more isolated and off on its own than the others to give a more cozy and in the forest feel.
As we were walking to go pay our campground fees, Allen found a giant bone (likely from an elk or other ungulate). He posed with it like he was a barbarian hahaha!! He’s so silly and always makes me laugh!
After exploring around the campground a bit, we decided to set up camp! We like setting up our tent right when we get there so that we don’t have to worry about it the rest of the night and can just relax and enjoy our surroundings. Today’s tent setup was a bit more exciting than usual because it was our first time trying out the new tent! After using Allen’s old tent for a few years, we decided to use our REI credits to get a new one during a big sale they were having. Not only is it a nicer, newer version that has side entrances (rather than head-foot entrances) and covered vestibules to keep your dirty shoes outside the tent but out of the elements, but having a second tent also means that we have an extra tent to take friends camping with us now! Yay! (I’m looking at you Christina and Bill! :P)
The new tent–REI half dome 2 plus— is essentially the same size as our other tent and sleeps two people comfortably (and likely a dog too, which we will have to test out at some point 😉 ). It’s not one you would really want to backpack camp with, as it’s not the lightest weight one on the market, but we mostly car camp so it is perfect for us!
Ooooh! Look at that mesh roof! I can’t wait to take this out in summer somewhere really dark so that we can fall asleep underneath the stars in the Milky Way above us.
Is that a spider?! Haha, trying to make Allen laugh here.
Allen got the teal-blue-yellow combination and we love it! We are both very colorful people, so the bright colors were an instant hit with us haha. And even the zippers are blue and yellow and make me so happy! It’s the little things, right? 🙂
We also invested in these sleeping pads a couple years ago and honestly haven’t looked back. Best investment we’ve made and couldn’t recommend them enough! Again, not something that you would take backpacking, but definitely something you won’t regret having for car camping. We used to take the big inflatable mattresses (the cheapish ones from Target) but they take a lot of work to blow up (either by physically blowing into them or using a car pump), tend to eventually get holes in them, and honestly we don’t even think they are as comfortable as the pads since the pads are lined with a soft foam in addition to the air. The pads will self-inflate too! But we tend to help along the process by giving them a few puffs of air before setting up the bedding.
P.S. – If it looks like Allen did most of the work setting up the tent, you would be correct! Haha. It’s not that I don’t want to or can’t help, it’s that it’s actually quite easy to set up by one person. And I’m typically taking photos, so Allen doesn’t mind. He likes that I take care of all the “life documenting”. 😀
Surprisingly loving Allen’s new fashion trend of socks with Chaco’s! It’s so camping chic haha.
New tent, who dis?! And just look at that view! Can’t wait to see all the new places we adventure with this new tent!
After setting up the tent, we got the camping chairs out and curled up with our books.
Love this guy soooooo much! He introduced me to my happy place (camping!) and continues to push me to be better and better every day.
YETI tumbler in the wild. So good, friends! If you are looking for some motivation to drink more water, getting this tumbler worked for me! (Not sponsored, just a huge fan haha.)
Allen having a little snack while he reads. 😛
While I continued to read, Allen went on a little climbing adventures. Can you spot him in the trees below? (Hint: look for the blue dot!)
He came back with some cooking sticks that we would use for hot dogs and smores at dinnertime.
Allen tries to find dead limbs that we can use and then whittles away one end into a narrow point for roasting on. I bet that as he gets older, he becomes a hobbyist wood worker. I’m calling it! He enjoys it so much!
As the sun went down, it got a little chilly out, so I put on a few more layers for the evening and Allen started to work on building the fire.
A pretty little camping moment in time. Love our little campsite situation.
Apparently roasting sticks are also good for moving hot wood into place too! Haha! Allen coming in hot with the giant chopsticks. 🙂
Time. for. HOT DOGS! Yes!!!
Cheers! Haha, Allen always cooks AND eats his hot dogs faster than mine. So when I asked him to cheers, this is all he had left!
And just look at that beautiful sunset over the horizon. Camping is the best for reminding me to slow down, look around, and enjoy the simple things in life. This is why I camp.
And what camping trip would be complete without smores?! If you don’t get a blurry photo of the smores at night, did they even happen? 😛
After smores, we sat around the fire and soaked up the warmth it was putting off–simply relaxing and enjoying each other’s company under the stars. We also love seeing who can spot the first satellite soaring across the sky. (I think it was Allen on this particular night.) It was such a lovely evening to camp and I already can’t wait for the next trip!
The next morning, we headed into Lake City for breakfast and then on a small hike along Silver Creek Trail. Lake City is probably the cutest, quaintest town we’ve ever visited and we LOVED it so much! I’ll be sharing more about our time there in the following post, so stay tuned!
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