First Few Weeks - 06/17/21

What an amazing past 10 days!

Back again with another recap of our adventures. Earlier this month we headed over to Eleven Mile State park for some more lake camping and fun in the sun. Since we're digital nomads cell service is so pivotal to our life on the road, we were sad to learn that the camp site we found didn't have stable
service. 

Turning lemons into lemonade, however, we decided to use this opportunity to check out the nearby town Florissant, Co. And what a cool town this was! We worked for a couple of days at Costello coffee house (image on the left), which is a residential house converted into a coffee shop (the folks are real nice there, be sure to check them out if you're in the area!). We also had a great time checking out their local bar Iron Tree Restaurant and Brewery, great folks over there as well. All-in-all this was a great town to check out and work for a few days!

We noticed on the first day of our stay at Eleven Mile that there were a LOT of mosquitos. We had the misfortune of returning to our camp site right as the sun was setting and our tent was swarmed by the little blood-suckers. We didn't want to be discouraged by the little flying fiends, so we did our best to share our space with them and enjoy the site. By day two, we had had enough, and started looking into dispersed camping nearby. Fortunately for us, we were real close to a little hidden gem called Manchester Creek Road and away we went.

Manchester Creek was such a beautiful little area just north of Divide Co, lots of good camping options around and not too busy on a Wednesday (more on this later). Since it was our first night, and we were very new to this whole boondocking thing, I decided to introduce myself to our neighbors "Hey my name is Thomas, we're new to boondocking, is our camp site to close to yours?" A silver-haired gentleman leaned back and cheerily replied "Nice to meet you, Thomas. My name is Rod, and you are in a national park. This space is as much mine as it is yours." I absolutely loved that outlook/attitude and knew right away that these would be great neighbors. Shortly after that interaction Rod came over with his GoPro to record us setting up camp. It turns out he is a content creator and wanted to film us setting up camp. After some great conversations and advice from someone who's been creating content for a while, we decided to call it a night. Rod, if you or Amanda are reading this, it was great to meet you once again and I hope your travels are fun and safe! For everyone else reading this, please check out Rod's gold prospecting YouTube page (Interesting, right?!) https://www.youtube.com/user/AzGoldPros.  

While staying at Manchester Creek we met another great neighbor who I called Ms. Sue, she was traveling with her dog and hitting national parks for the next 4-5 months. This young lady was in her 70s and solo camping like a BOSS. I was so impressed by her willingness to camp alone that I shared a
picture with my mom to hopefully inspire her travels too. Ms. Sue, it was great to meet you, and if you're reading this, I want you to know that you have already inspired me, and I will be taking my mom out on a camping trip before this season is up!

A week ago Thursday (I can't believe that this was only a week ago......), we hiked the incline in Manitou Springs Co. I'm sorry, I should clarify. Gemma hiked the incline, I crawled up it. No, it wasn't graceful, but darn-it, I finished! 

Some fun facts about the Incline:

• Only 1 mile in length
• 2,768 steps
• Gains 2,000 feet in elevation from start to finish
• 45% - 68% grades throughout the climb
  

By step 1,300 I began crawling, and I think I only stood upright for 100 more steps above that point. 10/10 would recommend, I was miserable the entire time, but the feeling that I felt standing at the top is indescribable. One day I will conquer it while standing upright (small goals, lol).

Last cool story of note from this trip, we were back at camp this past Sunday, all of our interesting and cool neighbors departed, and we had the little slice of heaven all to ourselves. We had a few friends come visit us and see how we were doing and it was nice. Then, all at once, we started seeing trucks pull up with UTVs, and ATVs. At first there were 10, then 20, then well over 30 different trucks and we went from having a small slice of heaven to ourselves, to having a bustling neighborhood. We were intimidated at first, but we spoke with a couple of folks that showed up and found out that this was a planned meetup and Rod's words from earlier in the week echoed in my ear. Everyone that we talked to was super friendly and happy to show off their toys. I got to brush up on my Spanish a bit more, and ate some DELICIOUS discada compliments of our new neighbors who needed a knife and lighter earlier in the day. All-in-all everyone we met was real nice, one person deserves special mention though. His name is Big Ern (Hernan), and he scared the CRAP out of me!!! Everyone was packing up for the day and he hollered to our camp "Anyone want a ride real quick before I pack it up?" I, of course, said yes right away, not realizing that he was going to be driving with me on the back... I've ridden on ATVs before, and I used to own a motorcycle, I have NEVER gone this fast on a dirt trail, and I've never gotten as much air as I did with Big Ern. I was hanging on for my life, scared to shout "WooHoo" out of the fear that he'd go any faster, lol. So much fun, so scary, and of course it was only after we got back that he told us about all of his dislocated or broken bones..... Big Ern, you crazy crazy guy, thanks for the once in a lifetime ride!

So far this boondocking thing is leading to a lot of great adventures and even more great stories.

Until next time,

See you on the road!