Building up to the Fourth of July celebrations we quickly realized we needed to find a spot and hunker down. We were camping about 45 minutes off the pavement in one of my favorite valleys. The traffic was nothing like anything we've seen before. Groups of people coming in with their ATV's and travel trailers, it was like camping next to a major highway, in the middle of the national forest. We decided to move considering the invasion of space and we knew we could find something better.
Once we got out to the new spot, the next 10 days we watched trailer after trailer pull in and crowd on top of each other. We had 13 travel trailers in our one valley (we are far right). We angled the trailer perfectly so that the rest of the campers were behind us and out of view. It was a sight to see and actually a little entertaining. This past holiday thousands of Americans flocked to our public lands and enjoyed the scenery God has created for us to enjoy and cherish. God bless America.
We are now located in our third camping spot for the summer. Its positioned up on a hill looking over a beautiful little draw that leads down to a creek with 8-inch brook trout. Much less vehicle traffic which is nice, the hill also helps reduce road noise. Not as many hummingbirds but we have encountered a few Rufous hummingbirds which are stunningly beautiful.
Now that we've consistently stayed off-grid several weeks in a row we have discovered we can last around 10-12 days with all our water, propane, and food. 80 gallons of freshwater provides us, a family of five, with about 10 gallons a day for showers, meals, hydration, and bathroom usage. Quite impressive if you ask me! The ability to pick our backyard, our riverfront and our playgrounds is such an amazing blessing that has been given to us. We may complain about the influx of people and how they don't understand camping etiquette but I believe we fared well during Colorado's busiest holiday.
Ill try and get a few stories posted while we are in this new beautiful spot but connecting with the outdoors is much more fulfilling and the summer only lasts so long. School is a little over a month away and we have to give our girls an education on top of traveling full time so our hands get full quickly. We are mentally preparing for a few drives across America in the next 6 months so things will quickly pick up and we wont be fishing 6 days out of the week anymore. Thanks again for joining us and we look forward to delivering some good stories we've created so far this Summer. Lots of fish. Lots of learning.