We actually ventured out into the wild wilderness twice this summer for some close-by camping. It’s sort of a feat to make it out a few times, and we are bizarrely satisfied with getting there twice between only 8 weeks that Ahna has off, several weeks of which were already committed and compounded by my work schedule. The first trip was up to the Breckenridge/Keystone area, where we camping close to Lake Dillon. It was an extremely welcome relief from the stupid hot summer that we had down here, as the nighttime temperatures dropped into the upper 30’s.

Prior to that trip, we had been sporting a three person dome tent as our ‘spacious’ tent, but we decided to hit the local Coleman store and look for a clearance tent that might fit a slightly larger bill. Boy, did we ever. It cost us under $80, and it’s an eight person dome tent that I think could fit the car if it were needed. When I tested it out in the backyard prior to the trip, I worried we had made a size mistake. Who, in their right mind, would ever need a tent that size unless you were attempting to camp several families under one roof? But because of the very good cost, and the idea that it would potentially serve us well as car campers for the next few years, we gave it a shot. It turns out that I’m really glad that we kept it. Once we got up  to the site, we went into Breckenridge for some fun at their adventure area before hitting some dinner in Dillon (rough camping trip, right?….PS – didn’t want to push too hard with it being Ezra’s first time out since he was one, and Ahna being 26ish weeks pregnant). Once we got back to the campsite, the temperature dropped, the thunder rolled in, and the rain came. From 6pm until after 2am. No campfire, no stargazing, no ghost stories. Just time in the tent…in the large, spacious tent that had room for all of us to find a space and not feel on top of each other. It was perfect.

The second trip also featured a few firsts for us: first time that just Ezra and I went out, and the first time that we went along with another family. We headed down to the Arkansas River Headwater State Park and camped right along the river (about 100 yards away). We did take the smaller tent this time, as we figured that the weather would be nicer (it was), and Ezra would have some friends to play with (he did). Cooked dinner at the site, had a campfire, ate smores, and told stories (non-ghost made up ones by the kids). We had one trip in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom (glad Ezra is a boy in this case), and we awoke in the morning to find bighorn sheep roaming the campsite area. On the way home, we drove the Skyline Road in Canyon City (video below of our trip taken with a GoPro camera)…which is a must drive if you are ever in that part of the state.

The trips resulted in lots of fun and a desire to push for more of them next summer. We all got a little dirty and smelly, but we survived the heat, the cool, the rain, and the sun…and did so on the ground inside a tent. Good times.

Back to the cabin in Grand Lake for a great week of relaxing mountain life. This time….no moose, just lots and lots of heat. By the way, I just don’t get why public buildings constructed post-1980 don’t have air conditioning. I understand if you don’t want it in the house, and I also appreciate that most of the time it’s probably not needed…but AC is one of those things that when it is required, it’s really necessary….and when the library doesn’t have it, it’s a sad, smelly, sweaty mess. We spent the time up there at the exact same time that the wildfires were blowing up all over Colorado, so we were thankful to be reminded of what beauty exists in the state (without fire) and to be able to enjoy some clean air. Hiking was fun, fishing was successful, and time together was worth it all.

A couple of years in the thought bank and a few months in the making, we finally have our claw foot tub garden doing it’s thing. With the smaller backyard, the potential for rabbits (many, many of them in our old neighborhood, but not too many here yet), and an aging set of backs (I know we are only mid-30s, but that’s super old, right?), we set out in the design process of the backyard to incorporate an elevated garden set up of some sort. We made the space for it, but idea after idea slipped through the cracks of reality, until we kept coming back to one of the first ones we thought of: get a bath tub.

It turns out that finding a claw foot tub isn’t difficult at all – see Craigslist, rather getting it, moving it, and placing it are the challenging components of the operation. Thankfully there is a Dad with a pick-up truck and a few hours of help close by. The tub was found as a leftover piece of a rental remodel in Littleton, and is straight from 1914 – as stamped on the bottom. We brought it home, set it in place, and filled it with rock, then sand, then the most expensive bags of organic potting soil you can find on this side of the rocky mountains. Oh, top that off with a trip to the garden center to get some summer squash, spaghetti squash, red bell pepper, Japanese cucumber, jalapeno, basil, and zucchini. It’s admitingly a shotgun approach to such a small space to plant, but this is a trial year to see what grows in our backyard tub. Next year might be a little more focused based on the successes of this growing season. Now, we dump water and time into the garden, and somewhere between 60-100 days, we get some goods.

Outside of our hopeful dinner plate returns on the project, we are using it as an opportunity to begin to teach Ezra about gardening, growing, sustainability, and local resource (yea, Japanese versions of vegetables make a hard connection to the local component). His buy in has been simple as he is very interested in what is going to happen…just an opportunity to help plant, to help water, and a set of Go, Diego, Go gardening gloves. His concern and interest are currently measured daily, with the once-a-day inquiry about watering. I think that this is also going to be a good lesson in time and patience, as he is already making connections that 100 days isn’t immediate.

Updates including inception, growth, and use will be posted here…stay tuned.