If you go the long way, it turns out round trip from Denver to northern Michigan is 4,267 miles. I am a lucky enough woman to get picked up in a pick-up and driven to visit a handful of far-flung friends -- safely socially distant, of course -- with comfy sleeping quarters to boot. From mom and dad's in Traverse City, to my brother's family in Kalamazoo, across the endless grass-sea of Iowa and Nebraska, up to Spearfish, SD (hi Dan and Marcie!), over to Missoula (hi Bret!) and lovely Hamilton, MT (hi Greg an Dale!), desert-y Ogden, UT (hi Jake!), and a stop at Avon, CO (hi Eddie!), before coming to rest in western Colorado.
Cheers to this great guy sharing cheese with me in lovely places, like Ironton.
And for lending a sense of scale to my landscape photos. (Alta Lakes)
Two weeks passed enjoyably, with tailgate coffee and roadside avocados and good company. Life ain't too shabby in the back of a truck, especially with a solid tarp over the hard-shell topper for rainy nights. But life is downright fucking luxurious in a 23-ft camper trailer. There is a toilet that flushes, and not one but TWO gas stoves (indoor and outdoor) upon which to simmer one's Italian sausage tomato sauce. Kelly has worked out the plumbing and could already back the trailer like a pro; we study the map and are overwhelmed by national forest and canyons to hike.
6/6
A week in and around Ouray has pretty much reconciled me to missing Alaska this summer. Because not only is there unlimited amazing hiking, there's a gorge, with a canyon, and 14,000-ft peaks dotted with abandoned mines and defunct narrow-gauge railways, and snow and pines and wildflowers -- ! And I still bake...a little. Blondies and biscuits and granola so far, and pie to come (the 'lil trailer oven is surprisingly good at holding heat). But really the best part is being with Kelly.
Like the (presumably) wealthy retirees that surround us at the RV park, we prepare coffee and breakfast on miniature appliances and sit on the couch we folded the bed back up and over. There, though, the similarities end, as we gear up to wander the steep rocky passes of the Uncompahgre, scramble up piles of tailings to disintegrating former mining infrastructure, and marvel at the impossibly hardscrabble mountainsides, and the equally hardscrabble people that sought their fortunes there. No blondies or flush-toilets for them, though one surprisingly sturdy sort of relic withstands the elements upon the rock face: outhouses.
The end of the line in Silverton.
cactus blooms above Ouray
Are we in Norway?
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