An Exciting First Month on the Road

We last blogged on our second week in and now we are officially one month into our tour. We have, in the last couple of weeks, visited many new places and seen some really incredible things this country has to offer. We have stopped in Chicago, Bloomington, Iowa City, Omaha, and, Kansas City, MO.

Currently we are finishing up our 2 week stop in Colorado. We have had three events here and many days to play. Together, we were looking forward to heading back into the mountains, which feel like home to us. Our first stop was Rocky Mountain National Park for four days off.

While in RMNP we did some short hikes on our first day, and a longer one on the second day. One thing about being in unfamiliar territory is figuring out what you can and can not handle. For us being in higher altitude was a change, as well as the trails out west. We did our research and headed to the back country office to check trail conditions. With the amount of snow and instability in some spots in the higher altitudes we decided to skip and overnight backpack.

We enjoyed our time very much in RMNP. While we were there we met a wonderful family who invited us for dinner. It was a couple and their two grand daughters for 2 months traveling the country as well. We later that night gave them some yummy camp fire dessert ideas to try. They were so excited and couldn’t wait to try it and ran back to our campsite to tell us they were trying the roasted banana recipe before bed. We explored as much as we possibly could and even included the Ridge Road drive across to the continental divide. After our 4 days completely roughing it, we decided it was time for a zero day and a shower. Off to a hotel we went.

The following day we entertained a wonderful group of ladies at Jax in Fort Collins. Then the following night enjoyed educating another wonderful group at REI in Denver. After leaving the Denver area we had a few more days to kick back and relax. We enjoy camping so much we decided to rough it again in Pikes National Forest.

Here we spent another 3 days before our event in Boulder, CO. The first morning and afternoon we spent in the Garden of the Gods. The following day we decided to take a drive up to the top of Pikes Peak. Following the drive and while in the process of looking for the visitor center we ran into some interesting weather. Considering we used to live and work on top of the only other mountain that has both an auto road and cog railway to the top, Pikes was sort of nalstagic to us. On our last day in Pikes National Forest we ascended our first 14,000 foot mountain, and it was a huge feeling of accomplishment.

Our last tour stop was in Salida, CO. Here we set up a booth for 4 days for the 66th annual FIBARK Festival! These four days were full of excitement, laughter, and just a really fun time. On Monday morning we packed up and made a quick stop on the national Sand Dunes where a sand board was rented and we sand boarded and hiked for the morning.