Introduction

This Blog is about a family's journey deciding to buy a recreational vehicle (RV) and the journey it took to research, find, buy and ultimately use and enjoy a travel trailer.

My name is Wyatt and I live in Denver, Colorado and it started slowly.  You know- the urge to spend more time outdoors.  To relax more and think about work less.  Commune with nature and share with my two sons and wife the great Colorado wilderness.  But then I spent two nights in a small backpacking tent with my wife, my two sons (ages six and three) and three large rocks poking me in the back.

Let me flash back to my teens and twenties.  I grew up hiking, camping and hunting in the mountain wilderness of Montana and the rugged beauty of North Dakota.  My love of the outdoors had me choose a job in the Army that took me to all parts of the world where I got to "rough it".  Contrary to many urban legends there are no campfires in the Army and showers are even more scarce at times than a hot meal.

It has been over twenty years since my Army days and had been nearly ten years since I last camped, and that had been on a ten day solo trek of the Colorado Trail.  I was younger then and I enjoyed packing it all in on my back.  Pack it in- Pack it out.  It is an awesome way to be with nature. . . when you are in your twenties.  Not so awesome when you are in your forties with two young children in tow

Let's get back to present day and the camping trip this past summer.  In 2000 my wife and I back-packed in to this absolutely spectacular box canyon called Chihuahua Gulch.  It is on the backside of Greys Peak with the trail head around 11,000 feet.  With a four wheel drive vehicle you could get up to almost 13,000 feet and from there it was only a short climb to the top of Greys Peak (Elevation 14, 270 Feet).

When I proposed making this same trip to my wife she readily agreed and I set to work dragging out all of our gear.  I knew we would not be going to the summit and we would be doing very little back packing.  In fact, I knew this would be nothing more than an over glorified car camping trip.  All good with me.  I just wanted to get back out there and do it as a family.

The trip up I-70 was uneventful and the weather was clear so we decided to go over Loveland pass and drop into Keystone from the backside.  We got on the National Forest Land road and proceeded to make our way into the gulch.  I had every intention of four wheeling up to around 11,000 feet and making camp there.  That plan was all in vain as too many people can't respect the "tread lightly" mantra of camping and a gate had been placed and locked well below tree line.

Not deterred, we made our way back down the road to find a suitable camp-site.  Set-up was a breeze and the boys had a great time looking for gems and special rocks.  While they were off exploring with their Mom, I busied myself prepping the ground, laying out the tarp, setting up the tent.  It was during the latter that I began to wonder how this was going to turn out.

Our tent was great for two people back-packing.  Light weight, durable and extremely robust.  When you back-pack it is all about weight and as I set the tent up I slowly began to realize what we were saving in weight that day we were giving up in size.  Hmm.  Four persons in a three person tent.  Alright, two adults and two little ones but I knew I was not going to be able to stack the little ones head to toe so it was becoming much clearer to me what kind of night was awaiting me and my wife.

Dinner was great.  We bought a camp stove years ago to tailgate party so it was a fine meal of hot dogs, chips and a beer or two for me.  Wait!  Did I mention we had hot dogs and chips for dinner?  The kids loved it but while cooking hot dogs, swatting flies and chasing wind strewn chips, napkins and kids I was reminded by my wife it was my idea.

After the amazing dinner came clean up.  Let's see.  I planned on three gallons of water for cleaning and drinking.  Key word here is "planned".  What got into the pick-up was one gallon and my back-pack water purifier pump.  OK- after a funny look from my wife and a few chuckles we wiped the dishes off with the one towel that made it along.  We packed all the food, trash and dishes in the cab of the pick-up.  Put the rest in the pick-up bed and made our way to bed. . . .

Oh my gosh.  My three year old has a right hook that could put Muhammad Ali to shame and my six year old just had to be perpendicular to everyone.  There was a slight incline to the side of the tent that I was sleeping on and that meant by morning everyone had slid up against me, which prevented any hope of avoiding the rocks that were jammed into my spleen all night.  Out of the four of us, I am not sure who was more uncomfortable but we all woke up the next morning with a bit of an attitude.  My wife's only comment was, "That was refreshing".  "No it wasn't", I replied.