4/23-25/23 Pagosa Springs Pinion Hills camping
With as little fanfare as possible, I’m posting an entry to this ridiculous blog. I do need to REBRAND myself as something other than MacGeek Farm Girl, though… While she isn’t dead, we are in a new gray-hair nomadic phase of life. The “farm” is in new, capable, delightful hands and the MacGeek, while still the lurking, has faded from its former glory… So. Stay tuned for that at some point.
Road Warriors were always my favorite posts and since we are going to be driving all over with this new little Escapod Topo2 camper, I figured why not write about that? It won’t be as tragically hilarious as in the past since the kids are no longer around to make fun of and Dave and I seem to get along much better now that we’ve had years of therapy but maybe there will still be some horrific events to recount.
With that said, this is a bringing-up-to-speed from our second outing with the camper. The first was a quick trip down to St. George, Utah in March to seek some sun. Colorado has had a non-spring just like Minnesota and we were feeling the itch to get out of dodge.
So.
We skied our last day at Vail on Saturday 4/22 in 9” of fresh powder. Which, yes, was a little crazy. It was probably my favorite day of the whole year. The mountain was totally empty and the powder lasted the whole day. We lapped Ricky’s Ridge over and over and I felt like a rock star…Charlie came up that night and we had an amazing meal at Roam in downtown Eagle — a darling, tiny restaurant that cooks out of the owner’s original food truck in the back. It’s mind boggling what she/they are able to produce. I had something called the “Steam Pot” which is apparently Dutch in origin. It had these insane sausages with cheddar and jalapeño over mashed potatoes with kale and some magical sauce that tied it all together. I think it was the best of the entrees. We love this little restaurant and are hoping it sticks.
In the morning, Char packed up to ski Vail’s last day and we packed up to head out with the camper to Pagosa — our second time out with it. I’ll never not say this about Pagosa: holy COW it is a long way away from everything! 4.5 hours! We were hoping the ridiculously cold weather of late would have slowed down the pre-runoff conditions but the San Juan river was a muddy mess, which was a bummer but not totally unexpected.
Not too much has changed at the ranch since we were last there in September 2021.—crazy that it’s been that long — and the only way i know that is because of the blessing that is my photo library on my phone. I can’t over-emphasize how much I lean on photos for information about my past…
We decided to go to Pagosa because 1) we love it, 2) it’s easy and 3) we told the neighbor he couldn’t shed hunt for deer and elk antlers on our property because we were going to come down and partake in the fun ourselves. We kinda felt like we had to go. That land in Pagosa is supposed to be this epic-level, historical elk migration and wintering grounds — and we’ve seen HUNDREDS of huge elk with HUGE racks in the past. And yet…. We have literally never found a single antler there in all the years we have looked. We learned from a neighbor who built a house on the land next to ours a few years ago that the old property manager shed hunted that land since she was a little girl — and continued to do so on the whole ranch until she left the position last year. The neighbor told us he watched her walk a “grid” on our property and others in the two years he has been there. (In his words he “glassed her” lol.) She denied it and actually told us it was the neighbor who was shed hunting our land. Each felt equally believable. It’s like the cuckoo factory! Who to believe? Lots of drama in the Pinion Hills Ranch association these days, I’ll tell you that. I don’t even really care but I do think she should have asked — and maybe wish she had left us at least a FEW sloppy seconds. We thought that since she isn’t the manager any more we might actually find some antlers this year. So down, down, down we went to Pagosa.
And we found a few! Only deer though, no elk. I’m not convinced there aren’t crazy poachers out there… Searching for antlers is a lot like looking for morel mushrooms. You gotta be zen. No rushing. It’s peaceful. And it’s also a huge waste of time. Wandering the sage in slow motion. For hours. Eyes playing tricks on you… Seriously – what would I even do with a bunch of antlers? I think I’ve closed the book on shed hunting.
We are loving the new camper. All worries about not liking a teardrop camper (because you can’t stand up in them) are gone. The kitchen (and hot water), with the nice stove and the electric fridge makes everything exponentially easier than with the pop-up. And the bed! So comfy. We had a huge thunderstorm and rain in the middle of the night and it was pretty cool. Just laying in there listening to the thunder and hearing it blow. The only thing I was worried about was whether the rugs would blow away…
Pagosa has great cell service and we both had some work to do in the morning. After which, we headed up to the Piedra River just north of Pagosa to fish. We had been there in the early fall two year ago and thought it had the best chance of being fishable. It was high and a bit off color, but stunning. We had it to ourselves and hiked up the trail and fished in the quieter water. Dave caught a couple. Me? Just one. Which I didn’t even get to the net. It’s ok. I don’t get as ferociously mad anymore when I get skunked. I think we call that progress. Or emotional maturity.
It was a great couple days and I think we are going to be doing a lot more spur-of-the-moment camping with the Topo2. It just makes me happy — which I’ve thought about a lot. It’s hard to explain what is so “fun” about camping. Non-campers ask me this all the time and when I start to explain what a normal trip looks like… it honestly doesn’t sound that great:
You get up. Make coffee. Maybe sit around the fire. Conjure up a breakfast made with last night’s leftovers and a couple eggs. Wash the dishes… Sit around reading/planning. If we have cell service we do idiot phone stuff…Head out to hike/fish/bike… Head back, Have happy hour, make dinner, sit at the fire, go to bed…
Let’s just say I haven’t converted anyone with my description yet.
For me though, I just love it. And that takes a lot to admit. I don’t throw “love” and “fun” and “joy” around lightly. I’m a skeptic. A bit of a glass-half-empty kind of girl, though I don’t think of myself that way. I like to say I’m a realist: I expect the worst. That way, I won’t be disappointed when it happens. And if I wrong, then great! I have no problem with that.
And yet… lately I find myself saying shocking things to Dave like, “Isn’t this FUN?” Or, “What a GREAT DAY this has been.”
I think he’s worried about me.
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