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08/01/2007
A Week-and-a-half and Counting!Our biggest trip of the year is just around the corner, and I thought it would be fun to track the preparations for our next adventure in a daily (or somewhat daily) blog beginning...NOW! We'll be traveling from the Hive* to Santa Fe on our way to Ouray, Colorado for the Jeep Jamboree* in mid-September. After the Jamboree our schedule is flexible (depending on weather), but we plan to primitive camp somewhere in New Mexico and return home by the end of the week. We've camped near Red River in the Carson National Forest in Northern NM and loved it there in the Fall...not high enough to get TOO cold at night (frost on the tent ceiling or even snow like 2 years ago in Colorado), but cool and comfortable in the daytime with mountains and some fall color in the trees. If it's too cold there, we'll move on down to Ruidoso, NM near the Mescalero Apache Reservation where we could shoot over to the White Sands National Monument or drive on to Carlsbad Caverns as we leave NM on our way back to Texas. Wherever we end up, we'd like to camp for 3 or 4 nights so we'll play it by ear when we get there. Our objective for this Adventure is to have some wild and crazy fun offroading at the Jamboree the first weekend, then slow down and do pretty-much nothing for about 5 days. We started naming our Adventures about 15 years ago. After the first 3 trips to Colorado, the only way we could tell what year the photos were from was to judge how old the girls were. Once the kids stopped going with us, it became harder to tell what year's vacation photos were in the to-be-scrapbooked photos in the big photo basket (I'm a little behind on organizing my pictures!). This year we decided that a combination of excitement and relaxation would be the keywords for this trip. Cool weather, mountains and Fall colors will be the focus of the old Nikon, so we've named the official 2007 vacation (drum roll)... I think the anticipation of a driving adventure is almost as exciting as the actual trip. Planning, organizing, and packing for a trip, especially a camping trip, can mean the difference between a safe, comfortable, vacation or a miserable - and possibly even dangerous - venture into the unknown. We know...we've done it both ways and it's LOTS more fun when we do the advance work to prepare properly. I'll admit that being flexible is a good character trait for happy family adventures, though, and "we'll all laugh about this someday" was repeated many times to our daughters when things didn't go just right on our family vacations. My thinking is that if you have the right attitude you can enjoy/endure almost anything. When K and I reminisce about past vacations with our girls, the first to come to mind are always the ones that went wrong....we even remember fondly the year the tent almost washed away and the year we had to turn back at Fort Worth when it was apparent that the old van wasn't going to make it all the way to Colorado.* After a few years of discovering we didn't have a can opener after the camp kitchen was already set-up and the campfire going, I finally decided to make a packing check list. I still forget the can opener (honest - every year!), but I started making lists and have perfected a system for fool-proof packing for a fun and safe camping adventure (it's probably just a subconscious thing with the can opener). Yes, in our family, I'm the QUEEN B of planning and organization. I get a little teasing for my intricate check lists* and planning system*, but I'M the one doing it and the King B doesn't seem to mind not having to. He's good at following directions, though, so I can delegate the guy-stuff to him (OK, that was sexist, but in our family the garage is K's domain). This year I might even let him pack his own socks (last year he didn't bring any and - of course - it was MY fault!). So if you've decided to be the one responsible for the planning (or are appointed to the position), take my advice and go in knowing that whatever goes wrong will be YOUR FAULT. So get over it in advance, and be sure the others know that they can do it themselves next time if they don't like doing things your way (somebody's got to be the leader, right?). So when it's time to start planning an adventure, I jump into action (if you can imagine...) and gather all my brochures and maps of the area(s) we plan to visit, fire up the computer and begin the process. My own personal manta of "DREAM - PLAN - ACT - SHARE" applies to the processes of travel and recreation, as well as any creative endeavor, so we'll divide the process to follow the Creative Life format. I. DREAM - we've already done that part and since we've done variations of this Adventure before, it was easy to come to an agreement on how we wanted to spend our precious week-and-a-half vacation. II. PLAN - This is what we're working now. Once we agreed on HOW we wanted to spend our time together, it's time to plot routes and schedules, make reservations, and prepare our geer. III. ACT - Our vacation starts when the vehicle gets loaded...once the jeep is packed (usually the night before the trip), it's only a matter of trying to get some sleep before getting up at dawn (because we're too excited to sleep) and we're ready to HIT THE ROAD! Since we've been meticulous in our planning, the rest of the Adventure just happens. IV. SHARE - We always take copious pictures when we're on the road, and through the miracle of the world wide web, we can share our Adventures with anyone who's interested. We also like to show our appreciation to those we've met along the way by sending thank-you notes and acknowledging their contribution to our Adventure once we've gotten home and are enjoying the after-glow of the trip. I'm happy to share the secrets born of our many years of successful travel Adventures (as well as our dumb mistakes), so feel free to print our own copies of our "Buzz Sheets" for Camping Adventures: #1 Adventure Planning Checklist #2 Packing Checklist #3 Vehicle Prep Checklist #4 Route Planning and Mapping These are PDF files that can be downloaded and printed on your own printer. Feel free to personalize, as needed (for example, a family with babies or pets will need to make special considerations). I'm also looking forward to hearing feedback on other family's experiences and if anyone has their own version of a camping check list, feel free to share. So much for Day One of the Fall Foliage Fantasy Tour - stay tuned for the countdown!
Colorado Tours We had so much fun in 2001 on this Colorado tour, we decided to give it another try in order to explore more of those wonderful ghost-towns and relive the excitement of off-roading at 14,000 feet. This year we traveled about two weeks earlier than normal because of work scheduling. We discovered that two weeks in the mountains in Spring-time can make a BIG difference in the weather! It was CCCCCCCOLD!!! We had snow and some rain, but we bucked-up and still had a great time. A few of the passes were still closed because of snow, and because of the Telluride Music Festival we didn't get to go into Telluride. Imogene Pass, the mountain pass from Ouray to Telluride, was closed before Tom Boy Mine, but we traveled as far as possible and took some photos at one of our favorite falls and mining camps. We had hoped to camp at this location, but the ground was wet and there was still snow on the ground in some places so we opted to camp at the "old reliable" site near Yankee Boy mine where the road to Imogene splits at Mount Sneffles. The camp site isn't as secluded as we'd like, and the daily tours brought jeep-loads of white-knuckled passengers over the creek and up the rocky hill just under our tent. I remember the first year we rented a jeep and found this spot, we thought for sure no human being had ever set foot in this spot.....that is, until the tour bus pulled right into our campsite and unloaded binocular-toting sightseers who tramped right through our latrine! Now we know better and are not so naive about the seclusion of this area. It would be interesting to know how many campers use this area each year...
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