I really love the site recreation.gov which it what you go to to reserve spots in national forests, parks, and other government properties. Most of the time I end up where I want to be, this time I had wanted to go to Aspen, So I booked at the Aspen campground. Unfortunately the Aspen campground is in the Pike National Forest over 90 miles from Aspen. Upon finding my mistake I was able to rebook all but one night. While this kind of sucked because I had to drive way out of the way the drives were beautiful. Along the way I was able to go to Fairplay, CO famous for being the town South Park is molded after, in fact the "ghost town" there is called South Park city and they have the characters all around this rustic town. 
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Finding the campsite was something as it was truly in the middle of nowhere but the drives might have been some of the best I have had especially as I drove from the Aspen campground over the independence pass to Aspen Co,   Standing at the continental divide you really has the feeling of being on top of the world!

Aspen itself was great, another cute mountain town, though more expensive then anything I've experienced on this trip so I only ate out once. While it rained a lot, I did get a nice 20 mile bike ride around the area which was a lot of fun especially with the great bike paths that they have everywhere. The campsite itself was amazingly beautiful, nestled in an aspen grove the thick vegetation made my campsite feel like it was all by itself.  It was also a cool site with its own little wading pool off of the creek.

Today and tomorrow are going to be a lot of cleaning and maintenance stuff, I am writing this while I am as a dealership dealing with a recall and getting an oil change, then I will be getting the van ready to park for a week as next week is my Vail week. it will be the first time I will have not slept in the van since March, I think it is going to be weird. 

As the story goes 15 years ago a guy moved to Denver and one of his friends who worked at a rafting company said that he should get a group together and come rafting. He had one problem, he did not know anybody, so he put out a post and that year a small group joined him and fun ensued. Over the years without any advertising, this has become an event happening twice a year with an intense June on the rapids and a less intense "float" in August which is the one I went on.  While most of the people came from the Denver area, there were a number that came from across the country like New York and California. 

This was a great mix of nature and fun with a great group of people. Along the way I got to see the Glenwood canyon closer than ever before which was amazing.  We also saw a bear and bald eagles! The campground was great too! It was pretty close to everything and a few others stayed there too which was fun. 
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In the boat I was in we had two doctors, a nurse, a claims adjuster and me, we figured that we were the boat most likely to survive if something bad happened.  I also got a lot of great stuff for my project.

Sometimes in the mountains when you book a site you don't really know what you are getting until you get there, This week I stumbled into an amazing campsite halfway between Frisco and Breckenridge. My plan was to bike into the towns soaking up all the activities those communities have, but when I got to that campsite I was amazed at what it held, at close to 11,000 ft up I felt like I was in the heavens as I could see for miles and miles around. Quickly I realized that going into a town was just not right when I had so many trails to explore and quiet to embrace! So that is what I did and was I glad I made that choice. It was a great time to refocus and begin to think about how my project will come together as well as start to think forward to what comes next.

​After Rocky Mountain National Park I wanted to visit Steamboat Springs since I had never been there and a friend raves about it as the best place in Colorado. Unfortunately, I probably picked the wrong place to stay which probably shaded my experience as the KOA had so much smoking there I really had a hard time breathing which is weird since it was the lowest elevation I had been at in over a week. The town was cute, but a carbon copy of many small tourist town. They did have some good stuff though. I had “Colorado Style Pizza” for the first time, and I have to admit it was not bad even if it is a tourist thing. They also had a Distillery that had a live musician doing classic rock which was amazing!
 
From Steamboat Springs I went to the farmers market in Minturn and saw a scary site, my front tiers were worn down to the warning strip.  Getting Service for my rig is not the easiest thing especially on a Saturday afternoon so after visiting Costco who would not do tiers for me and calling a couple other places, I called camping world which does not do tiers, but their service person pointed me to a place that could get me in and saved the day! 
 
So with a couple hour delay I got to visit another old friend in Littleton, CO.  Steve and I meet while I was the chaplain to the college staff at Ghost Ranch, and then Steve transferred to SFTS my last year there. We also ended up in the newly ordained clergy seminar together and had done some studies over the years which was a lot of fun. While he is not in a parish he is doing an amazing ministry for a housing agency.  Connecting with old friend has been one of the most fun things over my trip but also reminds me so much of how I have let my workaholic tendencies separate me from those I care about.
 
Now I am Staying about half way between Frisco and Breckenridge for a couple nights and then will head to another campground in the area as I try to get some writing done before the Big Gay Rafting trip this weekend!

In my original plan my goal was to go to Colorado and be a little off grid to start writing and reflecting on my journey. I had been trying all summer to get a camping spot in the Rocky Mountain National Park and finally landed 2 nights. Not only that, but I landed in probably the best campsite for me where I could easily bike to many of the hikes that are hard to get to because of the lack of parking and timed entry. It was fun since I remembered so much of those from when I was a kid, and our family would vacation at YMCA of the Rockies Winter Park. Of course, I don’t remember that many people from when I was a kid, so I asked a ranger and they said that is why they had to do the timed entry because it had gotten so popular that it was effecting the ecology of the area. It is understandable why people love that park, it is very accessible and amazingly beautiful! It is also one of those places where you can almost touch a glacier in places!

All good things face their challenges. After a few weeks of early mornings, long drives, bad food choices and heat I got sick. So luckily I already had a couple nights booked at a site in West Yellowstone that had services So I could sleep in and convalesce which seemed to do the trick since I had another three nights coming up in Yellowstone and was I ready for that! 
 
This time I was able to really take my time and since it was not too hot I could let joy chill in the van while I did some more exploring taking some nature hikes with the rangers and exploring the hot springs in more depth. This time I even found some rivers to swim in!
 
The amazing thing about Yellowstone and probably most of the national parks is that it is such a spiritual place. Just being there, you cannot help but recognize that there are forces in this world that are much bigger than us, and that there must be a God.  It was also evident that people often take away from what God has done because they’re not paying attention or respecting Gods creation.

With the crazy heat of late July and the fires I continued to go North and headed back to the Tetons and Yellowstone for a week. 
 
Coming from Idaho I was excited to take the Tetons pass which had been closed when I last was in the area due to the road collapse. I knew that they had “all hands on deck” to fix it up but still was surprised that it was open when I drove through this time. And boy am I glad as it afforded some amazing views. I spent some time in Jackson which last time I had just driven through and was pleasantly surprised that they had lots of parking. So Joy and I set out to embrace the tourist part of the city. It was fun to look at the historic buildings and imagine what it must have been like for those who settled the town especially with an understanding of how brutal the weather could be in the winter months.
 
After doing a harvest host site in Jackson I was able to get one night at a campsite in the Tetons.  Revisiting the Tetons was fun because there was so much I had not been able to do the first time I went through because time was limited.  I even got to attend a ranger talk that helped to explain the uniqueness of the Tetons which was very cool, and I saw the Mormon Ruins and old ranch that only lasted a few years but helped to tell the story of the ruggedness of the area.

After Leaving Arkansas I had no clue where to go, the south was going to be hot and humid going back east would be a lot more travel and humidity! So west it was with a stop in the newly crowned LA Olympic city of Oklahoma City, OK staying at Core 4 Brewery in the downtown area. This was a fun stop as the couple who owned the brewery were some of the coolest people I have met and their beer was great! Talking with them I really heard a lot of my goals and hopes as they talked about their brewery as a change maker in their community. Like most downtown areas they have their issues, I saw that with plenty of police activity while I was there, but as change makers they are pushing through, they are active in their business association and they have a charity they work with every month. The one they were supporting when I was there was one that is integral to the LGBT community in OK City. I asked them why they chose that one they said that it saved lives.  It blew my mind again as the media keeps playing up the rugged individualism in this country but again I stumbled into a business that gets that the only successful country is one that cares for their neighbor.
From OK City I went to Albuquerque. I realized in this stop in Albuquerque that it is one of those places that is a total home base for me. Even though I have been back to Albuquerque many times since my grandparents left and died I actually drove by their house, the little sliver of a lot looked the exact same and when I stopped I had to laugh as I remember a picture of me when I was 13 in a white linen blazer and pants with a salmon linen shirt my grandmother bought me. The memories made me tear up so I had to reset reality and went for Mexican. OMG I had the biggest stuff sopapilla I had ever seen smothered in the New Mexico red chili (I never did the green chili thing) that was so amazing! 
I headed out to Ft. Collins but before leaving Albuquerque I got to see one of the funnest parts of Albuquerque, the Hot air Balloons in the early morning, a great send off and final memory as I doubt I will make it back to New Mexico in this trip. 
The drive to Ft. Collins was uneventful which allowed me to enjoy the scenery, well as much as I could make out through the haze of fires and heat.  In got into Ft. Collins just in time to get a tour the famous New Belgium Brewery. Though part of a conglomerate now, Fat Tire beer was something that holds many good memories as it was the favorite beer of one of my better friends in seminary and we would often share a six pack when we could find it.
That Night I stayed at another harvest host site and then headed to a KOA in Utah with the thought of going to Boise, ID but a combination of a fire and heat had me detour to Idaho Falls, ID. I found a campground on the Snake River a little over a mile from the downtown area which was perfect for biking down there. I really had no expectations, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a community that was delightfully simple for a tourist town with lots of local shops and pretty devoid of the typical tourist trap. The town hosted what might have been one of the largest farmers markets I have been on in my tour and the unique products made me jealous for the people of that community and unlike so many farmers markets thing were fairly reasonable, I bought a bone for joy that was bigger then her head yet was only $5.  What was really unexpected was the distillery that I found.  The owner/distiller was a woman who totally embraced the community, so much so that she named her vodka after a historic burlesque drag performer and leader in the community named Hotcha, not something I would have expected in Idaho, but one of the biggest things I have learned on my trip is that things are often different then you’d expect.