Day 4 - full day at sea

The journey to Juneau

By the time I got to sleep, the ship had left the protective waters behind Vancouver Island and truly out to sea.  That meant we had begun to feel the rollers in the ocean.  And because we were at the highest deck at the very front of the ship we had the most rolling movement from side to side and the most rocking movement front to back.  We could feel the ocean more than any other passengers on board.  And I was worried.

I usually do very well on boats but a few times I've gotten seasick and needed medication to overcome the nausea.  So I worried as I lay down to sleep.  But I guess I wasn't all that worried as I barely remember laying my head on the pillow before I was out cold, and I stayed asleep until 7:30 which is very unusual for me.  I felt great.  No back ache from a bad hotel bed, no headache from too little sleep, and (thank heaven) no nausea at all.  In fact, I was down right starving.

Nannette had ordered breakfast delivered to our room, but I figured I'd be up long before here and off to get breakfast at 6:00.  So now I had to shower and get dressed before I could eat, unlike Nan who just threw on a robe and waited for some lowly porter to wait on her hand and foot.

I went upstairs and like a cave man, hunted for my own sustenance.  I had to trek around the buffet two times before I'd gathered all the needed ingredients to prolong my life for yet another grueling day of sitting watching the water drift by.

I met up with the others and we chatted about the day's activities while we ate.  There were allot of shipboard presentations to choose from, but we decided to start with yet more chatting in the crow's nest at 10:00.  I went back to the cabin to tell Nannette where and when to meet.  She was still lounging on the couch with here breakfast and watching various shows about all the different ways to spend money in Alaska.  Every so often she'd say "Lets go fishing", or "Oh, lets take the Deadliest Catch tour", or "They say you can buy diamonds and gold real cheap".  I hurriedly gathered my laptop and left before I could give an honest opinion of the ideas.

We all met in the Crows Nest and made our own little nest of chairs and tables.  The soft recliners right by the front windows were already claimed, but there were allot of other places to sit comfortably.  After we planned and joked for 45 minutes, everyone peeled off for their own planned excursion.

I wanted to tour the galley and so did Shauna, so the two of us headed to the back of the ship on deck 2.  When we got there, the line extended back up the hallway 80 feet, but it seemed to be moving well.  We filled out a questionnaire assuring the crew that we weren't experiencing the symptoms of Pepto Bismol and slowly moved forward until we finally made it in.  There was stainless steel everywhere.

We watched chefs making room service orders, baking, prepping, and cleaning.  It was obvious they wanted us to see just how clean the keep the place.  There wasn't a smudge of dirt anywhere that I could see.  And they had allot of tasting snacks all along the way.  Cheese, Bread, Fruit, and appetizers,  The fruit chef had carved a watermelon and the chocolate chef was building a small town.

After we finished, I returned to the crows nest.  Nan, Angela, and Shauna were competing in a trivia contest but I just worked on uploading photos and writing the blog.

When the contest ended and they lost, Nan went to another presentation and Angela went to lay down.  Angela was really feeling the ship movement and getting queasy.

Eric Shauna and I sat by a port side window and chatted until Eric suddenly popped up and said "That's a whale spout out there".  He pointed out the window but none of us could see what he saw.  2 or 3 times he said "There it is again" but no one around us could make it out.  We all stared a while but nothing else happened and slowly the crowed that had gathered disbursed with no one seeing anything.  Poor Eric was assuring everyone that he had seen it.  Shauna left to get some rest before lunch and I continued writing on the blog.

About 30 minutes later Eric said "There it is again", but this time the guys at the next table also saw it.  Then a few minutes later I saw a puff of water jet up.  I'd been looking out close to the horizon, but it turned out they were just 1/4 mile out, much closer than I'd been looking.  Soon there was a mass of people all staring out the window and watching them swim along.  They were paralleling the ship and matching our speed.  They'd breathe 2 or 3 times, then submerge for 3 minutes, then do it all again.  We watched the for about half an hour till it was time to go get lunch.

We found a great table for lunch (it's all about the location and views).  I had a couple tacos and some sushi.  My kids would go nuts for all the free sushi you can eat.  There were 3 types of rolls, and they seem to vary the rolls from meal to meal.  I'm not fond of whatever had cream cheese in the middle, but the rest were awesome.

After lunch I wandered the ship a bit, then went to take a short nap to clear my head.

Once again we wound up in the Crow's nest watching for whales.  We saw some, but we also saw seals and dolphins.  At one point we saw about 12 dolphins in a dense group swimming around and around, diving and jumping.  They must have been on a large school of fish because they stayed close together until the ship moved well past them and we could no longer see anything.

The closest we saw a whale was a baby about 50 feet off the side of the ship.  It broke the surface the water, spouted a large plume of water, then sucked in  air and dove.  It didn't breach and we didn't see the tail fin rise, but it's back rose well out of the water, then it just sank laving a big widening ring of water.  Very cool.

We've had fog off and on all day, and when the fog rolled in again we all headed down stairs to get ready for dinner.

Our normal dinner time is 5:30, but tonight we have reservations at the steak house at 8:00.  Several of us wanted to get small snack to tide us over till dinner.  Tonight is "dress up" night (I'm sure there's a better term for it, but that's what it is to me).  If we went down to our normal table, we'd have to put on good clothes.  So Nan, John, and I went to the buffet to scavenge.  Eric and Shauna dressed up and went down to the formal dining room.

I had soup, bread, and a fruit bowl.  Nan has pasta she didn't like, stuffed shells she didn't like, a desert she detested and nearly spewed all over John and I, and fruit salad.  John had pizza and fruit.  Then the 3 of us went down to the card room to play a few hands of Uno.  We didn't know it, but Eric and Shauna had stayed for the entire meal in the formal dining room.  So we couldn't find them to play cards.  And Angela was still feeling ill.

We played Uno and laughed till my sides ached with all the joking and teasing.

At 7:30 we went to get dressed for dinner.  I wore a purple shirt with grey slacks.  Nan wore a beautiful purple dress so we matched.

Angela tried to join us for dinner even though she didn't want to eat.  But only a few minutes of sitting in the room with all those smells convinced her it wasn't a good idea, so John took her back to their room to rest.

The meal was pretty good.  It started with a mushroom espresso (no coffee, just mushroom and milk foamed up).  John, Nannette, and Shauna couldn't stand the taste of liquefied mushroom.  It was ok to me, but I wouldn't have paid for it, and Eric liked it so much he ate 2.

Main meals were steak, chicken, pork chop, and crab legs.  It was all very good.  By the time we left, most of us were looking like it was time for bed.  Eric, Shauna, and I went to the evening's live show.  It was a medley of movie theme songs with dancing and performance all around.  I managed to stay for 30 minutes but was quickly fading.  I returned to the cabin just as Nan was going to sleep.

I turned out all the lights and opened the curtains and have been finishing yesterday's blog and today's blog for 40 minutes.  Now I'll just add some photos and got to sleep myself.  We change time zones over night, so we get an extra hour of sleep through the night.

Gabbing in the Crow's Nest

Entering the Galley

Shauna in the galley

left overs from today's breakfast

Passengers touring the galley

Cooking someone's room service order

More of the galley

Cheese Snacks

All of the meals being prepared today

Fruit sculpting

Chocolate sculpting

Prep work

Sure Eric, we believe you saw a whale

Unlimited sushi

Don't touch my crab cakes

Good food and good friends

All dressed up and lots of places to go

Day 3 - Boarding the Westerdam Cruise Ship

Heading out on the Cruise

I woke up about 5:00 and really didn't want to bother Nan, so I sat at the room desk hunched over my tablet and trying to block the light and keep the volume way down.  Eventually I just got dressed and went down to the breakfast room and played on the internet.

At 8:00 the others came down for breakfast.  We chatted about the days plans and watched the new relay stories of Mohamad Ali's death.  We each shared our own memories and Nan talked about when he trained in Showlow for a fight.ar

We decided to meet up at 10:30 to head for the ship, so Nan and I went to the room to re-pack all our stuff.

I'd bought some rollup vacuum bags for our clothes.  You load everything in the bag as flat as you can, then you seal the double zip lock,  And finally, you roll from the zip lock toward the bottom of the bag squeezing all the air out the bottom and it just stays out.  It's pretty cool.  We've used vacuum bags before but you had to have an actual vacuum.  These work just by rolling and squeezing so it's easy to repack.  I'm going to use these for my motorcycle rides from now on.

We met up at 10:30 and loaded the car.  We put most of the bags in the back (6 big bags) then stuck Nan in the back seat and piled the rest around her.

Angela's GPS took us north up the 405 to I-90 which turned out to be under construction.  It took us 45 minutes to go 10 miles and started to get us all a little frazzled with worry.   We finally made it through the construction, then meandered through the streets of Seattle to the ferry terminal.

John dropped us off in front of the terminal.  A nice guy with a big cart loaded all our luggage then headed for the terminal.  We were hoping that he was really with the cruise line, and since our luggage showed up at our room, he must have been legit.

John and Eric left to return the rental car to downtown Seattle.  Nan, Angela, Shauna, and I went to a small snack stand outside to wait for them.  It took nearly 45 minutes to return the rental and ride the shuttle back to us.  Alamo, National, and Elite all share a shuttle bus to and from pier 91, so we could have rented from any of them to use the shuttle.

Inside the terminal it took about 30 minutes to go through security and get checked in.  We were on floor 8 which is the top passenger level.  Nan and I were on the port side with a balcony, just 3 rooms back from the front of the ship.

Our luggage came just as we entered the room so we began to unpack.  After unpacking, we met up with everyone for lunch.  It was a learning experience because everyone else had come immediately to the dining room and we had to search for a while before finding a table to hold us all. Then we had to beg for silverware.  You can't be timid on a cruise or you'll starve I guess.

After lunch we had the mandatory evacuation drill.  Since we started at the top deck, by the time we got downstars the rest of the boat had already lined up and been scanned.  We appeared to be the stragglers holding everyone up.

Released from the drill, we wandered around the deck of the ship till we reached the stern.  The boat was just about to launch so we watched the shore crew unhook the lines.  The ropes were so big that it took a fork lift to raise the ropes off the bollards.

It seemed no time at all and we were heading for another meal.  This time in the formal dining room at the back of the ship.

After dining we went to a trivia contest in the crows nest, then went to listen to a blues band and finally watched the nights show where they introduced the main crew representatives.  We also listened to a comedian who made fun of his age, cell phones, ignorant kids, aching limbs, and other such topics which made all us geriatrics laugh.

Sittin on the dock of the sound


Mount Rainier from the ship


Releasing the mooring lines


Seattle from the ship


Eric and Shauna with seattle reflected in the window


Nannette said "I've never had baked alaska"


My stinky cheese desert tray


The view from the Crow's nest

Warmup to our Alaska Cruise

48 hours in Seattle before our Cruise

Our good friend John asked us nearly a year ago if we wanted to join them on a Sea Cruise to Alaska.  (Notice how I had to qualify the type of Cruise?  Cruise is ambiguous if you ride motorcycles allot).

Nan and I do allot of motorcycle trips with John and his wife Angela.  The trips are for all of us, but the Motorcycle part is mainly for John and I.  So when he suggested doing something that would make the wives happier, I figured that was probably a good thing.

John pushed most of the planning because he'd been on the cruise before and had definite ideas about what would make the trip good or bad.  And because  you can't get enough of a good thing, he also invited another couple, Eric and Shawna, that we've also traveled with in the past.  4 of us can get a little silly, but 6 of us can become down right juvenile, and that's when we have the most fun.

We exchanged allot of emails and text messages for the next 8 months as we figured out cost, rooms, meeting times and places, and a host of other things,  And after all that planning and figuring, it was finally time to leave.  It's very surreal after so much planning to have the date finally arrive.

We all arrived in Seattle at about the same time and took the shuttle bus to rent a car for a couple of days.  We wound up with a Kia Sadona which fit all 6 of us an our 10 bags.  We checked into a hotel in Renton, then headed up to Seattle to find something to eat.  We walked through allot of piers trying to find something good and reasonably priced.  That's pretty hard that close to the water.  We wound up at the Crab Pot.  It was pretty good.

After dinner we kept wandering until we wandered over to the Seattle Great Wheel.  Shawna and Angela had no desire to ride the Wheel (big ferris wheel) but Nan really wanted to, so she and I bought tickets.

I took some video of the ride.  I didn't notice until I reviewed the video tonight that the people in the car behind us were making faces during some of the video.  It's pretty funny.  We enjoyed the ride and had a good view of the surrounding water and islands.

The video can be seen here - https://youtu.be/DzCJ9R101hc

On the way back to the hotel, we decided to get some frozen yogurt.  After a bad GPS destination, Angela spotted a frozen yogurt sign, but when we got back it turned out to be closed.  Angela had gotten out to double check that it was closed, but the owner happened to next door and offered to open up just for us.  We enjoyed our FroYo around his outdoor seating area and cracked jokes till our sides ached from laughing.

Friday morning we met for breakfast in the Hotel dining room.  We hadn't really planned exactly what to do today other than "See Seattle".  After a brief discussion we thought we'd start with the Pike Market.  It took nearly an hour to go the 20 miles and another 10 minutes to find somewhere to park.

The market was completely packed and we had to shuffle our way through hundreds of people.  We wandered for a couple of hours and tried not to buy much.  Nan and I bought a cinnamon and apple fritter stick that we shared around, then some cinnamon coated almonds.

We listened to some buskers as we wandered through.  The first couple was a girl with thimbles on her fingers playing a washboard and a guy tunelessly strumming a guitar and screaming words to a song we couldn't understand.  We also saw an elderly man in a white sailor uniform singing gospel hymns, a guy playing a ukulele, and a very enthusiastic piano player.  There was quite a selection and a bit of entertainment.

Eric was approached by an elderly chinese man asking for money to build a new temple of some sort.  He gave Eric a bead bracelet, wrote his name in his journal, then wrote $20 beside his name.  Eric actually gave him $10.  This turned out to be a bit thing because we were approached by 5 or 6 others through the course of the day using variations on the same tactic.

We couldn't find anywhere we wanted to eat in the market and wound up driving over to the Space Needle.  We found a food court.  Nan got pizza and I got shrimp and noodles.  The others got mexican food (which they can have all the time).  The mexican wasn't very good.  I think Nan's pizza was the best option of the lot.

We thought about going up the needle, but the line wrapped around a couple times and none of us felt like standing out there for an hour.  We also didn't feel like spending $25 to see the glass garden or another 24 for the EMS museum.  Maybe we'll do that when we come back from the cruise.

Back in the car we were driving around when I suggested taking the ferry over to an island and back.  Everyone thought it was a good idea except Angela who didn't want to get sick.  So she and Nan hopped out of the car as we pulled into the ferry terminal.

John told the guy we wanted tickets to Bainbridge (30 minute ride).  We followed the sign to the right side of the terminal and the lady sent us to the front of a new line.  They were loading the ferry, but stopped before they got to us.  By this time we'd been in line for 20 minutes and didn't think we wanted to wait 45 minutes for the next one.  Eric (who's like Mikey and will do nearly anything) went over to ask if we could get a refund.  It turns out you can if it's within 60 minutes of buying the ticket, so we pulled out and Eric (again) went to get us a refund.

We called Nan and Angela to pick them up.  We told them we'd already been on the ride and come back.  We also told them we'd seen whales on the way, and dolphins, and some famous rock stars on the Ferry to sing for us, and even gotten to ride the whales.  I don't think they believed us.

We went back to the hotel for a bit, then went to Jimmy Macs for dinner.  It's some sort of Texas Roadhouse clone.  Nan and I split a steak and shrimp dinner which was great.

Back at the hotel I began work on this blog.  Nan decided to do a load of laundry, so she had me change into my swimming suit so she could wash what I'd worn today.  Just after she got back from loading the washer, John and Angela knocked on our door, and I answer it in my swimming suit.  There were a few jokes made at my expense, but they wanted to play some card games.  So I threw on more clothes and met up with everyone down in the breakfast room.

We played Skip Bo for a couple of hours, laughing, joking, and eating snacks.  What a fun night with good friends.

Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed, ready to party with our friends

Posing on the Seattle Docks

Ladies posing at the Crab Pot

Looking at the Seattle Great Wheel

Flowers in Pike Market

Flowers and a Thorn in the Flowers

The Famous fish market and one of the fish throwers

Nan and I in front of the Sign

Nan and I with the Great Wheel behind us

My Statuesque wife

See what you started Nan

The Space Needle

Nan and I in front of the Space Needle

Playing Cards at the hotel

Mountain Man Campout day 1

September 16, 2015 – Day 1 of the Mountain Man Campout

This is the second year I've attended this campout with friends up in the high country of Colorado.  Last year we camped near Taylor Lake and had a great time.  I nearly ruined my wife's new Toyota Highlander on an ill-advised but totally awesome drive through the back country.

This year we headed for the Ghost Town of Hancock, near St Elmo in the collegiate peaks.

I don't have a quad ATV to ride, and I can't bring myself to pay $400 to rent one for a day, so I planned to hang out around camp, or go on a few short hikes.  DaveB who organizes these trips also said that we'd be camping on a really rough road, so I asked another friend DaveW if I could ride with him.

DaveW recently injured his shoulder and had to have reconstructive surgery.  I didn't know it, but he sold his ATVs and bought a Can-Am side by side UTV instead.  So it turned out I could ride with him on the various trails and excursions.

I met DaveW at his house around 4:30 in the morning.  We loaded the last of my things in his Mountaineer and head to meet up with everyone else.  This was the first time he'd had the UTV on his new trailer, hitched to the Mountaineer and loaded with gear.  It looked like a lazy V with a pronounced sag at the rear end of the truck.   Several people offered to offload some of our stuff, but DaveW thought he'd be fine so long as he kept it slow.

We had a prayer, then loaded up and headed out about 5:10 am.  The Mountaineer was a little squirly and you could feel the bounce over any large bumps, but soon enough Dave thought it would be OK.

We took I-25 South to highway 24 and turned West.  There's a beautiful canyon just West of Colorado Springs that leads up past Pike's Peak to the town of Woodland Park.  It was still pretty dark as we headed up the canyon, but there was no traffic and it was very peaceful, other than the lugging engine of the poor Mountaineer.

We drove through Woodland Park and on West through several other small towns.  We crossed over Wilkerson Pass and dropped down onto what I call the Buffalo Plains.  There are often small herds of buffalo in the fields that line highway 24.  I didn't see any this time.

We finally arrived in the town of Buena Vista at about 7:00 where we met up with the others at Jan's Restaurant.  It's a small café in the middle of town that is a tradition for the Mountain Man.  It's good basic breakfast fare.  I got a couple eggs over easy, hash browns, and bacon.  I was pretty hungry by the time the food came and it didn't take long to finish my plate off.

After breakfast we headed to the City Market for some last minute shopping.  I had realized about half way here that I'd left a whole bag of groceries in my refrigerator.  I guess waking up at 4:00 am isn't conducive to clear thinking.

I ran into the store to buy bacon, ice, and a few munchies to snack on.  Then DaveW and I drove over to a gas station to top off his tank.  I guess the Mountaineer was really sucking the gas with it's load.  While DaveW gassed up, I ran in to look for my favorite beef jerky, Old Trader.  I can't seem to find it in large cities, I only see it in gas stations in small towns.

When he finished gassing up we checked all the tiedowns on the UTV and drove back to the City Market.  No one was there.

So we headed for camp, even though neither of us was sure exactly where camp was, we figured we'd run into the others somewhere along the way.

We drove South along the highway to the town of Nathrop, then turned West toward the mountains.  This set of mountains is often referred as the Collegiate peaks because it has Mt Princeton and Mt Yale.  6 miles in toward the mountains, right at the base of Mt Princeton is a set of hot springs.  I've always wanted to visit these hot springs but never taken the time.  At least I got to see them.

As it turns out, I was so busy looking at the hot springs that I didn't notice the others in our group pulled off the road and waiting for us.  We blew right past them and kept going.

Another 12 miles into the mountains we arrived at the town of St Elmo.  We didn't see our group there (obviously), so we back tracked a bit and took the road south toward Hancock Ghost Town.  We had been on pavement until the hot springs, then well maintained dirt until St Elmo, and now the road began to narrow and to have a few wash boards and pot holes.  We had to pull over to squeeze past a few other vehicles now and then, but still not bad.  We also began to see allot of fall colors.

The Aspens were bright yellow with a few deep orange.  Some leaves were just beginning to fall, and the mountains around us had whole carpets of aspens in various shades of colors.  It was beautiful.

7 miles south of St Elmo we reached the remains of Hancock.  There are just a few foundations left from the original town.  The road kind of stopped here, but rough trails lead south and west.  We took the south road/trail over some rough rocks.

The road was very narrow and rocks 4 and 5 inches high were all over the place.  A few 8 and 10 inch rocks stuck up here and there causing Dave to drive very slow and careful.  We had gone about 2 miles from Hancock when the road got even worse.  I suggested that DaveW offload his UTV and take it to search for our group rather than driving the Mountaineer up that nasty stretch.

Dave headed up the trail and only a couple minutes later I heard cars coming up behind us.  It was our group.  It also turned out that we'd unloaded right in the middle of the turnoff to camp.  I pulled the mountaineer up a bit to let everyone pass.  DaveW came back shortly after that and we followed the rest up path to camp.

We camped about 300 yards off the "road" in a small grass field.  We didn't have many trees around us, but we had some fantastic views.  We all set about unloading gear and setting up tents.  Last year I slept in a big tent with 7 other guys in a massive tent brought by Andrew.  It was a huge tent with a wood stove which Andrew kept running all night.  It was the warmest cold weather camping I'd ever done.

This year I was in my big 12 man (really 5 man) tent.  I'd forgotten to bring a pad to put under me, or an extra blanket to put over me.  I never really got cold, but I felt chilly a few times.

Once camp was setup we headed back down the trail a few hundred yards to cut some wood.  We cut down 3 trees and chopped them up.  While the others were using the chainsaws, Blake came running down to tell us there were moose right by our camp, fighting.  I huffed and puffed back to camp, and sure enough, 3 big moose were in a mud wallow about 50 yards from camp.

By the time we got there they were no longer fighting and had begun to lay down in the mud.  DaveB hopped on his quad and said he'd go down and spook them so we could get better pictures.  I didn't think it was such a good idea to anger 1500 pounds of moose on a 300 pound vehicle, but down the road he went.

He didn't have to go far though and the moose all stood back up.  They didn't stick around long, and soon we were back down by the tree cutting and loading up the truck.

It was barely past noon and camp was almost set up.  We prepped our fire pit, setup the kitchen area, setup a canopy in case it rained, and generally started to relax.

After we were done, Troy decided to go for a hike.  The hill/mountain/ridge just to our East has several old mines visible well up the slope.  It was a few thousand feet high, but the mines were only half way up.  The rest of us sat around chatting or working on our own projects.

After 30 minutes someone noticed that Troy was well up the hillside.  I pulled out a small telescope and mounted it on my tripod.  We took turns watching Troy cross some green stretches and scree fields.  As we continued watching, Troy drew near to one of the mines, but instead of crossing over to it, he continued to climb.  there was another mine above the first, but he didn't approach that one either.  Eventually we realized that Troy intended to climb to the very top of the  ridge.

Now we took turns keeping an eye on Troy in case something went wrong, so we'd be able to find him.  As he climbed higher, the slope got steeper.  The whole hillside seemed to be one massive scree field.  But through the telescope the "scree" turned out to be half ton boulders that nearly dwarfed Troy and he had to scramble on all 4s to climb the last few hundred feet to the top.  It was very cool to see him at the top of the ridge.

We again watched through the telescope as Troy began his downward journey.  He seemed to take it much slower and more deliberate than his climb up.  The sun was close to setting by the time he reached camp and it was time for dinner.

DaveB made fried chicken for dinner and it was delicious.  He also made homemade ice cream for desert.

We sat around the fire eating dinner and enjoying the beautiful sunset around us.  With mountain ranges to the east and west of us we had a very long twilight and could watch the shadows slowly climb the east ridge.  Then once the sun truly set we sat watching satellites and falling stars.

Sitting around a camp fire is one of my favorite things in the world.  We told lots of stories and jokes.  We solved most of the world’s problems if only the leaders would have been there to hear us.

One by one we began to yawn and head for sleep.  I managed to stay up until 9:30 before left the radiant warmth of the camp fire and crawled into my cold sleeping bag.  I fell asleep within minutes.

4:30 am we met up to start the trip



Breadfast at Jan's



360 Photo at Jan's Restaurant

Having breakfast at Jan's restaurant in Buena Vista Colorado. September 2015 on our way to a 4 day "Mountain Man" camp out with friends. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

Driving into camp. The trees started out green



Then they began to turn yellow



Until they became almost a dark orange



The hills around us also started to show allot of color



We setup camp in a clearing with beautiful views.
We were just below tree line. OVer 11,500 feet


Our camp with some of the view around us



DaveW's view from his tent



Cutting fire wood



He cut down that tree with that battery powered chain saw



Moose visiting our camp







The ridge above our camp



Troy climbing but still near the bottom



Troy at the top of the ridge



Troys view of our camp from the top of the ridge



DaveB making homemade ice cream



DaveB making dinner



Sitting around the camp fire



Eating dinner around the campfire

Having fried chicken dinner around the camp fire high up in the mountains of Colorado. The sun hasn't set, but it's dropped behind the western ridge and dropped us into shadow. The temperature dropped very quickly once it did. - Spherical Image - RICOH THETA

A video I produced for day 1 of the campout - Youtube



Slideshow of all photos