In Part I we have left Missouri, traveled around Colorado, and are now looking for a place to camp.

We had noticed driving up Phantom Canyon Road that part of it was BLM land and you could camp. I looked at the map again and it appeared that there was more land north of Divide. We started driving north, but it appeared that north was going to drop in elevation and we wanted to go up in elevation. We headed back south and started up the mountain. There was another road, (what’s the point in traveling if not to see something new) that looked like it would be similar to PCR; it was similar, except that all the land was private and there was nowhere to free camp.

As we’re traveling to a place to camp the wife asks if our little dog will attract bears? Hmm?! I hadn’t thought of that, also hadn’t thought about being bear aware and locking up all the food. Actually glad the wife can be somewhat anxious.

We then went back and headed back onto PCR. After traveling a mile or so we found a good enough spot; we stopped. After setting up camp. (i.e. pulling the cooler and two lawn chairs out, and fixing the bed in the back of the SUV) we had a nice supper of spam, potato chips, and beanie weenies! (We made sure to put all food /trash into the cooler and the cooler into the car!) After supper we just enjoyed the view and the nice 68F temperature.

 

Camp site from atop a small incline

 

Looking South East

 

The wife conked out pretty quick and went to bed around 7pm. Me though, hell I had to see the sunset! So, I stayed up and had a couple drinks and watched the shadows cover the mountain, couldn’t actually see the sun from where we were. Around 10pm I decided to go to bed. (Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” comes to mind.) Mr. Lazer is a little drunk; even though I just drank my standard Saturday evening fare, I had forgotten to add into the equation that I had eaten little in the way of food and I was going on 5 hours of sleep and a 13 hour drive. Somehow I managed to get the lawn chairs to the front of the car (the wife wanted to make sure no one would steal them) and stumbled into bed. I feel it might be “one of those drunks.”

Around 2am I awake and relieve myself and can definitely tell its going to be “one of those drunks.” The wife awakens around 5am and is ready to go, I unfortunately I have to rid my stomach of its contents, only there is no contents, I am already dry heaving. UGH.

I stay in the back trying to sleep as my wife drives us out of PCR, stopping once along the way to dry heave out the back door. As we get back to pavement I am able to move to the front seat, still out of it, but setting up. I miss an elk crossing the road, dang it, but I am able to see a couple of mulies along the side of the road, one with an amazing rack. We make it to Colorado Springs and I wake up to help with the gas situation as the wife goes to pay, pee and get me some Alka-Seltzer. (I am hoping it will get into the blood stream quick.) I puke that up before leaving the parking lot.

My wife wakes me up in downtown Colorado Springs because the map had lost connection and she didn’t know where to go. (She says I said something mean like, “learn how to read a map;” moi?)(The difference between my wife and I on using a phone map is that I look at it like a paper map and use the voice and prompts to help, and also look for what might be a better way; she just puts it on and trusts it.) Anyway, we are able to make it out of Colorado Springs and head east on 94. I wake up at 8am and feel fine, well, alive at least. I am thankful for that because I’ve had “one of those drunks” last until 3pm.

We continue on home without incident, just the occasional gas/pee stop. We head south to Wichita and then east and into Missouri. As we are headed back to Missouri we see the Independence, KS road sign. The wife and I had watched and enjoyed “Last Chance U” and so we decided to drive the 7 miles south to Independence to check it out. The town is a little bigger than they lead you to believe on the show, approximately 10,000 population. It has neat little downtown and even a zoo!

We were back home around 8pm and were able to get a good night’s rest so we could do adult stuff on Labor Day. You know, like laundry, washing the car, cleaning the house, and even refereeing a football game that night.

P.S. 1 – We didn’t visit any dispensaries, I don’t imbibe very often anymore, the wife doesn’t at all. I did want the wife to experience one because I got to in ’17 and it was pretty cool. I’ve always just got what ever was around, never had an actual dealer who had choices and it was pretty neat being in a dispensary where the marijuana was set up like a liquor store.

P.S. 2 – Since it’s the year of CCP Cough a footnote on masks:

Kansas has a statewide ordinance; we don’t wear no damn mask! (Well, aksually, (is this the correct way?) I do at work when needed, and the wife will when when I’m not with her.) In the town we are in they have a hearing impaired exception, even though I haven’t been asked since the first two weeks, and suburbia around us has no ordinances. We were never questioned in Kansas.

Coming into Colorado the state had a big portable road sign letting you know that masks were a state wide mandate! The first town in Colorado we stopped in, La Junta, the lady tried to get me to but I used the hearing exception. (I checked after we got out, CO does not have a hearing exception. Oops, my bad.) In Canon City I asked a guy, who you could tell didn’t wear a mask, about how strict the enforcement was. He said no problems in the mountains, but probably pretty strict in the cites. I was not confronted again in CO, and I say the percentages were probably 40/60 masks/no masks. On the way back we stopped in a small town in eastern Colorado called Cheyenne Wells, maybe 500-700 population. Well, the only store there didn’t even have a sign on the door! NO ONE was wearing a mask, (now there were only three other customers), not even the attendant! (He had to have had a medical exception since he was about 5’10” and 4 bills!) I think this is where we need to re-locate the BLM headquarters! It would help the town out financially, it would be closer to the western lands they manage, and it would be great to see all the Washington bureaucrats living in Cheyenne Wells, CO!!