8/14 Travel day to State Forest State Park

We reluctantly started making our way south east for the return drive to Denver.

As stated in the last post, the decision fatigue had set in deeply so even deciding on a route was hard. We stopped at a few potential campsites in Wyoming but nothing there felt right. Our plan B. was to make it to Walden, Co, then to decide from there. As we were approaching the state line we noticed a huge plume of smoke on the distant mountains, a sad summer reality coming home to your state on fire. We were able to secure a reservation for three nights in State Forest State Park (weird name for a State Park, anyone ever been?). Keeping an eye on that big plume and our trajectory on the map, as well as any evacuation notices for nearby areas since we obviously wouldn’t want to travel into any dangerous fire situations.

Our spot was at the Bockman campground, and it looked like the fire was happening one mountain range away. However, the campground itself was sparsely populated, quiet, and the smoke from the fire was traveling eastward so we had no problems with smoke or poor air quality. (Sorry to all our friends and family in the metro area who can’t say the same.)

It got cold once the sun went down, like really cold! We’re once again in our home element here. Pile on the layers and sleeping bags. Camping again at 9k’ is where it’s at!

8/15

We spent today driving what was accessible in and around the State Park.

We are all utterly exhausted and feeling run down. While our time on the road thus far has indeed been filled with a lot of adventure and beauty, it has also a lot of uncertainty and existential queries. That can take its toll on a family!

The bigger questions of where do we end up after all of this have yet to be revealed. (Guatemala is still calling, but it’s still unclear about when we can get there). We have gained a lot of insight on what to improve (storage, adding some shelves and removing the old furnace, making it all more streamlined), ways to get more efficient (packing much less, especially clothes since we wear the same week’s worth of clothes over and over, tools to make cooking and camp life run more smoothly), and ideas about our overall plans for the fall with kids starting homeschooling and staying in places longer than a few days, we’ll be doing a lot more homey things this fall and a little less far flung sightseeing. Going 6k miles in 6 weeks is plenty!

Now for some up close smoke photos as it was fascinating to watch the progression every day. We did get some nasty smoke and ash coming into our camp on our last day here as the winds shifted. We also spotted a mama moose and baby on our last day. Would stay here in the future if we’re ever in these parts again.