Reboot

Whoa, last post I made was in February. Not sure if I'm cut out for this blog stuff, it's one more thing to try to find time for and on the priority list, it has obviously dropped off the bottom. Also I work in front of a compter all day it's hard to do it in my free time. However, I think it's still worth the effort, so I'm gonna renew my commitment here again. One thing that will help, I really need a decent, non-fragile camera, I'm still lugging an old, bulky point-and-shoot around, I'm amazed I haven't destroyed it yet. There are a ton of rugged point-and-shoots on the market right now, I just need to get one.

So does the lack of posts mean I haven't been riding? Definitely not!!! (See next post which will justify my use of three exclamation points).  I've been riding lots, but right now here's something far more important. A fun camping trip with my daughter Drew.

Here we are after setting up camp in the West Mag area (in the national forest just south of Nederland, some nice free, primitive camping):


BTW, Drew is 10 and is the best daughter a dad could have. Smart, fun, athletic, and most importantly, she's growing up to be a really great person, appreciative, respectful, and curious about the world. A friend once said his definition of success as a parent was raising kids who became adults you would want to hang out and drink a beer with. Drew is too young yet for beer, but we have a great time hanging out, so I think I'm doing OK.

After setting up camp we drove north a bit and got in a quick MTB ride at Mud Lake and a picnic lunch. Drew really isn't into MTBing too much, but she does it for her dad's sake. Mud Lake has just a few miles of trail but it's very beginner friendly stuff, I figured she might like it. We rode an easy 2 miles and she actually had fun. Here we saw a deer, which got her excited. Just a week ago, I saw two moose with my buddy JP in this same area, but no such luck this time:

Next on the agenda, we drove up to the Caribou mine site above Nederland. This is an old mine site and an intersection of a few forest service roads which is right at 10,000 ft of altitude. I had a dual mission in mind coming here, I had biked up here last week where JP and I were amazed at how much snow there still was at this altitude in June. We had hoped to connect through FS 505 to Eldora, but had to turn back. I wanted to see what one week's worth of melting had accomplished (the answer is a lot, but still not enough to free up the roads), but also to let Drew run around and have fun on the snow. There just something really cool about playing on snow in 60 degree, sunny weather and falling through drifts up to your waist:

And finally, back to camp where we did another quick hike (Drew was prepared, she had a walking stick, sling shot, and home-made bow), then we cooked some dinner and enjoyed burning stuff (including Drew's shoes which we were attempting to dry out next to the fire. They got dry, for sure, but melted too - good job, dad!)

All in all, much fun was had by all!