My sweet wife and I made a big purchase this week to help make our summer camping trips a little more “Luxurious”. This all started a couple years ago, when we first went camping with pretty standard equipment into the Colorado Rocky Mountains near our house. We had a tent, reasonably warm sleeping bags, stove, lantern, firewood, marshmallow roasters, beer, etc. This would make for a pretty comfortable weekend camping in most parts of the country. But if you have ever been in the Rockies during “May”. You might realize that this isn’t exactly the same as spring time camping in the dessert. During that trip we huddled inside our small tent the entire weekend because it was snowing, raining, and 30 mph gusty winds. I think we had trouble walking upright for a few days after being hunched down in our tent for 2 days. What a fluke right? Thats what we said too. So we went camping again in June. Guess what? No snow! That was an improvement, slightly. But we still had 50mph winds and driving rain, and thunderstorms all night long. Sleeping was nearly impossible with the tent blown down flat onto your face and lightning crackling all around. And walking around outside in the sandy mud was miserable. We carried enough sand into our tent that we could make our own indoor sand castles. And again, it wasn’t very relaxing. Crazy. Over the last 10 years, we have had about a 50% success rate of good weather when camping in Colorado. The mountain weather is just way too variable and changing to be exposed.

We decided we needed a little better shelter for our older “lower middle” aged bodies. And something that would allow us to travel with our dogs inside the vehicle, and provide a quick easy camp setup. We thought about a camping trailer of some sort. But thats a little too plain, boring, and probably a little bit much for our old school style. So when looking through the local craigslist we noticed we could afford a very pristine 1978 VW bus with the Westfalia camper conversion. Tracey and I quickly made arrangements to go visit the beautiful Icon of 70s style and well, more style.. And we instantly fell in love.

Now, it doesn’t climb the mountain grades like a modern turbo diesel Dodge Truck. In fact, I think we will be flashing alot of peace signs and middle fingers out the window at Dodge Trucks who try to run us off the road. 2nd gear and 35mph is about max cruising speed climbing some of the 10,000′ passes around here. Speed is not the reason you drive a Bus, and we like that. We are joining the Veee DUB cult for a while. Stay tuned for more pictures, improvements, repairs, and adventures.

Living in Colorado makes you into something of a Jekyl and Hyde person of sorts. My winter personality would be the Jekyl, and Mr. Hyde comes alive in the summer. Well, this last weekend was the beginning of my summer Hyde personality.

Me and a few buddies entered a local endurance mountain bike race, The 18 hours of Fruita. Four riders cover as much distance as possible in the 18 hour period. The team consisted of myself, Locke, Ben, and Rich. Locke and I have been commuting and riding bicycles steadily through the winter. So we were somewhat fit and ready to at least survive our share of the riding. Each person would cover between 40 and 70 miles of riding through the night and day. Not exactly a leisurely ride.  Our other two team mates have not exactly been training for the race season. In fact, Ben just barely assembled his bicycle before the race. Its been a couple years since he has ridden a substantial amount.  And despite our fitness level, equipment or experience we managed to finish 12th out of 19 teams. It was a fantastic effort by all 4 members of the team! In total, we rode 192 miles during the 18 hours.

After the end of the race, we carefully re-hydrated with some delicious Fat Tire from the race sponsor New Belgium Brewery.  I think we may have stumbled on to a team with some serious legs. Maybe we can actually contend for a top spot in next season’s race.

Here is our lead off rider getting ready to blast around the course at midnight.