My View from 1958

Rocky Mountain Camping

I enjoy camping. At age 67, I still camp. My infatuation began when I was a kid.  Our earliest family vacations used to be tent camping. What a blast! We had crappy air mattresses to lay on and they would never stay inflated. I can still remember dad cursing in the middle of the night when a mattress had gone flat and needed his attention. Mom cooked over a portable gas stove and made the best food in the world. Crispy bacon. I still love bacon, and nothing is better than breakfast with bacon and eggs.  And smores. I always thought camping brought out a bit of pioneer or cowboy in me. You know, living in the wilderness and life on the range? My favorite books (biography, non-fiction etc.) are still about the old west.  Perhaps that childhood obsession with the wild west is still in me.

For this post, I will start writing about my current camping experiences and work backwards in time to my very early memories camping with my family and hometown friends.

My good friend and high school classmate Mike Cooper, has some land in the Colorado mountains. I have been camping there since about 2013. That is the earliest date on my iPhone pictures anyway. I worked in Denver for a while, so Mike introduced me to his land in the Pikes National Forrest. Up to the time my job took me back to Omaha in 2018, we were at the camp site almost every weekend. Even after I returned to Omaha, I went to Colorado about once a month to camp. I still go out to Colorado a few times a year, but it’s a bit tougher now that I live in Illinois.  Below are a couple of good photos from the land looking west. Its one heck of a view!

For years I camped in a tent. I don’t care who you are, in the early spring or fall it gets cold in the mountains. I tried several approaches to staying warm. I ordered a special tent that was advertised as “all season”. Nope, I had better tents when I was in pre-school. A “Made in China” special for sure.  It was so small, I could not even get an air mattress in it, although I tried like hell to jam it in there.  A comic scene (Cooper laughed his ass off) and a complete fail.

Next, I tried multiple blankets, an extra covering over the tent, burning a candle and even a portable propane heater. Thinking back, in my quest for heat, I am probably damn lucky I didn’t burn myself up. If the candle or heater had tipped over, that tent would have gone up like a stack of dry hay.  

Over the years multiple people have joined us camping. My friend Randy used to come out quite a bit. I believe the picture below shows my tent in the background and his on a beautiful summer day.

I think Mike felt a bit sorry for me. He had a shed / cabin at the land which was warm and comfortable. One Sunday morning Mike called me and said he had located a shed like his, for free.  ….”just come pick it up” was all we had to do. So, we hired a couple of knuckleheads to load it on a flat bed truck and haul it up to Mike’s land near Woodland Park, CO. 

Two brothers, who were twins, were the movers.  I am not sure they had a brain between them. They could not figure out how to “pull” the shed onto the flatbed. After multiple failures (and some minor damage to the shed), Cooper took over. He convinced them to attach the rope/strap around the perimeter of the shed, use some wood as a ramp up to the flatbed and slowly pull the shed up onto the base of the ramp. The twins tried to attach some cheap hooks on the side of the shed to be used as anchors to tie the wench rope to. It resulted in an immediate failure when the winch started to tug. We finally got it loaded in one piece, and we were on our way.

 The twins were perplexed as to why anyone would want to go to the mountains. “What do you guys do up here”, one of them said. “You wouldn’t understand”, we thought. Again, Mike took the lead to ensure the shed was gently unloaded in one piece.  We tossed them about $80 and wished them well. Not sure if they ever found their way back to Denver.   They may still be driving around looking for civilization.

Mike is a good carpenter, so soon afterwards we proceeded to add insulation, indoor paneling, a new roof, and a window. Perfect. It’s warm, clean and as this body ages, quite comfortable. Plenty of room for sleeping and storage.  Nice bed right?

The shelter below has been there since I started coming to the land, but the outhouse was added around 2017 I would guess.

Camping is a lot about eating and eating well. Salmon, chili, steak, beef stew, pork chops, chicken, pizza (yup), bratwurst, potatoes asparagus, broccoli, corn on the cob. We ate like kings…..and then there was breakfast….oh my, bacon and the best eggs in the world. Made with pepper jack , feta, and Colby cheese, multiple types of peppers and onions. Take a look below and let me know if you have seen anything more appetizing. The evening meal was topped off with chocolate and then of course Coors Lite. Plenty of Coors Lite. Beautiful view of the night sky, stars so bright. We could see satellites passing across the sky…especially Musk’s Starlink satellite train.

When the Coors flows, Mike and I both play our mandolins sometimes. Mike is good, better than he will admit, but as I said in my earlier post about my dad’s band, I have zero musical talent. But who cares. Bellies full, campfire, Coors and a few songs. When we get tired of playing, we listen to Johnny Cash, The Gourds, James McMurtry, Townes van Zandt, Robert Earl King, and Jerry Jeff Walker. I am telling you; this is living.

Probably one of the most heartfelt gifts I have received is the painting below that Mike painted for me. The painting is called “Vermillion’s View”.  It was the view I had of the mountains from the opening of my tent’s door.  The dog is the ever-faithful Duke (RIP) who was Mike’s dog for many years and my camping buddy.

I will try to camp as long as I am physically able. It brings me a special joy to be outdoors, free from any worries, good friends, good food…..and Coors! As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I started camping from a very young age. Next, let’s go back in time a bit.