COLORADO: A LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP

Last week was the official half-way mark of our time in Boulder, and my feelings are very mixed.  I'm sure that in fifty years we'll talk about how great this whole summer was for us and how we have nothing but fond memories of being Bouldarians.   But in the moment, I'm pretty half and half.

I love spending so much time with Zach just the two of us, but I hate being away from family and friends.

I love the hippie markets and hilarious scenes of women collecting their completely organic lunches from beneath trees on the side of the trail, but I hate the hippie leaf (and its accompanying smell) and lack of supportive undergarments.

I love the beautiful Colorado summer, but hate that we're stuck in an apartment with no airconditioning on the 5th floor with west-facing windows.

I love that Colorado works so hard to preserve their epic mountains and scenery, but hate that it means absolutely no campfires allowed, and while you're at it, just don't camp at all.

It's perhaps this last one that has tipped the scales towards hate strong dislike this weekend.  One reason that Zach and I were so excited to take the internships here was that we could  plan to go camping every weekend in the plethora of outdoors that is Colorado.

But nooooo.

After purchasing all our gear, finally having a weekend available, researching a decent, non-day HIKE, we carefully packed our backpacks (thanks for the training Dad!) and headed for the hills.

Are you proud Dad? 

The hills proved difficult to navigate, but after a few wrong turns we made it to our trailhead.  It was "CLOSED FOR THE WINTER".  Really Colorado?  It's JULY. 

Only slightly daunted, we turned around, hoping to find a place where we could park our car and hike off with our packs.  Everywhere we drove, we saw signs saying "NO CAMPING", "PRIVATE PROPERTY"  and "PICNIC AREA ONLY".  The signs followed us all the way home.

Zach: To conclude, Colorado camping appears to be a misnomer.  Defeated, we took some picture of the beautiful, untouched, and un-camped in land (seen above), drove home and took solice in our oven cooked tinfoil dinners.  Sadly, the hiking goodies we packed dissapeared that same night.  Clarissa says she's saving them until next camp-out.  hmmm... maybe that's what happened...