Vega State Park, Collbran, CO

This was a long Memorial Day weekend, and we got something of a late start after finally getting the boat on top of the trailer.

 

It was our first time taking the sailboat along, and also the bikes. Trailer behind, sailboat on top, and bikes in the bed. We felt set for anything fun! We had viewed the campsite on Google Earth when we booked it, and though we thought we knew what it would be like, we were wrong as usual. In this case it far exceeded our expectations. We didn't arrive at Vega until after 10 p.m., so it was pitch dark. This being a mostly no services loop (Aspen Grove), there were no lights on in the trailers around us and we had a little difficulty backing into our site (205). We're thinking walkie talkies might be a good investment. Most everyone had pull throughs, but we had wanted the location of this site. It was definitely worth it! Here's what we woke to in the morning!

 

The lake is astoundingly beautiful over in the area of this campground. The other campgrounds in the park are closer to the dam and on a much more open part of the lake, making them less private and more tightly packed. First thing, the husband wanted to get the boat in the water. I wasn't really interested in boating this weekend, since it was pretty cold (well, 60s, but I guess I'm a wimp). Anyway, we checked out the inspection and launching rules and discovered that we didn't need an inspection and could launch anywhere as long as the boat wasn't trailered. So in he went!





He went boating every morning, while I stayed at the campsite, slept in a bit, and got some reading and knitting done! Did I already say that our campsite, 205, was the best in the park? We can say that definitively, since we geocached throughout the park and checked out all of the campgrounds.

It was relatively private, and the location at the end of a point meant that all of the sound of the generators was behind us, blocked by the trailer. This is a downside to camping without services that we hadn't run into before -- noisy generators. Since pretty much no one had electricity, a lot of folks ran their generators during the day. What it means for us is that when possible, we will look for campgrounds with at least electric hookups. Of course, in Colorado, most state parks don't have any hookups, so we will just work on setting ourselves up so the trailer blocks the sound. As you can see, we had a clear view of the lake and didn't see our neighbors. Other sites in the loop do have more access to the other sites -- good if you want the community, bad if you want the solitude. Another fine aspect of our site was that a path led directly from it to the end of the point about 200 feet away.

We had this whole beautiful area to ourselves in the mornings and evenings, but during the day there was almost invariably a fisherman and sometimes a whole fisher family at the end of the point. It was far enough not to intrude, though, and once we got over thinking we should own the whole area, it didn't bother us at all.

Other things we did while at Vega: biked the roads, though they were pretty dusty when a car went by, geocached all around the lake, had a great bonfire, enjoyed some good grilled food including an herb marinated halibut, and took a drive on back roads with beautiful vistas looking out over Grand Mesa National Forest.

Unusual for the drive down from Steamboat through Rifle, everything was amazingly green. I've never seen it like this, and may never again. It had begun to change and become more brown as we headed back, so we know that as summer wears on the green will be gone. But it was beautiful to see while we were able. All in all, it was a lovely weekend...one that was hard to return from!

Kicking off the 2016 camping year

For the first trip of the year, we decided to stay close to home in case anything went wrong. We headed 12 miles up the road to Steamboat Lake State Park, where they had just opened the first campsites. We stayed in site 134, which is along the outside of the loop on the ridge overlooking the lake.

We had only a few neighbors, and the pick of some primo sites! Here's the view from the back of our site - we had to walk a few feet to see this view, but didn't have to do any serious bushwacking.

 

 

It was quite windy and a little overcast, but warm enough to be out with a light fleece. During the night, we could hear the wind talking to us, rattling the various flaps on the outside of the trailer and even seeming to try to enter the trailer through the kitchen fan exhaust. The trailer felt like a haven from the elements, cozy and warm.

 

During the day, we took the dogs for a couple of walks/hikes, pushing Bailey beyond her normal limit of a mile. She slept very, very well at night. We found a new trail along the water and below the bluff that the Dutch Hill Campground sits on. It was quite muddy, and the husband slid down a hill. Other than some extra dirty laundry to do when we got home, there was no harm done. Since this was a test run, we used the outside shower to rinse off the mud, and we discovered a leak. That was the only problem we encountered, though we did come home with a long list of things not to forget the next time out!

 

We cooked the main course on the grill with the rest cooked inside, as we usually have. Saturday's dinner was sticky lamb kabobs, broccoli, and noodles. Yum! There just seems to be something better about dinner cooked outside while camping. After dinner, the wind died down for a hour or two, so we had a fire, something we don't usually do. Our closest neighbor on one side was playing his guitar, and the closest family on the other side was playing some sort of LED bocce in the dark, and it just all felt so peaceful.