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!
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