Author: Van-Tramp

Boulder County, Picture Rock Trail – take 2 0

Boulder County, Picture Rock Trail – take 2

Conor and I went out for an early morning hike, this time we stayed at lower altitude thanks to everything beginning to bloom down here with the early spring. We tackled the 6 miles round trip of Picture Rock Trail again and made sure to take the time to snap...

1972 Compact Jr trailer 0

1972 Compact Jr trailer

Mom and I have been looking at another trailer, back and forth, for some time now. While I have continued to regret selling to Nomad last year, it really was too much o a trailer for the van to tow around. So this time we were looking for a lighter,...

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Inside the van known as Big Blue

  Big Blue is a 1989 Dodge Maxi-van with a 5.9 liter V8 engine. His name is not Big Blue actually. It is “Jonas”, named after a large whale that traveled the world (but was cursed to never touch water) from a book I loved in my earlier years. I...

Spring break 2012 – Mesa Verde Ntnl Park 0

Spring break 2012 – Mesa Verde Ntnl Park

Our final park of the trip was Mesa Verde National Park where we stopped in the museum to take a tour of the Spruce Tree House cliff dwelling and then a quick auto-toured of the various other cliff dwellings and sights. After a half-morning here, we planned to BBQ at...

Spring break 2012 – Canyonlands Needles 0

Spring break 2012 – Canyonlands Needles

In the morning, we quickly moved out to finally go check out the southern part of Canyonlands, known as the Needles section. We drove south into a head wind for 30 miles before turning west into yet another head wind for 30 more miles before making it into the park....

Spring break 2012 – Arches, Canyonlands 0

Spring break 2012 – Arches, Canyonlands

We departed Saturday afternoon with the aim to make it all the way into Moab, UT before 11pm where we would get a hotel room for the night. This didn’t work out so well with all hotels full when we arrived, and the 3 of us camping out in the...

Tim’s first broken bone 0

Tim’s first broken bone

Tim was playing with friends at school when one landed on his arm. Tim said he “heard a pop” so we were off for an X-ray.  Yep, he has a “compression fracture”. The analogy from the doctor was that a compression break is much like crushing a styrofoam cup and...

Roosevelt National Forest, Kreutzer Nature Trail 0

Roosevelt National Forest, Kreutzer Nature Trail

Friday morning, Conor and I drove up Hwy 14 to hike up Mt McConnel up at 8000ft. It was not to be a particularly long hike at only 4.6 miles round trip, or hard hike with only 1400ft altitude gain, but as luck would have it we would still fail...

Rocky Mtn Ntnl Park, The Pool 0

Rocky Mtn Ntnl Park, The Pool

Conor and I ran up to Rocky Mtn Ntnl Park on Monday to get in our first hike of the year. Our last hike together was in the snow so it is fitting that we start this year with a snow-hike as well. Sadly, I left my snow-shoes in California...

Snow day 0

Snow day

My final weekend in California and all the California family came up the mountain to visit and spend some time playing in the snow further up the mountain. It was a blast watching the kids hootin’ an hollerin’, throwing snow around and just plain having fun. How quick the novelty...