Day Twenty-Seven: Stragglers' Move

We woke up to sounds of the others breaking down camp. When I got out of the tent, there weren't anymore tents in our group that were still up. They were in a hurry! We had planned to make eggs and pancakes together, but plans change and soon Robert and I were left alone on our beach sipping coffee. Robert made bacon (tainting my cast iron skillet for a second time!) and then we made gourmet bean tacos. They have many layers: tortilla, cheese, jalepenos, refried beans, avocado, fried egg and green salsa. Holy crap they were tasty. We sat around for quite some time, pondered out next campsite, next backpacking trip, how pretty it was in general and finally got around to packing up. I was on tent duty, Robert on kitchen duty.

I unstaked the tent and gently drug it into the shade and promptly took a nap. It was amazing. Robert joined and then we really slept like babies. (see why the post is titled stragglers?) Eventually, we got up and packed up. We stopped at the grocery on the way out of town for ice cream, pringles and a block of ice.

We drove to Lake City, snacking on the aforementioned vittles plus potato salad and grapes. It was another good drive. We stopped at the Wally in Montrose for backpacking provisions and a few things. It was a difficult trip to the store because I was sort of out of it. We were trying to plan four lunches, three dinners and I couldn't keep more than two things in my head at a time. Somehow we managed to get to a checkout line and back on the road. We drove past an enormous reservoir perhaps called Blue Mesa, but I'm not a 100% on that. It stretched for miles, we had to cross it three times! Finally, we made it to Lake City, Robert and I compared navigational notes, I realized we were going south, not north, and we turned around to find our turnoff about ten miles behind us. Ooops.

The drive to our camp was great, although it was dark at this point, so I'm sure it was less spectacular than it could have been, but I still enjoyed it. We had to take the dirt road eleven miles up the ridge line until we got to Big Blue Campground. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Dad? Ben? I swear we camped in the Big Blue Wilderness that summer we road tripped through Colorado. Any corroborators? This is technically the Uncompahgre Nation Wilderness, but the creek is Big Blue, as is the trail and the campground. In my head, everything looks familiar, the creek is a series of beaver ponds and moats, there is a little wood cabin where I remember a ranger staying right where the road turns, and there are A-Frame fences all over.

We didn't bother with dinner, just made a tent nest in the small tent and passed out, happy stragglers.