Sandals and snow

Tyler taking refuge on a stump.

Since the restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays during the off-season, all of the coworkers are able to organize outings and barbecues very easily that accommodate every schedule. We all decided to go out for a hike on East Lake Creek Trail.

There were six of us that embarked on this journey: Tyler, me, Mel, Sebastian, Travis and Rachael. We even had a pack of five dogs: Aspen, Moses, Maggie, Tyson and Boston. All together we were quite the large posse making our way down the trail.

Now I've lived in the mountains for a few years, and I should've known better than to wear sandals. But the weather had been so nice, and all the immediate trails by my house have been clear for weeks, that I didn't think that this trail might have some snow still on it. I wasn't the only one who fell into this realm of comfortable footwear. My husband showed up in his flip-flops and Mel wore her Keen sandals. The rest of our group was much wiser than were were.

After a little ways down the trail, Mel turned back because she was sick of hiking in the snow. I wasn't ready to admit defeat. I can be pretty stubborn when I want to, and I didn't want to give up just because I was a dumb ass. Even though my toes were bright pink and stinging inside my Chacos, I forged ahead stupidly.

But when we began to lose the trail, and snow poling became more and more frequent, I had to throw in the towel. It was a valiant effort for the first big potential hike of the season, but alas I fell far short of success. Next time I'll just throw the damn hiking boots in the back of the truck.

Day 6

Greg passing around a refreshing beverage.

Because the restaurant had to be closed for repairs April 29 - May 7 we decided to take a road trip. The following posts are a daily log of our adventures.

For our finally dinner camping, Tyler had to go all out. We'd been carting around a delicious looking lamb loin since the beginning of our trip. To accompany the lamb loin, he'd also brought all the old parts from the failed spit attempt in mid-April. The plan was to use my old bike pedal to manually turn it once the coals were roasting.

Kent is so excited to roast the lamb.

But before that could happen, they had to shorten the center rod. All three of the boys (Tyler, Greg and Kent) took turns sawing off a chunk to make it fit the campfire sized rotisserie. Once they were satisfied with their apparatus (pictured above and below) they took a break to enjoy the warm Colorado air, and a few beers for their efforts.

But as usual, Tyler wasn't quite satisfied with the manual design. After all, it's been his dream to have it motorized. He went back to the truck and started pulling out tie-downs, zip-ties and his cordless DeWalt drill, and went about rigging it up to rotate the lamb once it was secured on. After figuring out the speed on which the drill should spin, the boys had to use the chainsaw to make custom-fit stands for the drill. They made a tall one and a short one, depending on how hot the coals were burning. With a few minor adjustments, Tyler had brought his motorized spit to life, and the coals were just getting hot enough to roast the lamb. It was time for the cooking to commence.

Kent watching burning logs turn into hot coals.

 After a couple of hours of rotating and basting itself in it's own fat, the lamb was ready to consume. We did have potatoes, rice and veggies to go along with the meal. The meat was tender, succulent, and everything we could want for our final dinner. We gathered around the fire, stuffed, and chatted until we could barely keep our eyes open. It'll be time to head home tomorrow. Tyler has to put in orders for the restaurant on Monday, and prep the day after that. The real world is calling, and we have to answer.


Below are some videos of the spit in action, and pictures of the tasty meat.

Day 5

Because the restaurant had to be closed for repairs April 29 - May 7 we decided to take a road trip. The following posts are a daily log of our adventures.

I do not have any photos to post with this entry for a few of reasons: 

1) It was a long day of driving.
2) There were more than a few wrong turns along the way.
3) I wanted to smash Tyler's and Kent's skulls together.

The morning started off great. We had a long day of driving in front of us, so we wanted to get an early start. At 9 a.m. exactly we rolled out of camp, and headed on down to Durango. 

The boys had been studying the Utah Gazetteer, and said that the road connected back to the highway south of us. They figured this would be a better route because a) we wouldn't have to back track, b) we thought a Subaru Outback had come that way so we figured it was a pretty easy road, and  c) we'd get to see something new. 

As we continued down the road, I realized how mistaken we were. It went down an old ravine, up a ledge, and then road became less and less road like. We stopped to get out and look around so the boys could analyze their next route. As they walked down, they kept saying they could make it, then would walk around another bend to see what that looked like. This pomp and circumstance continued for almost a mile. At this rate they were going to walk to the highway, so I said we should just turn around while we could. I did not want to get stuck back there with trucks, and figure out how to extract them from the unforgiving slick rock. Unless we had ATVs or Jeeps, we weren't going to make it this way with the trucks.

Even though I was voicing my opinion, they still could not hear me. Eventually Kent said we should turn around and explore this area on mountain bikes the next time we camped out this way. Thank goodness he said that, because Tyler quickly came to his senses and soon we were turning around. We had a few more wrong turns trying to find the road again, but our course was corrected. After a 1 1/2 hour delay, I was starting to get cranky.

They found another route we could take us to the highway south of town. I approved this course correction because the map said it was a road — a solid white line, not a dotted Jeep trail. Within two minutes of turning on it, we saw that the map had led us astray. It had lied to us, because if this was a road, no car could travel down it. We were in no mood to explore this possibility, so we immediately turned around and headed to Moab, down a road we knew was solid and would take us where we needed to go.

Once we arrived back in town, we stopped for a quick bite and were on our way to Durango. After about four hours of driving later, we headed up to Lemon Reservoir where Kent's friend Greg lives. We camped at the Florida (pronounced Flor-rye-duh) Campground, ate mac n' cheese, corn pone, and an awesome chili that Greg's wife Deb made for us. After a long day of driving, some food, beers and fire was all I needed to unwind.  

Day 4

Because the restaurant had to be closed for repairs April 29 - May 7 we decided to take a road trip. The following posts are a daily log of our adventures.

Upon returning to our old campsite, Kent and I were a little freaked out to see the same chair sitting in the same spot from the last time we were there. The only thing different is more rocks have been added to keep the chair in place. Why does someone want this chair to stay here? Is it a memorial for a guy who used to sit in it? All I knew is that in the dark, the chair looked creepy and I thought we shouldn't mess around with it. Kent agreed with me, so he left a little sip of bourbon to pay respect to whoever the chair might belong to.

Besides for the creepy chair, we had a nice relaxing day around the camp site: we took an exploratory walk down a few of the Jeep trails, I read my book while the boys went target shooting, and then reconvened for some snacks later.

The night before we had to move the fire to the rock wall to take shelter from the wind, and to throw back heat from the fire. The wind had finally died down that day, but we decided to keep the fire in the same place.

For dinner we decided to feast: steak, veggies with butter and herb rice. There is just something about chowing down on some medium rare beef while drinking beers next to an awesome fire in the middle of nowhere. We kept thinking that we'd have plenty of leftovers for the morning, but then all of the sudden the food was gone. At least every morsel was enjoyed, with the wonderful flavors still lingering on our taste buds.

A wonderful meal, a cozy fire and good company...what more could you want in life?

Day 3

Morning Glory Bridge

Because the restaurant had to be closed for repairs April 29 - May 7 we decided to take a road trip. The following posts are a daily log of our adventures.

Today we broke camp and heading out for a hike while Kent finished up some business in town. We stopped at Negro Bill Canyon to hike to Morning Glory Bridge — about 4.5 miles round-trip. It was a colder day in the desert at 65 degrees. Perfect for the dogs to make it there and back without any problems.

Trail to Morning Glory Bridge

Because of the storm the night before, a lot of the plant life was rejuvenated. A little rain had fallen during the night — not much, but enough — so all the plants could begin to bloom and bright green returned to their leaves. The trail followed the stream though the canyon so Aspen and Moses had plenty of water and places to cool off along the way. I'd never seen so many flowers in bloom at one time in the desert, and it was the first time I've seen a cactus flower in the wild. A little bit of rain sure goes a long way.

Cactus flowers

After the hike, we met up with Kent at the Peace Tree Cafe in town for a delicious lunch. We decided to head out Kane Creek to the spot we stayed at almost two years ago. The weather was supposed to be snowy and cold in Colorado, so we decided to hide in the desert for a few more nights. We filled up our water jugs, stocked up on some more ice and firewood, and headed down the 4x4 road to Dripping Springs. We'd seen a lot of people in town so we were also afraid that the camp spot might be taken.

Headed back to the trail head.

We did have a minor set-back on the way to camp — Kent didn't fasten down the rear hatch of his truck, so when he went over a large rock, it came loose, slowly opened and the beer cooler ejected from the bed. Beers and blocks of ice went flying, and we had to scramble to clean everything up. It was a good thing it was block ice, otherwise we would've had warm beer for the next few days. Shortly after we made it to our vacant spot, we quickly set up camp, and started a fire so we could grill up some burgers to satisfy out hungry bellies. Nothing too fancy, just a big kosher pickle and a cold dry beer to go along with it — plus a handful of Ruffles. Delicious.