Goodbye Ft Collins
It was a busy week in FC. Many projects and finishing touches wrapped up, tons of playing and partying in the evenings and an awesome chill weekend without any work (both for those employed and those working on buses).We left the house a few times to hit local favorites (mayor of oldtown, pickle barrel, lucile's for breakfast, etc), but mostly we just hung out at home, ate perfectly grilled dinners on the picnic table, played some more catan and kept up with the olympics while keeping cool indoors. Awesome.
Jen and I truly love this town. We had some of the same moments we had while in Portland, where it seemed all too easy to imagine simply staying here with friends, or wondering what it would have been like if we spent the last 2 years here... biking everywhere and saving tons of money eating and drinking and playing in a college town. We adapted to life in Ft Collins all too quickly, and the number of burritos eaten in the last week point to why that savings plan might not have worked out quite so well after all.
Despite how much we loved our stay...the inevitable departure day snuck up on us. As much as we hate to admit it, Brock and Kelly having a wedding at the end of the week might be a good thing...at least to keep us on track for our larger goals. We cleaned up our workspace, said our teary goodbyes and headed out...finally in a southernly direction. and, the bus fired up on the first attempt despite sitting all week. sweet.
We grabbed a quick burrito and drove rapidly by the springs and into the mountains. The varied terrain made us excited to be passing new things, even if we had to push start the bus at every stop. At this point we are getting quite adept at this- parking facing downhill, and the push-start seems almost normal, even if dodging the mini parked in front of us...
We had to cross over 3 colorado passes today, but E handled each like a champ. Not like a Usain Bolt/sprinter champion mind you, but the kind of champ that gets us to the other side even if it takes a frighteningly long time.
We exchanged positions multiple times with a white, bay window bus from West Virgina throughout the first pass or two and kept dreaming about how cool it would be if a couple of our friends were in that bus caravaning south with us. aahhh.That opportunity still exists by the way... if anyone wants to pick up a bus and build the camper en route through baja! seriously, c'mon. you know you want to. yes, were talking to you.
Our highest pass was over 11,000'. Well surpassing our previous elevation gain, and making us feel pretty good about what the bus could handle. We coast downhill and into Gunnison with enough time to catch up on email, watch some women's olympic beach volleyball, and then head out to a local climbing hill where we heard camping was free. Not for lack of trying (repeatedly), but the bus simply couldn't summit the (near vertical and rutted out) dirt road up and over the climbing hill- so we turn back in defeat to sleep in the gunnison wal-mart parking lot (or, at least that of the bar next door). When will i realize that we aren't driving our old FJ anymore, and that the bus just isn't a synchro??
