After a long, cold winter and over two months working on my newly acquired 1985 VW Vanagon Westfalia camper van, I finally got out camping in it over the past 3 weekends with Richele and the dogs. First, we attempted a trip to Moab over the weekend of 5/16-18, but we wound up just hanging around the Colorado River between No Name, CO and Glenwood Springs, CO. Although the van was really slow over the high mountain passes on I-70, the real reason we wound up staying was that it was so much easier to go for a long, 10 mile run along the path on the Colorado River on Saturday and then kayak the same stretch (Grizzly Creek to Two Rivers Park) on Sunday. With such beautiful weather and surroundings, we really didn’t feel the need to move on to Moab and as a bonus we got to soak in nice, backcountry hot springs near Glenwood. The first weekend of camping in the van showed that it was definitely well suited to the 2 of us plus our 3 dogs and 2 kayaks and associated gear! Although our steath camping in the No Name rest stop on Friday night was pretty neat, I’ve gotta say there are other places I would rather be than smack between I-70, freight trains, and idling 18 wheelers!

