Friday, August 5, 2022  Colorado

After yesterday’s endless (and fruitless) search for a camp site, it was top of our list of things to do today.  We decided to head east on Hwy 160 toward Durango.  About 20-25 miles from Cortez we found a forest service campground called Target Tree.  Historically supposed to be a spot where Utes gathered food supplements from the bark of the Ponderosa Pines and also where they used the trees for target practice with hatchets.  It’s a really nice spot with graveled pads for tents, water, trash service, and great placement of bushes, etc. so you don’t see other campsites.  It has a bit of road noise, but tolerable.  Instead of the usual vault toilets, they have  COMPOSTING vault toilets. No chemicals, but kinda stinky in a weird way.  We plan to stay three nights–Friday, Saturday, and Sunday–which are the hardest days to find comping in the summer vacation season.  We will have ribeye steaks, asparagus, and mashed potatoes for dinner.

Tuesday, August 9, 2022  Target Tree Campground

We extended our stay here to a total of 5 days.  Really like it here, very uncrowded.  With both water and trash service it’s easy to stay longer.  We have sunny mornings and keep the portable solar panels out so we catch what solar gain we can.  Every afternoon around 3 pm a thunderstorm rolls through.  We have set up the tent and use it to store equipment while it rains so chairs, etc. don’t get wet every day.  When it starts to sprinkle and the thunder gets louder and closer, we head into the van to chill.  The two swivel seats make the interior like a little living room.  Dave plays the guitar or the dulcimer.  I have begun building a blog site so that eventually I can post these daily journal entries.  This campground has good cell service (most don’t) so I have been able to craft the blog site and begin typing in early journal entries.  Unfortunately I have to do it all with my phone, so the typing is a bit laborious.  Later on, I’ll arrange a hot spot for my phone so I can use a computer for input.  That will go faster.  Eventually I will publish the blog, then publish additional entries each time I have adequate cell service.  Additions to the blog will be sporadic, but hopefully interesting.  My purpose is to create a written record for myself of what we do and where we go.

While we were here, we rigged a tarp at the van’s open back doors and took showers using our portable shower bag.  We cheated and added heated water from the stove to the bag–it’s black and is supposed to heat the water in the bag from solar gain, but so far we haven’t gotten the water warm enough with that method.  We also experimented with washing our hair in a dishpan, using the shower bag for the final rinse.  That worked well, but was a two person process.  We have been walking the campground loop several times each day as we deliver our daily trash to the dumpster.  Yesterday we hiked a nearby trail that was supposed to lead to an abandoned narrow gauge train roadbed (0.6 mile) and an aspen pond (1.2 miles).  The trail gained a lot of elevation as we went and it SEEMED like we walked for a long time, but we never found the train roadbed OR the aspen pond.  A little disappointing, but fun anyway.  On our hike we saw a deer and a baby horned toad, maybe the size of a quarter.

Other wildlife around here are two little chipmunks who show up every time we sit down to eat.  We call them Chip and Dale because  they NEVER GIVE UP.  I have watched them perched on the flimsy branches of some kind of oak shrub around here, eating the tiny acorns that abound on each bush.  They stay hidden when it rains.

Today we took down the tent before it rained and have packed many things away so that early tomorrow we can leave and head for Durango.  We have errands to do there, and then have picked out some possible future campgrounds about 30 miles beyond Durango on Hwy 160, called the Navajo Trail.