Nederland, CO

Friday, September 11

Yawn! We had quite the restless night.

Most evenings this week, Andi, Tory, Aden and I have been watching a show together called When Calls the Heart. We never watch TV together at home, but when we’re traveling in the RV it’s a good way for us to wind down from the day and it fills the hour before bedtime when it’s dark outside with nothing much else to do.

Around 9:00pm, everyone went to bed as usual. Aden fell asleep on his own before the television show was over which isn’t unusual. Tory must hold her eyelids up with toothpicks to stay awake because she never misses an opportunity to be read to at bedtime. We live in such a small, open space that when the lights are out and asleep, Andi and I usually lay in bed together and read or watch another show on his iPad with headphones.

I was dead asleep last night at 10:00pm, Kindle still in hand, when Andi heard Aden making some funny noises. He whispered to me to wake up, but I didn’t hear him. Luckily, Andi popped out of bed and went to Aden’s side with a kitchen mixing bowl because Aden threw up. Of course, the sound of that happening jarred me awake.

Poor Aden threw up repeatedly between the hours of 10:00pm and Midnight. After that, he moaned in his sleep all night. Andi and I didn’t sleep a wink.

This morning, Aden was chipper as ever! Aden didn’t even remember throwing up last night — at least the first few times. He said he felt fine and requested breakfast. He had color in his cheeks and didn’t have a fever, so I guess he was OK. It never fails that Aden will throw up at least once on any trip we take, seemingly without reason. Fortunately, he’s never down and out for long.

While I bundled up and headed outside in the campground to exercise outdoors, Andi transformed Aden’s bed into the dining table and made the kids breakfast. When I returned, Andi said we’d have to find a laundromat today as some of Aden’s blankets were soiled from his midnight puking escapade.

We decided to leave Rocky Mountain National Park and drive one hour south to the town of Nederland. It was a refueling day — We needed propane for the RV after running the heater the past few nights. We also needed groceries so while Andi went to the market and washed our clothes and blankets at the laundromat, the kids and I would do school in the RV parked nearby.

Nederland has a cute, eclectic mountain town vibe. We were surprised how busy it was considering there’s only about 1,000 people that live there. On a warmer day, we would have been all about wandering the downtown Main Street or taking a walk along the river. Temperatures are in the mid-40’s today, but the wind is whipping making it feel a lot colder.

Instead, we drove south of town about 15 minutes to scope out camping options. We rarely make camping reservations ahead of time because we like traveling with flexibility, but campgrounds tend to fill up quickly on the weekends so we wanted to have a plan for where we’ll stay tonight. The first place we visited was Kelly Dahl Campground. Sites were fairly empty of campers so availability wasn’t an issue, but there weren’t many services or activities offered for $22/night. It pains us to pay that much money for simply a piece of dirt to park our rig! We decided to keep looking.

There’s tons of free camping available on national forest land (called dispersed camping) in Colorado, but there are zero services included— no trash removal, no bathrooms, or picnic tables. That’s not a big deal for us since we have an RV with water, heat, toilet, shower, stove, etc., but often times roads are not well maintained in those areas. Our 25’ ft Winnebago View really isn’t made for off-roading. We drove through a dispersed camping spot near Nederland, but it was surprisingly full with quite a few campers that looked like they were parked there full-time. Plus, it was nerve-wracking to drive our RV through there with so many potholes, dips and uneven roads. I had to hop out of the vehicle several times to make sure Andi wasn’t going to rip the jacks off the bottom of our RV as he crept along.

Andi called to check on availability at a state park in the area, but it was full for the night. We decided to drive closer to Black Hawk to check out Cold Springs Campground. Fortunately, there were a handful of sites available so we snagged one for the evening. Even though this site cost the same as Kelly Dahl Campground ($22/night), we liked this location because the camping sites had more privacy with trees surrounding them and there was a short hiking trail connected to the campground.

As soon as we set up camp, the four of us went for a walk through the campground to check out our new surroundings. It was still windy outside, but the sun was shining for the first time all week. It felt good! Eventually, we came to a short hiking trail that led us to the top of an overlook. One minute Tory and Aden were complaining about walking and the next minute they were having the time of their lives climbing all over the big boulders at the top.

The view at the top was gorgeous. Finally, clear skies and warmer weather were on their way.

We walked back to camp and made dinner — leftover sloppy joe meat with steamed broccoli. Tory and Aden played outside in our campsite for a bit, making a design from the crystal rocks they collected in the campsite. Follow the arrows: you can’t miss their treasure.

Then, we all snuggled up to watch another episode of When Calls the Heart together. Today was a “regular” travel day for us. Running errands, doing school on the road, scoping out campsites and lots of time spent outdoors — it was perfect. Tomorrow, we’re heading to Winter Park.