Buena Vista, CO

Wednesday, September 9

Andi was up at dawn this morning setting up his make-shift office at the picnic table outside our camper. Colorado weather in September is hot during the day (80-85 degrees) and cool in the evenings (45-50 degrees). The air felt chilly when Andi logged onto his first conference call at 7:30am, but fortunately warmed up quickly.

Meanwhile, I got the kids up, dressed & fed and then we started in on school for the day. Tory caught Aden’s cold, so neither of them were very interested in learning but we did it anyway.

Around 10:00am, Tory and Aden hopped on the back of my electric bike and we rode to the Mueller State Park Visitor Center. What a fantastic state park it is! It honestly felt more like a national park with a visitor center full of interpretive displays about Colorado wildlife, plants and geological rocks. The three of us watched a portion of a nature movie playing in the auditorium about elk and big horn sheep, and then we sat outside in the warm mountain air working on Colorado State Park Junior Ranger packets. I bought Tory a new stuffed moose she affectionately named “Moosey” and Aden a stuffed bobcat that he named “Hunter” in the gift shop, so both kids were in good spirits. It was one of those moments where I felt so thankful for this adventurous life and the opportunity to spend time with my kids.

After Andi finished his calls, he met us at the visitor center. The four of us decided to go for a quick one-mile hike on the Waipito Nature Trail which leaves right from the visitor’s center. There was a little bit of grumbling from the kids as we found our hiking legs again and the sun heated up the air mid-day, but overall it felt great to be outside in nature. Fun fact: We learned from our Junior Ranger booklets that spruce trees are sharp & firs are friendly. The kids and I had fun testing different needles on our walk to see if they were pokey or not.

Back at the RV, we drove back into Woodland Park to pick up a grocery order at Wal-Mart and to mail a return at UPS that’s been riding around with us since Wisconsin. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, but when living in a 24’ space, every inch of real estate matters! We ate lunch inside the RV at the Wal-Mart parking lot before hitting the road to Buena Vista, CO.

Buena Vista was one of our family’s favorite towns we visited during our RV trip to Colorado in 2020. Andi and I were excited to visit again. It’s a small town of 7,000 people with an adorable, trendy Main Street. Lots of great restaurants to choose from, shops to browse and tons of outdoor recreation. It seems like everyone in town is going camping, biking, hiking or kayaking down the Arkansas River. Since Andi and I knew we’d be camping in locations without RV services over the weekend, we decided to stay at Snowy Peaks RV Park in Buena Vista so we could charge up our electronics, do laundry, dump our septic and fill up on water. Snowy Peaks was nice enough, but busy with lots of campers coming and going + our campsite was right next to the highway. It is what it is. That’s what camping in RV parks is usually like (and why they aren’t our favorite place to stay). Nevertheless, sometimes it’s necessary to complete all the chores that comes with RVing.

We spent the hottest part of the day lounging in the RV. Neither Tory or Aden were feeling that great, so they rested and watched their iPads while I did my workout outside the RV and Andi sat at the picnic table and worked on his computer.

Around 5:00pm, we rode our bikes a short distance into the town center of Buena Vista. We bought new water bottles for the kids and I at an outdoor store and then biked down to the Arkansas River. There’s a cool kayaking “park” here with man-made rapids. Last year, we saw a few kayakers on the river, but this year the water is pretty low. We didn’t see anyone kayaking today, but we still enjoyed the beautiful view. Andi, Tory and Aden waded in the water to cool off and squealed when they felt the temperature of the water — brrr! “How can a river be this cold?” Andi said. Afterwards, we biked around Buena Vista and then went to dinner at House Rock Cafe. The food was excellent and we enjoyed a perfect evening sitting outside on the restaurant’s outdoor patio.

Friday, September 10

TGIF! This morning, Andi rode his electric bike into Buena Vista to do laundry and work at a coffee shop for a while I stayed back at the RV with the kids to workout, do school and feed the kids breakfast. One of the reasons we’d stayed at Snowy Peaks RV Park was to do laundry, but there was a massive line of people waiting with big baskets of laundry. We didn’t have time to wait around for that today.

Around 11:00am, we packed up the RV and drove 30 minutes south to Hecla Junction Recreation Area / also known as Browns Canyon National Monument. This campground was highly recommended by a friend of ours who lives in Colorado. It’s located right on the Arkansas River Headwaters and is absolutely beautiful nestled in the canyon. It was already hot outside when we arrived to our campsite and got settled in, and without any hook-ups for the RV we knew it was going to become an oven inside our tiny home. Andi grilled burgers for lunch, then we walked down to the river to find a cool, shady spot to hang out for the afternoon.

Andi, Tory and Aden worked for over an hour building a “hot tub” in the river using rocks to make a dam. I use the term “hot tub” lightly because the river is ice cold. “Come on in, Mom,” Tory said. “Eventually your body just goes numb.” Um, no thanks. I’l watch from shore.

After a while, the four of us laid together on a blanket in our comfortable spot in the shade listening to the river roar by and reading books. Aden and I read one of the Critter Club books from start to finish! Around 4:30pm, we walked back to the RV. Tory wanted to call into her weekly art class, but we didn’t have enough cell/internet signal down in the canyon to make it work. Instead, we lounged inside our hot RV for a bit and waited for the temperature outside to cool down a bit so we could go for a hike.

There’s an easy two-mile hike along the Arkansas River here, and it was the perfect temperature around 6:00pm to do it. Everyone was in great spirits, despite the kids’ head colds. We laughed, talked and had a great time time walking together.

I reheated leftovers for dinner, and we sat outside at the picnic table to eat. It was still 80 degrees inside our RV as the sun went down, but we knew it’d cool off in there eventually. It’s suppose to get down to 50 degrees tonight. The four of us watched the movie Ohana together before bed. The perfect ending to a great day in the Buena Vista area.