Major Mountain Fix

The Circle arrived back home yesterday afternoon after an outstanding trip to the mountains. It was unusual for me to return on a Sunday with all the work a day peons, but that's what the rest of The Circle is. Being the nice guy that I am I returned with them and was reminded why I don't do that unless I have to.

I left town on Thursday and got to the campsite just outside of Buena Vista at about noon. The campsite was already pretty full but I managed to get two sites that would hold all three of our RVs.

Thursday afternoon it rained pretty hard for 2 or 3 hours so I used the time to finish up a book I had been reading. The rain caused things to cool down quite a bit and I had to resort to a light jacket to keep comfortable. Wearing a jacket in July makes me smile!

The rest of The Circle arrived mid day on Friday and spent the afternoon getting set up and enjoying the clean mountain air. While all this was going on Guitar and I slipped away to do some exploring up Cottonwood Canyon. I have been going to this campground for 45 years now but I had never explored up the canyon. I can't believe I have been missing this for 45 years!! Guitar and I decided that this would be an ideal excursion for the full Circle on Saturday.

Friday night Guitar acted as chef and cooked up some wonderful steaks and we had a great dinner. The only thing that was missing to make things perfect was The Bride. The Bride had to stay in town to do school work, as I mentioned in my last post.

Saturday morning the temperature was 40 degrees when I got up about 6 am but it quickly warmed up into the 70's once the sun peeked over the mountains. A perfect day for a trip into Mineral Basin. I can't think up enough superlatives to describe our day. Mineral Basin is....a basin or a bowl surrounded by beautiful mountains. The basin itself is just below timber line and most of the mountains surrounding it are 13,000 feet or taller. To make things even more spectacular, the wildflowers were all in bloom. I'll just let some pictures do the talking....














































Saturday night K acted as chef and we dined sumptuously on fresh ham, mashed potatoes and a variety of other sides. This really hit the spot after our day in the mountains.

Sunday morning K and Too Tall - Two Timing took a kayak ride on Cottonwood Lake while Guitar, Pic-E and myself explored another old mining road right above the campground. Noontime came all too soon and we had to head back to the city.

I'm not sure how we're going to be able to top this trip. It was one of those perfect things where everything just fell into place.....but we're sure going to try.

Thanks for visiting.