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The hostel was pretty sketchy so I decided it would be better to crash at my coworker Steven's place and take the 16 dollar hit. I had already done my laundry, used their shower and internet so it was not a total loss. I woke up at 9am and ran 22 blocks in the rain back to the hostel, trying to beat the 10am check out time so they would not charge me for another day. 9:55 I slid in there and ripped the sheets off my bed and ran to the office. I wandered around Denver for a bit and then decided it was time to head back to Minturn. I took Loveland pass instead of the tunnel and it was beautiful. I camped out with John on land SOS owns and we listened to Andrew's first show on Radio Free Minturn.

This last week I worked my first SOS base camp, and I loved it! The kids were great, and my coworkers are phenomenal. I finished that up on Thursday and headed to Leadville to do some laundry. While I was at the Laundromat I noticed a kid, kind of floating around me like he wanted to talk to me. Finally he stopped and said, “hey man I’m with Rocky Mountain Youth Corps, and I lost my ID on the trail. Think you could help me out?”, I laughed and said no. I was in a Laundromat, talking to my grandma on the phone; I’m not sure what part of that exudes the “I’ll buy kids booze” vibe. Well actually I guess just being at the Leadville laundromat and shower, puts that vibe out. I finished my laundry and met a friend and was able to grab a couch to sleep on in Leadville, which is always a good thing.
When couch surfing ,(floating friends couch to friends couch) there are a few things to remember;
Have something to offer, something that’s not money
Money should never come into play when couch surfing, it’s insulting, an defeats the purpose of couch surfing. So far I have gotten by on offering interesting conversation and PBR. 
Never expect a couch
Go with the flow, the worst thing that can happen is sleeping in the truck again.
Don’t be a hassle
If you get a couch and a shower to boot, then good job, but don’t throw off your host’s morning schedule by jumping in their shower. Wake up early! No one will invite you back if you sleep in until noon and occupy the couch all day. Wake up especially early if you don’t really know the people that own the house. Always fold the blankets they loaned you and leave a thank-you note or a pineapple (as I did last night), if they are those kind of people.
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Saturday morning I headed to Minturn to meet Daphne and go to the farmers market. I bought some bread and a pulled pork sandwich. Then I headed over to Beaver Creek Resort to watch the Tough Mudder. The Tough Mudder is an insane race with crazy obstacles. Daphne and I went to cheer on Andrew but totally missed him. Then we met some coworkers at a party. I got on well with every one I was introduced to and hoped I could parley that into a couch for the night, and I did. I am on couch surfing fire! Following rule 3 of couch surfing I folded my blankets, and busted out of there at 745. I hit Leadville for some groceries. Luckily it was Liyah’s day off so I got to talk to her, which was great because I really miss her. My life is very hectic right now, and I miss having her always there when I need her.

Right now I am sitting at a campsite, in the Colligate Peaks Wilderness, next to a beautiful pool watching a beaver swim and collect food. I am almost done cooking dinner (first meal on the new coleman). Tomorrow I am waking up at 4 am and attempting to climb, Mt. Oxford, Mt, Belford.
 
Well staff training was nothing special, other than the fact that I got to meet to some awesome people. I cant even go on for more than a sentence about staff training because it was so crazy and compacted in to such a short time that I am still processing pretty much all of it. Our last day of staff training was Thursday and it took place at the climbing wall at Camp Hale. Camp Hale was the base where the 10th Mountain Division trained as well as Tibetan guerillas, it also housed prisoners from Rommel’s Afrika Corps. We were all checked off to set top ropes and belay. From Camp Hale I headed back to Minturn to pick up my laptop charger (that I leave everywhere). After picking up my charger I headed back to Leadville and took a shower at the hostel. The Leadville hostel is great; 20 dollars for a room, 3 for a shower and 1 for wifi. I ended up at Kristen’s house (one of my coworkers). My self Daphne, Jamie, Kristen and John S (or other John) sat around a bonfire and shot the shit all night we also explored her creepy, trap door in the kitchen, basement. We all ended up crashing at Kristen house. I woke up and busted out of there around 7 am to work a climbing day at Camp Hale. Sadly it was dumping buckets of rain when I got there so I figure it was canceled and took a nap in my truck to await word that confirmed my suspicions. While I was sleeping I heard a strange knocking in my dream only to awake to Mikalaya’s  face in my window. Climbing was canceled so I headed back to Leadville.

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I met up with Kristen and other John and we headed to Salida Co. for FIBark! FIBark is a whitewater festival sponsored by New Belgium. John and I got there just in time to see Jamie compete in the women’s freestyle expert category. She showed up with nothing, she was able to talk Jackson out of a boat and found a PFD, paddle and helmet somewhere. Not only did she kill it she won! 

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We hung for the rest of the day watching the freestyle comp. After the days heats ended I headed back to my truck to drop off my pack. As I was walking to my truck I felt an arm snake around my shoulder, a girl with dreds then stuck a bottle in my gut and said, “take a pull of this!”, sadly I did. The smell and taste was instantly recognizable, Canadian Club and Vodka. A trick broke ass college students pull to give their gas station whiskey a bit more kick. suddenly I was surrounded but people with dreds who swept me along the path to the parking lot. I recognized some of them from the comp that day. We sat in the back of their truck, and talked about the comp, as they swigged their nasty concoction. When I was offered a second pull I declined and excused myself.  The night closed or started, depending on your definition, when Juneau What?  Took the main stage. They were awesome, I even tried to dance but quickly saw that it was not working and stopped. After Juneau What? we hit the town. We found a sweet bluegrass band, The Broken Spoke, playing at one of the bars in town. After their set I waited in line to tell them how much I liked them. I mentioned I would love to buy their album, but as I was living in my truck I didn’t have it budgeted so the lead singer, Tom, just gave me one! We chatted for a bit, since he and I were the only sober people at the bar. As the collective intoxication of Salida increased, I decided that it was time for bed. I really don’t understand how people can get that drunk that fast, and I didn’t care to see how it turned out. On my way to the car I heard another band that sounded good, but the bar was really rowdy so I headed to my truck and went to bed. 

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The sun hit my truck at 7 and by 8 it was an oven. I was brushing my teeth as other John woke up and got out of his CRV. It turns out he was out way later than me, he confirmed my suspicions that the entire town was crazy drunk and I was glad I had not stuck around for it.  Day two of fibark was really cool, we hit the New Belgium Parade at 10 am and it was awesome. Then I went and watched stand up white water paddling. Stand up paddling is a newish sport where you stand up on a surfboard and paddle through whitewater. I lost interest and wandered around town for awhile. Salida is a neat little town, but it’s pretty expensive.  John, Kristen, Kirsten’s friend whose name I don’t remember and I headed to the Boat House for dinner. Then we headed down for the Hooligan Race!!!!

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The hooligan race is where people make their own crazy boats and race down the river. If they make it through the two standing waves they must contend with the bridge. I’ll let the pictures speak for them selves. 

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After the Hooligan Race an all female AC/DC cover band called Hells Bells took the stage. Whilst trying to locate a vantage to watch the show from, I almost stepped in some puke. Thanks to a friendly warning I narrowly avoided it. Literally a second after jumping over the puke a dude walked up and complemented my moves and offered my mushroom chocolates. I am almost positive the two are connected. It was about then that I decided it was time to get moving. I have decided that this summer will be lead by my gut, no planning no reservations, just freewheeling. If that doesn’t sounds good to you then just stop reading now. I tried to get a hotel in Salida, I don’t know what I was thinking, with the festival, the whole town was booked up.  I am ashamed of myself, I had a moment of doubt. For a minute I thought I was too tired and it was too late to sleep in my truck, I devotion to my summer plan was failing. Since there was no vacancies I headed back to the festival and camped. Again about 7 the sun hit my truck and by it it was an oven. I woke up and headed out of town. The plan was to head back to Buena Vista and go tubing, but the more I heard about the tubing the less I was into it. Heading in to Buena Vista I suddenly got a wild hair and cut a hard right on to route 285 towards Denver. It was a beautiful drive, it hit two passes and crossed high plains. In the heat of the day I pulled over to have lunch. I sat under a tree looking out across the great plains of Colorado. As I looked out over the flat expanse at 10,000 feet, hemmed in by mountains, I thought Colorado is alright. I used to hate it but I relized I had only seen the Denvers, Vails, and Winter Parks of Colorado, I could never live in those towns, never. I could however thrive in the Leadvilles, and Fairplays of Colorado.

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By and by I pulled in to Denver and headed to the Melbourne Inn and Hostel. The price was much better than the Leadville hostel, $16 for a bed, $3 for sheets, and showers were free and had no time limit. I did some laundry in the Laundromat attached to the hostel. This is a Laundromat bus station, where all of the signs are in Spanish. I chatted up the woman behind the counter and found out that she would sell me a bus ticket for cash with no ID. So out two and two together on that one. While I waited an old Hispanic man approached me with his hands out yelling “ Todo su dinero, Ahora!”, I responded “No hablo espanol”, and looked at the woman behind the counter. She yelled at him in Spanish and as he puttered off she smiled at me and said “he wont bother you anymore”. Then I headed off on a mission to fill my craving for fish tacos. 

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 I had also been told to go and help as the SOS Outreach (the company I am working for this summer) booth at the Denver Pride Parade. Yup. This is how ghetto SOS Outreach is, they did not have their own booth they were working the Barefoot Wine booth and a handing out SOS sickers and pamphlets. Since I stumbled in to Steven (a coworker) before I found a fish taco stand I helped them clean up the booth and rewarded with a free bottle of wine. I don’t really know what I am going to do with that since I don’t drink wine. I will probably hold on to it and give it to some one at work on Wednesday. 

Finally I found some fish tacos! I bought one for there and one to go and headed back to the hostel. Where I currently sit reflecting on what a bizarre and interesting week my first week in Colorado was. 
 
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This summer I will be guiding in Colorado. Instead of paying for housing I have opted to live in my truck. Yup. So my plan is to work my trips and spend my down time enjoying living outside with no electricity or running water for about 60 days and to squeeze as many 14ers in as possible. I will return to the front country a day before my next work trip to shower and prepare mentally for work. While in the front country I plan to post media rich blogs about my time, solo, in the wilderness. I aim to keep it light and fun. So here is my first Colorado blog, it covers travel to Vail and my first day in CO. I drove through Illinois, Iowa, and Nebraska, pretty much the three most boring states in the country. When I finally made it to colorado I was greeted by the first traffic jam of the trip. I filmed interesting bits of the drive from Denver to Vail and strung them together at 800X speed. Just because.

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I stayed at Beaver Creek Resort in Vail, which is as fancy as it sounds. Today I woke up at the crack of 11 and headed toward Leadville. My goal was to hike to Holy Cross City, an abandoned mining camp outside of Leadville, but the road was snowed out so I just wandered around in the snow for a couple of hours. Then I headed up to Homestake Reservoir and hiked around there. When I was done hiking I headed in to Leadville since I was right there. I have driven all over Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado, and thought it was all pretty, but the drive from Minturn to Leadville is one of, if not the, most beautiful drives I have ever made. A testament to this fact is that I hardly have any pictures because I was too busy just soaking it in.

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On my way back to Minturn I passed through Red Cliff, which was a great little town crammed into a very narrow valley, not more than 1000 yards across at its widest part. I also passed Gilman CO, an abandoned mining town just off the highway, perched on an outcropping that drops 600 feet into the Eagle River. The mine was closed and the town was abandoned in 1984 after two large fish kills due to mine waste lead to an EPA investigation. It was left so quickly that there are still cars in some of the garages. I would really like to check it out but it is private property, and I heard in Red Cliff that the EPA takes trespassing on a Superfund Site very seriously. 

This is a quick tour of my home for the summer. I apologize for the crap camera work
I start training for work in the morning so my next post will be on thursday! In the meantime thoughts, comments, concerns, or any advice on truck living and places to see and camp in Colorado?