I’d about had it with being home – I tend to have horrendous wanderlust – and the weather SEEMED to be warm enough to go camping, so I talked Matt into heading over to Salida when he as off work on Easter Sunday. The shop is closed on Easter, so I had the whole day to get our shit together and take off. Besides, Salida is less than a three hour drive, and there’s lots of free camping, so it would be easy. And inexpensive. It didn’t actually occur to us that it was Easter Sunday, and there might be a bunch of people camping out there in the free spots…

We left as soon as Matt logged off for the day. Since I didn’t work, we were able to have the car packed up (and holy SHIT, was it crammed) before he was finished for the day and take off quickly.

It’s an easy drive out there, less than three hours, and it’s super pretty. Totally uneventful. And thankfully, there weren’t a million people camped already by the time we got there. We had our pick of sites, which was nice.

The only drawback we found was that it was windy as hell! Pitching a tent is that much wind is not that easy. But, we got it done. It was cold with the wind, so we hunkered down in our sleeping bags pretty early.

The next morning, we made coffee and scarfed some bagels for breakfast. We went for a lovely hike in Brown’s Canyon recreation area, a trail that led down to the river. It was nice to sit and just listen to the water flow for a bit.

We headed back to camp after that and chilled out in the tent for a bit… Then got up and made quesadillas for dinner. Yum!

After another early night (damn wind AGAIN), we got up and made breakfast (breakfast burritos this time), then headed to the hot springs for the day.

Mt. Princeton Hot Springs are pretty cool. The actual pools themselves aren’t all that, but they have this area down by the river where you can sit in the actual river, but the hot water seeps up and creates some warm pools to hang out in. Plus, there are a million lounge chairs and places to just enjoy being outside. We managed to find a spot out of the wind, and it was super nice to hang out in a bathing suit in April.

When we’d had enough, we headed back to camp and made some dinner – flatbread pizzas in the cast iron skillet with a lid on it. We’re still figuring out camp pizzas, but that worked pretty well.

That last night of sleep was rough. The wind was so crazy that it would rip through the tent fly and wake us up and we would wonder if it was going to pull clean off. Made for an interesting (and not particularly restful) night.

The next morning, we made pancakes (and coffee!) for breakfast (check out the recipe), packed up, and headed home. We were home shortly after noon, which was nice so we could so laundry and reset for the next trip, which we leave for in four days…..

All in all, it wasn’t a bad way to spend a few days. Check out our video!