Camping at Silver Dollar Campground

 It's labor day weekend and we're squeezing in one last camping trip of the season before it gets too cold to try and stick it out in the mountains.

Day 1 involved rushing from school to the campsite (a little more than 2 hours away) to set up our camp before the sun went down. Luckily for us, after doing this several times, we got our system down and were totally set up and making dinner before the sun set before the horizon. We still had to rely on lamps to finish dinner and get ready for bed, but it was a good thing we were eating pre-made fried rice.

Day 2 included a late start to the morning (I was lucky to sleep the whole night, probably a side effect of only getting 4 hours of sleep the night before) and breakfast burritos. We explored the lake at our campsite (and running into some fellow campers who were mountain biking and also struggling to find the lake), and discovered a wide beach and the lake. It was rather gusty, so we decided to go back to the camp and explore other parts of the lake.

We made our way to Butcher Boy and started the 11-mile hike from there (we didn't have plans of doing the entire hike). The water had receded a significant amount (we're in the middle of a climate crisis! This is bad!), so as we traveled across rocky terrain, the GPS was telling us we were currently in the middle of the lake.

It made for some interesting islands and meandering inlets, that were good for newbies to launch a paddleboard. Since it was labor day weekend, the weather only got up to 70 or 80, and the water was definitely much colder than that. Coupled with the windy weather meant falling in would not be a pleasant experience, and was preferably not an option.

As we continued out of the lake and into the forested tree line, we found the path was quite narrow but flat. Meaning there were several mountain bikers that we encountered, but we had to climb to the sides to avoid getting run over.

There was also an abandoned mine that we passed, which was really neat. 

There were quite a few warning signs, which made me a little wary (though I didn't see any accessible entrance. The cave looking structure was rather closed off).

But it totally inspired me for a mystery story that I think would be really cool to write and publish. I like publishing stories anyways, so it's not much of a leap, but writing it out, and writing it well, is going to be a challenge.

We also stopped somewhere along the lake along the rocks to have our lunch of extra breakfast burritos. The grasshoppers were almost deafeningly loud, and it was quite windy by the lake, but it was a beautiful picnic spot.

Since we were walking on the trail around the lake, there were some neat waterfalls/rivers that we crossed over. 

Plus, my younger sister has been getting really good at taking interesting, aesthetic shots. I've taught her well.

We wrapped up the day by driving to some outlook points and seeing the view from above. They are a bit of a trek from the parking lot, so considering how we've already done a bit of a hike, my mom and sister were pretty tired, so we only visited one of the three points of interest.

Dinner that day was a tin foil meal my mom made that included shrimp, onions, broccoli, and sweet potato. It tasted really good and we just tossed it over the fire (the added bonus that shrimp cooks quickly and it's easy to tell when it's cooked). We also had some corn roasted over the fire, but something we learned was to not buy corn a week in advance before cooking it. 

Day three involved donning our swimsuits and heading back to Butcher Bay (the water was calmer there) to go paddleboarding. My dad recently bought a paddleboard, and he was determined to give it a go. So we walked around to try and find a place to put down our blanket, though, it was very rocky. It was also rather windy, so we decided to wait it out a bit with a picnic lunch of bagel sandwiches that we made earlier that morning. 

My sister and I also skipped rocks in the water (her having more success than me). My aim was quite off and I somehow skipped a rock into my knee rather than the water.

And just generally having fun with throwing rocks in the water and taking photos.

The paddleboard can only hold two people at a time, so while my dad and sister went first, I got started on my story while my mom read a book and hid from the wind.

But they succeeded in inflating the paddleboard and setting out into the water without falling in. Like yesterday, the water was very cold, and first getting into the water was not a pleasant experience, but you acclimate, and by the end of it, it's fine to stand in it thigh deep.

My sister and I took it out for a spin and ended up making a rock tower on one giant rock in the middle of the water. We headed to an island, picked up some rocks, then paddled over to the rock to place our rock tower. We got a bit overconfident and almost lost our paddle out to the lake, but neither of us fell into the lake trying to retrieve it (even with her jumping back onto the paddleboard and me nearly falling backward off the board trying to get the paddle).

We finished off with lots of warm, melty smores (pro-tip, melt the chocolate first, and then roast your marshmallow). They were a bit messy (a lot, melted chocolate got everywhere), but soft chocolate was much better than hard chocolate that needed to be broken apart.

It was an overall fun trip, though, having the prospect of homework and school looming over us dampened our spirits on the way home.

Camping at Arapaho Bay Campground

Being able to camp here was an amazing stroke of luck, to begin with. You book a place to camp at recreation.gov, and my parents had been looking for a place to camp, but we booked it a little late. We didn't really realize the potential of camping until the middle of summer, so we didn't really plan ahead. So when a spot opened up during Labor Day weekend, it was unbelievable. Of course, we booked it immediately.

I'm currently in college, so I was still doing homework and working Friday night before we left. Along with my parents still work and my younger sister is also in school, so we kind of haphazardly packed everything the night before with little planning. We had gone camping before and it went all right, so this wasn't our first rodeo.

Saturday we had a bit of a rough start, everyone woke up kind of late and we still did last-minute packing and cooking so we left a little before noon. We were confused by the navigation by Google, there was the main route using I-70 that seemed congested due to the forest fires, and another way via Estes Park that only showed up on one of our phones, but not two of them. It looked like going via Estes Park was shorter, so we went that way.

We realized when we hit Estes Park that we were going to have to pass through Rocky Mountain National Park, which has a limited number of passes available due to Covid-19 that needed to be booked in advance. We did not do that, so we had to go back down through I-70 (but instead of backtracking completely, we went down using Allenspark). However, we were hungry, so we took our fried rice and decided to take our lunch at Estes Park.

Honestly, it cost more than it was worth. We did get to eat outside in some nature, but so many people were not wearing face masks, and for me at least, there's something aggravating about it. It's so easy to wear a mask and it protects others, yet people decide not to. I can't help but think of a meme I saw whenever I see people without a face mask (shown below), yet I know that confronting them just results in a loss for me.

 

So we hurriedly scarfed down our food and left, taking the long trip down from Estes Park towards our destination. 

We arrived fairly late (a couple hours before sunset), and the host of the campsite had given our site to someone else. But it was just a minor inconvenience. The people were in a mobile home, so they quickly packed up and moved sites and we moved in. Again, it wasn't that big of a deal, it was just something that happened.

So we hurriedly put up our tent and made dinner in the waning hours of sunlight. We also tried to set up our telescope, but it was just too much in too little time, so it didn't work out very well. My sister was in charge of our meals for the trip, and she planned some canned soup and bread for dinner. I realized that she had overplanned the amount of bread that we had since she planned bread for dinner and for lunch the next day with just one loaf. So perhaps in the future, we need to bring two loaves. 

The stars were amazing. There wasn't a cloud in sight and there was little light pollution so we could see a whole new array of stars. We could even make out the milky way galaxy with the strip of stars, and we watched the big dipper dip below a mountain. It was truly beautiful, but we were too tired and wanted to get up early the next morning to really take it in.

We got up the next morning and took a hike around the lake up from the camping site. We took our car and drove a few minutes away from the campsite to a trailhead that was packed (which was reasonable considering how it was 9-10am). The funny thing was, as soon as we parked, even more cars came up the road and tried to find a place to park. So even though we were later than we wanted to be, we still somehow 'beat the rush.' 

It ended up being much longer than expected. We wanted to sit by the lake and eat, but there was a large stretch that went through the forest that seemed to go on forever. We did bring some granola to snack on while we were hiking, so we snacked on them until we got to the lake.

It was pretty windy where we were sitting, but that was probably because we were right by the lake. But it was nice and shaded, so we took a break to eat our sandwiches. There were also a lot of people who were doing things on the lake, like kayaking or paddleboarding. Since we didn't have any of the aforementioned equipment, we just took a nice hike.

My dad has also been taking a lot of scenery videos for his zoom backgrounds since we are in the middle of a pandemic and he's working at home.

Also, there were a lot of people who didn't wear masks. I've decided that if they're not going to respect my life (by wearing a mask to help prevent the spread of covid), I won't respect them and say hi or try to be friendly with them.

The campsite was also situated by a lake, and since we got back in the afternoon, we weren't ready to eat yet so we spent the afternoon playing in the water and exploring.

Again, a lot of people had brought equipment to play in the water with, but we mostly just waded. However, the water was pretty cold, so we didn't get into the water that much (except my sister). She was playing with the rocks trying to find nice ones to skip, and just kept on going deeper and deeper. She got to a point where she was waist-deep in water and her arms and tips of her hair were soaked. We were joking with her she just needed to dunk herself in the water by this point, because she was almost already completely wet.

The lake (manmade by the way) was huge. It felt almost like I was back traveling in Indonesia it was so much water. It felt like we were on the edge of the ocean, and the mountains in the background were islands that were cropping up from the water. 

The other side of the lake had a completely different view from the one seeming to go on forever. This side felt more like it was nestled in between mountains, and the background looked prettier, even though the foreground was a little ugly since the waters were shallow.

That night we were able to take some time to watch the night sky. As I mentioned before, it was gorgeous, and we saw a lot of the same things we saw the night before. We received a telescope from my great-aunt, so we brought it with us and tried to use it to focus on some planets, but it still looked like tiny white dots in the telescope, so we abandoned that and just sat in chairs while gazing at awe at the sky.

On the way back, there was already some traffic in the mountains (probably caused from traffic lights in streets that cause a huge backup). We left before noon, and we just had a fairly large, protein-filled brunch (half a bagel, corn beef hash, eggs, and some bacon), so we were ready to make the trip. Overall it wasn't too bad. It's pretty calm and I got to choose the music we listened to since I was the driver.

I know I'm a pretty slow driver, and I was driving a little conservatively because our car was packed along with a bag on top. I'm not too upset when people pass me, except when we're in the middle of a traffic jam. There was one particularly bad pass when I was crossing a fast road (like a single lane highway) and I hesitated for a moment, making sure I'd be able to cross in time when the car behind me cut me on the turn. This was a single turn lane, and I was watching my right to make sure it was safe, so when I make the acceleration and turn into the smaller road, the car behind me had done the same thing just a second earlier. It was a little stressful since I wasn't watching to make sure the car behind me didn't cut me off. Luckily, there was no collision.

A second (mostly just annoying) pass was down the mountain. It was pretty much brakes on all the time traffic, with some almost stop and go. I didn't want to burn out the brakes by holding them the entire way down the mountain, so I would come to pretty much a complete stop, and then let the car roll until I had to stop again. The car was pretty heavy, so once we started rolling it got fast. But apparently, this was aggravating for the car behind me, since they passed me as soon as they could, even though it wasn't like they were getting anywhere fast. It was still the same stop and go traffic for 15-30 minutes. 

However, we made it home early afternoon, since we definitely wanted to beat the rush home and get ready for the next week.

Indonesia Trip 2019: Last day in Penang! (August 2nd)

Our last day in Penang involved heading up to Penang Hill to see what it was all about. It started with a fast and steep train of sorts up to the top of the hill. Once at the top, we took the mandatory panoramic shots from the hill overlooking the city below. We tried to find the place where we were staying at, and we were able to find it! Which was pretty neat.

We walked around for a little bit before deciding we wanted to go to The Habitat on the hill. We bought some food first (fried local cuisine) and entered the area. There were a lot of beautiful plants and butterflies. Supposedly some squirrels lived in the trees, but we were unable to find any.

 Among all of this greenery and plants, there are a few swings where people can just get on and swing. It's definitely an interesting experience, but a nice break for tired legs.

The big interesting thing about The Habitat (other than the plants and animals) is that there are bridges and walkways in the canopy, which looks very cool in their flyer, but when you get there, it's a bit underwhelming. However, there is a large circular structure above the tree tops, and when you go up there, you're debriefed on the rules (like no running or roughhousing), and in case of sudden bad weather, the person at the bottom would blow their whistle and everyone had to immediately go down. Definitely not a place to go if you're afraid of heights.

Another crazy thing was, we were apparently there at the same day some governmental person was there. I want to say some ambassador or secretary. It was interesting, since there was this huge crowd with a bunch of cameras just there with us. 

After a long day up in The Habitat (we spent nearly the whole day there), we returned to the hotel to have one last dip in the pool. Which is a pretty nice place since it's on the 11th floor of the building, and opens up to the city beyond.