Welcome Back to the Adventure.
After not hearing from us since our Christmas 1996 issue, many of you must
have figured we'd fallen in a river somewhere up north and vanished from the
face of the earth. Or maybe, since you didn't send us an expensive Christmas
present this year, you figured you'd been purged from our mailing list.
However, neither of these are true. As you'll read below, our mid-life
adventures took a short break over the past 6 months. We figured since most of
our readers know the story of "Eat, Sleep, Work", nobody wanted to get a
newsletter that repeated that story. June of 1997 finds us back on the road
again, ready for another summer of adventure. This summer's theme is "Roamin'
the Rockies-1997 Tour". Read on and we'll tell you what's been going on in our
lives and what lies ahead.
Just Takin' A Break from Just Takin' A Break. Contrary to the
rumor spread by some of our friends, we have not retired. Nor have we hit the
lottery and become independently wealthy. A couple of years ago we just
decided to restructure our lives so our love of travel, adventure, flyfishing
and the outdoors could be a top priority. Some savings and the income from
renting our home in Austin allowed us to enjoy two years of adventure.
However, economic realities and professional continuity brought our mid-life
adventure to a pause this past winter and spring. In November we returned to
Austin with the objective of working for 6 months to supplement our travel
budget. Cyndie had plenty of professional opportunities with the Texas
Legislature about to convene. Her 12 years of legislative experience soon
landed her the position of Chief Aide to Texas Rep. Bob Glaze, a Democrat from
the Tyler area in East Texas.
During the 140 day Legislative Session, Cyndie put in long hours in hearings,
committee meetings and consultations with constituents. Representative Glaze
was appointed to the House Appropriations and Public Health Committees and was
the sponsor for many important pieces of legislation. All of this served to
make for a lot of long days and nights at the Capitol, as well as making it an
interesting and challenging session for Cyndie.
Jeff called upon his technical experience in acoustical engineering and landed
a major consulting contract with Dell Computer and several other smaller
consulting projects. Jeff helped Dell build a state-of-the-art acoustical test
facility that will be used to measure and control the noise emissions of the
computers that Dell manufactures. The Dell project was completed when the
facility received accreditation from the National Institute of Standards and
Technology. Only three such test facilities exist in the US and Jeff has been
responsible for the creation of two of these.
Although we both enjoyed the challenges of our work experiences these past 6
months, it has served to remind us how much work can dominate our lives. It
has enhanced our appreciation of the simple pleasures we enjoy each day of our
break. We plan to repeat this scenario of working in Austin thru the winter
and traveling during the summer for the next couple of years. Some of our
friends who get this newsletter were instrumental in helping us locate these
opportunities. We'll be looking for similar opportunities this winter and hope
all of you will keep us in mind.
Home Waters When we returned to
Texas in November the first place we headed was to the Guadalupe River in
Central Texas. The Guadalupe has a special place in our hearts. It is not only
our home fishing waters, the development of the Guadalupe River into a quality
trout fishery has long been a dream of ours and we have worked many hours in
pursuit of that dream.
When we left the Guadalupe River in the spring of 1996 our dreams were on
shaky ground. A public hearing on the future of fishing regulations had not
gone well. Emotions amongst both local residents and members of the Trout
Unlimited Chapter were high, resulting and tension and verbal threats. Then, a
major drought descended upon Central Texas and the cold water the trout needed
to survive slowed to a trickle.
We
returned to the Guadalupe in November to find our friend battered but not
beaten. Fish populations were reduced due to the low water flows but the
fishery was not wiped out, as we had feared. Cooler heads had prevailed
amongst local residents and TU members, and a spirit of compromise had
evolved. A new window of opportunity appeared to be open for the future of the
Guadalupe River trout fishery.
By
January, the fishing scene on the Guadalupe was back in good shape. New
stockings of trout by Trout Unlimited supplemented those fish that had
survived the summer and we enjoyed several months of good fishing. Late spring
fishing became more challenging, but still quite rewarding, when the badly
needed rains finally showed up in excess. High water flows made wade fishing
tough but made for excellent conditions for our boat. We had several nice
float/fishing trips on the Guadalupe during March and April.
The
springtime also brought new life to the political future of the Guadalupe
River. The compromise worked out between TU and local residents resulted in
the passage of new fishing regulations on the Guadalupe River. In April, Texas
Parks and Wildlife designated 12 miles of the Guadalupe River as a trophy
trout fishery. Along with this designation, TP&W reduced the number of fish an
angler may keep when fishing this section of the Guadalupe. We have worked
with the TU Chapter for many years in pursuit of this change, as we believe it
will be the single most important boost to the Guadalupe River fishery.
Other good news came to the Guadalupe River this spring. In May, the people
who run the dam on the Guadalupe River made a preliminary change in policy
that will result in more cold water flowing out of the dam during the hot
summer months that are so hard on the trout. Also, Jeff and Cyndie were
instrumental in getting a law passed by the Texas Legislature that guarantees
that all monies collected from the sale of trout stamps in Texas is put back
into the development of trout fishing.
As
much as we like to travel and be in the mountain streams of the Rockies, it is
always good to return to home waters. We have breathed new life into the
Guadalupe River and it returns that life to us every time we visit it. If
you've never visited the Guadalupe River in the "off season", you must come
and visit us this fall when we return to it. Come see our dream coming true
and feel me magic of clear, cold flowing water on a warm Texas winter day.
A Day in the Life Returning
to work this winter reminded us just how much our jobs dominate our lives. Up
early with the alarm clock, off to work in the traffic, a long day at the
office, home late, throw together a quick dinner and then your too tired to do
much but watch a little TV and go to sleep. Before you know it that alarm is
ringing again. And then there's the weekend, where you make a mad dash to
attend to a few personal needs and obligations between going into the office
for a few hours.
Revisiting the working life also has helped us appreciate the luxury of the
lifestyle we live while we are "on break". In hopes of inspiring some of you
to take a day or two, or a year or two, and do what you want in life, we'd
like to share a typical day in Taylor Park, Colorado, with you.
It's 6:00 AM and the light of the sun starts to come into the trailer window.
We drift out of a restful sleep and peer out the window. A couple of snow
covered peaks, framed up by the window, welcome us to the new day. However, a
glance at the thermometer in the window says it's still 30 degrees outside.
Time to roll over and let the sun warm the day a bit more before we join it.
By
7:30 the thermometer has begun to rise that the beauty of the day is calling.
It's up to let Rowdy out, make a pot of coffee and enjoy a cup or two in bed.
Then, we arise in a leisurely manner and do a few stretches to get our bodies
loosened up a bit. We find ourselves camped at 10,000 feet. There is no water
or electric service to hook up to, but the view is perfect and the day is
shaping up to be a good one.
It's about 8:30 by the time we get our running shoes on and jump in the truck
for a couple of mile drive to our favorite running place. It's the road to
Tincup, a gravel road at 10,000 feet that rolls and winds along Willow Creek.
Along both sides of the road are pine and snow covered mountains. For the next
30 to 45 minutes we'll gasp for oxygen in this high altitude environment as we
attempt to concentrate on the beautiful scenery that surrounds us on our
morning run. Somehow Rowdy always seems to have more energy than we do and he
generally sets the pace.
By
mid-morning we return to the trailer to recover from our morning exercise and
get the food in us we'll need for energy the rest of the day. The rest of the
morning is spent on a few "home projects", tying a few flies and maybe a drive
down to the pay phone to check voice-mail and
E- mail.
By
noon we're ready for the day's event. Maybe we'll drive a couple of miles to a
trout stream where we can sight cast to world class rainbow trout. Maybe we'll
take the raft and float the Gunnison River. Or, maybe we'll drive to see the
wild flowers around Crested Butte. We take our pick amongst too many good
choices. Whatever we don't do today we can always do tomorrow. After all,
we're not on a 10 day vacation, we're "On Break".
Whatever we decide to do, by early evening the sun, wind and water has taken
it's toll on us. It's time to head back to the trailer and enjoy a drink while
we sit at the campsite and enjoy the incredible view and watch the
hummingbirds fight over the feeder hanging in our trailer window.
Relaxed and recovered from a day in the outdoors we decide on dinner. There's
plenty of time to cook a good dinner at home, since we're home early and don't
have to be up early in he morning. Maybe tonight we'll do kabobs barbecued
over a bed of campfire coals.
In
the mountains it's to bed with the sun, and sundown comes a little after 9:00.
Once the sun goes away the evening cools quickly. We put some good music on
the stereo and retire to watch the stars out the bedroom window. There are
millions of stars in the pitch black mountain skies. Their light silhouettes
the mountain peaks.
We
drift off to sleep without the fear of the alarm clock buzzer. It will be the
warmth of the sun that awakens us gently in the morning, welcoming us to
another leisurely day in paradise.
If
there is one thing we have discovered over the past couple of years is that
there is more to life than just "Eat, Sleep, Work". There is definitely a time
and place for good old fashioned hard work in life. But, there also needs to
be a time for doing whatever one wants to, whenever one wants to. We hope that
sharing a day in our life here in Taylor Park, will inspire you to have more
days in your life where you do whatever you want, whenever you want.
Roamin'
the
Rockies
is the theme for this
summers adventures. Our itinerary includes visits to some places we visited in
the past, some new destinations and the pursuit of unfulfilled goals.
Our
first stop of the summer is our adopted summer "home" in Taylor Park,
Colorado. Located near Gunnison and Crested Butte, we are convinced that
Taylor Park is both one of the most beautiful places on earth and one of the
best places to fish in North America. We were told this was the case before we
drove all of the way to Alaska and are now convinced this is true. We'll spend
over a month in Taylor Park winding down from our winter work experience and
sharpening up our fishing skills.
At
the end of July, we'll leave Taylor Park and head over towards one of our
other favorite fishing spots. The Green River in the Flaming Gorge in Utah
will be the second stop on our trip. We're hoping to have a couple of friends
join us on the Green as we float and fish the crystal clear waters of this
great western river, the headwaters of the Grand Canyon.
By
early August, we'll be heading to the Yellowstone area for hopper fishing.
We've got a great place to camp that is right on the banks of the Yellowstone.
Our good friend. Bill Choate, who has joined us for adventures the past two
summers, will be coming up. We'll be floating the Yellowstone and are planning
a backpacking trip into the Park.
Our
late August plans are not yet set in stone. While "on break" we reserve the
right to change the schedule at any time, without prior notice. However, we
are considering one of two options. The first takes us from Yellowstone north
thru Glacier National Park and into Alberta, Canada, where we'd like to
revisit the Bow River, site of our first real outdoor adventure almost
15 years ago. After floating the Bow we'd continue north to Banff and
Jasper and wind up back up near Kispiox, British Columbia, where
the world-class steelhead eluded our camera lens (and flyrods) last fall. By
mid-October we'd head out of BC and make the 2,500 mile pull back to Austin,
arriving in early November.
Our
second option addresses some more practical objectives but should provide good
adventure and fishing opportunities. After the Yellowstone we'd head over to
the Big Horn River, a great western river we've enjoyed in the past.
After we leave the Big Horn, we'd head back south and revisit Taylor Park
in the fall. After some time to visit family in Albuquerque and Oklahoma, we'd
make it back to Austin early in October. We'd spend a month lining up some
projects and then we'd make a run to Florida in November, where Jeff would
attend an acoustics conference, Cyndie would play in the Disney parks and we'd
probably find some time to work in some adventure and fishing.
Like we said, we reserve the right to change anything at any moment. All we
know for sure right now is that between today and sometime in October, we'll
be somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. If you're thinking about coming to visit
us somewhere, call our voice mail or send us an E- Mail and we'll tell you
where you need to book a ticket to.
If
you don't make it out to visit with us and share an adventure this summer,
we'll be looking forward to sharing them with you this fall. Until then, we're
"Roamin' the Rockies in 1997". (Visit and fish with Jeff and Cyndie before the
end of the year and receive a free "Roamin' the Rockies 1997" commemorative
T-shirt)
Fishing Recap After six months with
phones, notepads, calculators and legislation in our hands and an office chair
under our butts, it has been a nice change to spend our days with a flyrod in
hand and cold water up to our waist. Eat, Sleep, Work has been replaced by
Eat, Sleep, and enjoy a little fishing when you get around to it.
We're pleased to report that the fishing has been dam good. We've spent the
past 5 weeks on our adopted home waters, the headwaters of the Gunnison River
in south, central Colorado. The Gunnison headwaters area presents us with some
many fishing opportunities that we can't began to touch them all in 5 weeks,
at least at a leisurely pace. However, we worked in quite a few nice days of
fishing to report on here.
We
spent many of our days fishing the Taylor River below Taylor dam, which is
just a couple of miles from our camp in Taylor Park. The Taylor River below
Taylor dam is a unique fishery, m a single 1/2 mile stretch of publicly
accessible water lie the biggest collection of large trout anywhere in North
America. A record 22.2 pound rainbow trout was landed on 4 pound test tippet
on this stretch of the Taylor earlier this year.
We've had some people who have been flyfishing for a long lime tell us about
rivers they used to fish that had so many big fish that they would attempt to
shake off any trout that was under 5 pounds, in hopes of getting their fly
back in the water to catch a "big" fish. By our generation, most of those
fisheries were lost and
a 5 pound trout on any
trout stream in America was a true trophy to be cherished. However, the Taylor
River tailrace may be the only fishery left in America where we may have the
chance to pass on this experience to the next generation of flyfishers. The
water in the Taylor is crystal clear, allowing you not only to see the fish,
but to judge the size of each fish before you cast to it. Jeff made it a
practice not to purposely cast to any fish that he felt was less than 10
pounds. What is really incredible is that Jeff was able to hook a trout over
10 pounds most every day he fished the Taylor tailrace. However, since he was
using a fly about the size of a pencil eraser tied to a piece of 4 pound test
line, landing one of these over 10 pound fish was not a daily occurrence. In
fact, it happened only twice in five weeks of fishing. Not that Jeff only
landed two fish in 5 weeks on the Taylor tailrace. There were all of the pesky
little 5 pound fish that would rush over and take his fly just about the time
he was about to hook the really big fish.
Before we chronicle the rest of our fishing experiences in the Gunnison area
let us just say this to our flyfishing friends. If you've never visited and
fished the Taylor, rent a helicopter, hire a plane or ride a horse, but go
there soon. This unique opportunity to site cast to world class rainbow, brown
and cutthroat trout is not going to last forever. We've been fishing there for
over 13 years and the fishery is already in decline from the pressure it now
receives from new anglers that hear about it every day. We've spent the last 2
1/2 years traveling around the west trying to find a better big trout fishery
and can now tell you from experience, there isn't one. If, once in your
lifetime, you want to have a legitimate shot at very large trout, the Taylor
is your best bet. Now, onto the other great fishing opportunities in the
Gunnison area. The Taylor and East Rivers join in Almont, to form the Gunnison
River. The stretch of the Gunnison from this confluence down to the town of
Gunnison is a great float fishing opportunity and we just love to float and
fish big western rivers. We did several day floats on this section of the
Gunnison and enjoyed some good fishing each day, though some days were better
than others. One particular day stands out in our minds. On this day we hit
the green drake mayfly hatch like a flyfisherman dreams of hitting the hatch.
These bugs were hatching and flying all over the place, including on the
surface of the river where the big brown trout were all over them.
It
had been two years since we last fished the Gunnison during the green drake
hatch but we still had a box of flies we had tied back then, so we had the
right fly and the fish would definitely hit it. However, two years ago during
the Green Drake hatch Jeff had fallen into the Gunnison River and got bis fly
boxes all wet. Since he had not bothered to dry out this box, all of the hooks
on these perfect Green Drake flies were rusted and quickly broke. Over a
couple of hours we must have had 20 big brown trout come up to our flies.
However, we only landed two or three of them as we fished most of the hatch
with flies without hooks, only able to enjoy the satisfaction of bring the
fish up to take the fly.
In
addition to the Taylor tailrace and Gunnison River fishing days we also spent
some time on the upper Taylor fishing dry flies to smaller, but equally as
fun, rainbow and cutthroat trout. A day trip over to Spring Creek, one of our
favorite small dry fly streams, yielded some fun fishing and nice fish.
However, on Spring Creek, a 10" fish is a big catch. We took a drive up to
Mirror Lake with family and took the raft out on this high mountain lake in
hopes of catching a few fish. It was a wonderful day in a beautiful place but
it turned out to be one of our few fish-less days this summer. Well, that's
fishing.
Now, it's on to the Green River where there are sure to be more beautiful
trout awaiting us. We'll be floating the raft through the Flaming Gorge Canyon
every day, so the trout will be just a nice bonus to what is sure to be a fine
day, no matter what is happening on the fishing scene.
Friends and Family One of our main reasons for making the changes
we made in our personal and professional lives was that we hoped to have more
"quality time" to spend with our friends and family. Since we are on the road
so much, we do not see our friends and family as often as before. But, the
time we spend with our friends and family is now not a quick dinner after work
or a couple of hours of visiting at holidays, worked into an all to busy
schedule. It is time that builds memories that last a lifetime. It breeds
stories that are repeated each year when the family gathers at holidays and
forms a common bond of a shared adventure with friends. Our adventures this
summer have started with quality time spent with our friends and families and
we'd like to share a few highlights with you here.
Cyndie's family, the Shelton's, first took her to Taylor Park back in the
1960's and it was her experiences there that led us back there on our first
summer vacation together in 1984. Just as Cyndie's family had, we fell in love
with Taylor Park too. Although we have returned to Taylor Park every year
(except last year)
since then,
Cyndie's parents had not seen the park in almost 20 years. So, it was a
wonderful reunion when Emmett and Jeanette Shelton, Cyndie's parents, along
with Rick and Ron Shelton, Cyndie's brothers, joined us at our camp in Taylor
Park for a few days of camping, fishing and exploring.
Later in the month another long overdue reunion occurred. Jeff's parents, Pete
and Rosemary Schmitt, who have joined us at several destinations on our
travels, came to Crested Butte along with Jeff's uncle Tom Schmitt. We had not
seen Tom in almost 13 year, when we crashed his home in Florida as low-budget
newlyweds on our honeymoon.
One
of the best parts of flyfishing in Taylor Park is the friends we have made
that enjoy sharing the same experiences that we do. David Clithrow from Denver
has become one of those good friends we fish with on the Taylor. David has the
coolest remote campsite set up out in the woods near Taylor Park and fixes a
mean dutch oven dinner. We always enjoy fishing, eating and visiting with
David.
We
have enjoyed several summer fishing trips on the Taylor with our good friends
Terry and Wendy Gunn, of Lee's Ferry in the Grand Canyon. This summer our
schedules didn't coordinate very well and we only crossed paths for one day in
Taylor Park. We did get to have a nice visit with Terry and Wendy and spend a
few hours on the river with them. There is just too little time to spend time
with everybody.
And
then there's the "It's A Small World" item of the month. Last summer we got a
phone call while we were in Alaska from a guy in New York City, wanting
information on fishing in the Gunnison area. He introduced himself as Jim
Levison, a name that sounded familiar to me, but we could not figure out why.
Then, one day while staring at the Anglers Calendar on my wall, I discovered
that the fishing photos that decorate my walls were Jim's. Jim and I exchanged
some correspondence and he ended up on the newsletter mailing list, even
though we had never met. It was while fishing the Taylor one sunny afternoon
last week that we noticed a guy taking our picture. When we looked over at
him, out of the blue, he asked "Are you by any chance Jeff and Cyndie
Schmitt". He had no idea why he thought we were the people that had been
sending him this crazy newsletter, but something just told him that we might
be them. Anyway, it was good to meet and have dinner with Jim. We caught him a
nice rainbow right on cue so now it's up to him to sell it to somebody big and
make us stars!
We're hoping that we are just getting started on the quality time with friends
and family for this summer. A couple of our friends have already made plans to
join us later in the season. We hope to run into you soon and to share some
time that will make memories that will last us a lifetime.
Cyndie's Wildlife Sighting Report
This has turned out to be a favorite regular feature amongst at least one of
our readers. Dave Davis, Jeff's longtime friend from high school, says he
reads this column to the children he nannies in Martha's Vineyard- So, in
honor of Dave and his little friends, here's this issue's report.
We
start off with a real odd sighting. Camels were sighted in West Texas. Don't
ask us why, there were just a herd of them along the road as we drove past.
Also along the road on the way were antelope in the fields of West Texas. I
spotted a herd of Big Horn Sheep in a valley just above the Taylor River dam.
Locals tell us you don't often see them this far up the valley, so this was a
rare sighting.
We
have a Western Bluebird that frequents the hillside outside our trailer. If
the sun catches them just right when they are flying, the color on the bird is
breathtaking.
We've got a hummingbird feeder hanging just outside the trailer window. The
little hummers are frequent visitors and provide a wonder foreground to the
mountains that paint the background in this window. The most unusual has been
the Rufous hummer which is an iridescent copper color in the sun.
There are two mule deer, in velvet, coming around our campsite early every
morning. Rowdy spots them when there is barely enough light to see. He barks
to let us know there are some "big homed dogs" roaming around out there in
"his territory".
Rowdy, however, appears to be oblivious to the coyotes that are howling in the
mountains above our camp most every evening. He just snoozed through their
calls.
There is a red tail hawk that rides the thermal air currents over the lake in
front of the trailer. When he turns in the sun you can see the color in his
tail really flash.
And
then there are the standard mountain animals. There are chipmunks, marmots and
moles. There's elk grazing in the mountain valleys. The campground birds
include Clarks nutcracker, gray jay and magpies.
July has been a good month for wildlife sightings. I expect to share the
outdoors with a few animals during our trip to the Green and am really looking
forward to visiting the wildlife of Yellowstone National Park.
Alaska On Your 0wn During our adventure to Alaska last summer
we took over 3,000 35 mm slides. When we got home last fall we assembled 180
of these slides into a one hour program we call "Alaska On Your Own". It is
kind of a combination between what we did on our summer vacation and a how to
go to Alaska and experience top quality fishing without spending your life's
savings. The program was prepared with flyfishing clubs in mind but we've
found that many of our non-fishing friends and family enjoy it equally.
This spring Jeff presented the program to the Guadalupe River Chapter, Trout
Unlimited and to the Texas Flyfishers in Houston. He plans to present the
program to other flyfishing clubs in the southwest US this fall. In addition
to the slide show, Jeff has published a 20 page guide to the program that
helps other interested anglers plan and experience one of the seven adventures
highlighted in the program.
If
you didn't get to see the show this winter, while we were in Austin, do look
us up this fall. We'd love to share it with you.
Campground Recap
When we last wrote in
our Christmas issue we were camped in our own backyard in Austin. Our good
friend, Margana Nalley rents our home and graciously agreed to let us live in
the backyard of our one acre lot. We ended up spending almost 6 months in this
living arrangement. We have sort of a "docking station" concept worked out
where our trailer mates up to a large deck and storage room/office. We share
access to a large screen porch with Margana and this gives us more than a
comfortable living space. It worked out quite well while we both held
temporary jobs in Austin.
On June 15 we pulled
the trailer out of the yard in Austin to start this summer's adventure. Since
then, here's we're we've stayed.
McKinney Falls
State Park, Austin, Texas We've been looking for a good campground in
Austin and don't know what took us so long to discover this park. It's a
really beautiful place that is just minutes from town and much more reasonably
priced than the commercial campgrounds. We'll be staying here again when we
return this fall.
Dallas North KOA,
Denton, TX. We've stayed in this park before and really didn't intend to
spend the night here. However, we got a late start out of Austin and arrived
at the Camping World Store in Denton 10 minutes after it closed. We needed a
bunch of supplies for the summer, so we stayed in this park which is close to
the Camping World and got our stuff the next morning.
Meadowlark KOA,
Clayton, NM. My most vivid memory of this place has nothing to do with the
campground, which was nice. After weeks of sleeping in the Texas heat, our
night in Clayton was cool and comfortable. It's nice to get a break from the
heat and humidity that plagued Texas in the early summer,
Gunnison KOA,
Gunnison, Colorado. By now you probably think this newsletter must be
sponsored by KOA. We do stay at a lot of them, particularly when we're moving
from place to place. They are usually a bit on the expensive side and you are
stacked into sites that are right next to other RV's. But, they are
consistently clean, safe and are readily available along the road. So, we use
KOA campgrounds as an overnight stopping place quite frequently. The park in
Gunnison is nice. We usually stay here one night, while we stock our shelves
and pick up supplies before we head up into the mountains.
Holt's Guest
Ranch, Taylor Park, Colorado We used to stay in these rustic cabins at
Holt's when we came up here for summer vacation and highly recommend them for
any of you who want to come visit us in Taylor Park. Now that we travel in our
trailer, we sometimes stay in the RV Park at Holt's while we scout out prime
National Forest Service Campsites in Taylor Park.
Lakeview
Campground, Site #3, Taylor Park, Colorado. For us, this is the "Reference
Campsite" by which all other sites are judged. We spent three weeks in this
site two years ago and were lucky enough to get access to it for 10 days this
summer. It has no electric, water or sewer service but it has a view that is
unsurpassed, is large and well isolated from other campers. Best of all, it is
located about 3 minutes from some of the best trout fishing anywhere. We
stayed in this site until they made us leave so that it could be occupied by a
Campground Host.
Lakeview
Campground, Site 24, Taylor Park, Colorado. Although not quite as
spectacular as the view from Site 3, the view from this site is hard to beat.
One nice advantage to this site is that is has a real nice fire ring and group
gathering area which was well utilized by the friends and family that visited
us. This sites was our home for over three weeks.
Cyberlinked
over the past two summers, one of the things we have missed the most about
living in the wilderness has been the loss of access to our E-Mail friends and
associates. Getting online in the backwoods has proven to be task too
challenging in the past and we have ended up apologizing in the newsletter to
those of you who send E-Mails only to have them go unanswered before they
expire. Well, this summer we've had a technological break through. Our new
Konex Koupler allows us to connect to the Internet using a pay phone handset.
Of course this link rarely works any faster than 2,400 baud but we've found
that to be fast enough to download and. upload E- Mail, as long as none of you
send along any megabyte graphic files with your message. We check our E-Mail,
as well as our voice mail, every couple of days. We love to hear from friends
and family while we're on the road. Our number and ID are on the header of the
newsletter, so send us a message. We'll send you back the latest news from the
great outdoors.
What's Next?
Our next issue won't be
as long in coming as this one was. We'll be back in about a month to give you
with stories of our float trips on the Green River and our adventures in
Yellowstone. We've missed writing to you so it's good to be back on the road
and back at the keyboard. Do keep in touch and, if at all possible, plan on
coming to visit. |