When I was 56 years old, I realized that\nthings were not quite working out as I had hoped they would. This was 2016. The\ncountry was finally coming out of the \u201cGreat Recession\u201d that had dominated and\ndecimated the economy the previous decade. I was coming out of the recession\ntoo; I just didn\u2019t seem to be any better off than when I went in. If anything, it\nwas worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Suddenly, I was on the outside of the bubble looking in through the backside of a one-way mirror. It was then that I realized that something had to change \u2013 drastically. Now. Ahora mismo!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I was working in the same industry that I\u2019d\nbeen working in for over 25 years, but I was being paid less than two-thirds of\nwhat I\u2019d been making a decade earlier, and the price of gas, groceries, rent\nand almost everything else necessary for survival had more than doubled. My\nstandard of living was quickly diminishing. Industry wasn\u2019t screaming for aging\nBaby Boomers who lacked mac daddy computer skills. Artificial Intelligence (AI)\nwas infiltrating the workforce, assimilating the tasks that were binary in\nnature, doing the \u201cif not this, then that\u201d calculation at Mach-plenty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Working a dead-end job that paid subsistence wages so I could maintain my existence in a run-down apartment in a deteriorating neighborhood just didn\u2019t make sense. Hell, it was straight-up depressing. Thinking about it made it more depressing. But try not to think about it. You can\u2019t. What you can do is take action. So, I did. Faced with the universal algorithm that was an anthem of the Clash (one of the early punk rock bands) in the 80s, I asked myself, \u201cShould I stay or should I go?\u201d<\/em> I favored the latter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So I bought a cheap piece of dirt in the\nmountains near the most beautiful lake I\u2019d ever seen, in a magical valley partly\ncreated by the Cache la Poudre River as it divides the Never\nSummer and Medicine Bow mountain ranges in the Colorado Rockies about 12 miles\nsouth of the Wyoming border \u2013 at a little over 9,000\u2019 feet in elevation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dowdy Lake is one of many that comprise the\nRed Feather Lakes Village non-metropolitan area. The Village, as it\u2019s called,\nis home to a little more than 500 souls year-round, but in the summertime it\nswells well beyond the thousands as folks from the flats come up to their\nsummer homes and cabins, or camp in the developed campgrounds or boondock it on\npublic land. The mountains have their allure. A siren call to some, a summons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I began shopping for an affordable camper\ntrailer that I could put on my property for the summer months, and head south\nwith when the weather started to turn. I\u2019d heard great things about New\nMexico\u2019s state park system and how cheap it was to camp there. I found an\ninexpensive, \u201cvintage\u201d camper made in 1978 called the Free Spirit\nby Holiday Rambler, out of an area in Indiana that was the camper manufacturing\ncapital of the US after WWII. It was an instant fit. I had graduated high\nschool in 1978. And, as far as a Free Spirit? Well, hell…<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0\u00a0 Through an experienced contractor who provided mobile service I brought it up to the 21st<\/sup> century with a new furnace, gas lines, fittings and tanks. I changed the lights from incandescent to LED, cutting the kilowatt draw to one-sixth of what it was and bringing better, cooler light. New tires, fresh grease and seals in the wheel bearings, a top-shelf marine grade battery and some cosmetic details, and I was no longer dependent upon a landlord or mortgage to live. I felt like Lewis and Clark when they first saw the ocean, knowing their journey was coming to fruition. Oh! The joy.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I just had to get\nrid of anything that wasn\u2019t absolutely essential and \u2013 somehow \u2013 would fit in\nthe limited storage of a 19\u2019 camper. No sweat. I posted things on Craigslist\nwith lots of pictures. I tried some other sites too, but I\u2019ve always liked\nCraigslist. Just have. What I couldn\u2019t sell I gave away, and what I couldn\u2019t\ndonate or recycle I tossed. It was cathartic. I felt unburdened, and sore. Too\nmany CRT TVs, furniture, tools, boxes of kitchenware, books, knick-knacks and\nbric-a-brac. My lower lumbar was sending me messages. I ignored them out of\nnecessity. I\u2019d given notice to my landlord, and I needed to get out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ended up having to rent a small storage\nspace just to get out of the apartment on time, or pretty close to it. I knew I\ncould put a 10\u2019x12\u2019 shed on the property, so I figured I\u2019d build that once I\ngot settled, and everything would be jake. I\u2019d built several sheds over the\nyears, and had a buddy in Cheyenne who was willing to help. He had a compressor\nand nail gun too. Seemed eminently doable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Quick came a lesson: In the mountains, the\nweather rules. My plan had been to put the camper on the property May 1st<\/sup>,\nand I didn\u2019t need to be out of my apartment until the end of May. I had a\nbuffer. My apartment in Loveland was less than an hour from the property, so I\nthought I could shuttle back and forth with my 4\u2019x8\u2019 utility trailer once the\ncamper was settled. Then came a late snow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My son and I had been ice fishing at Dowdy\nand West Lake for the past couple years, and this winter had been a short\nseason because of warm weather in December and January. We finally got on the hard\nwater in February and March, but one Saturday in late March we showed up to\nopen ice \u2013 soft water. Fortunately, as property owners we were allowed to fish\nthe private lakes and ponds in our area because it was developed as a\nsubdivision when it opened in 1969, called Crystal Lakes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The man who built the community had the\nvision \u2013 and the financial ability \u2013 to develop nearly 5,000 acres into 1,600\nlots (about half of which have permanent structures while the others are for\nsale or used for RV camping during the summer season \u2013 not allowed in winter).\nHe damned Panhandle Creek to create small ponds and one large lake (Panhandle\nReservoir, but known locally as The Big Lake). He cleared paths through the\nforest to build nearly 100 miles of dirt roads leading to all the properties.\nHe constructed a communal center, called Basecamp, with office hours, community\nmeeting rooms, bathrooms\/showers, laundry and a payphone for emergency calls.\nThere\u2019s mail service, road maintenance, hiking trails, water fill stations, RV\ndump stations, a trash compactor and a very capable volunteer fire department.\nAll funded, of course, by HOA fees. Gotta love those Home Owner Associations.\nBut, I digress…<\/p>\n\n\n\n We left the open ice and sunshine at Dowdy and\ndrove up to Crystal Lakes, nearly 1,000 feet higher, going into a different\nworld. Clouds blocked the sun here, and the wind got funneled through the\nmountains, gaining velocity as it gets squeezed. Ice covered the Big Lake but\nthe wind was intimidating. Hard to set up the shanty when gusts are over 30mph.\nBad idea. You could end up chasing your blowing shanty over thin ice covering\n60 feet of cold water. Not good. But we found 20\u201d of ice on a small pond\nsheltered by trees, and we had a blast. But again, I digress…<\/p>\n\n\n\n The snow was above my knees on the property\nwhen I visited it in late April. Solar exposure was limited by daylight, a soft\nangle from the sun and seventy-foot lodgepole pines that pulled the curtain\nearly. I waited for the weather. It didn\u2019t seem to care.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I was anxious to get my camper out of the\nback alley at my apartment complex. Loveland has a meth (and opioid) problem \u2013\nlike the rest of our country \u2013 and the local tweakers (meth heads) rather like\nto break into vehicles, garages, campers and anything else that might provide\npawn fodder for the next high. Gotta love the tweakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Time to take action again. Dowdy Lake\ncampground is one of the busiest in Colorado during the \u201cseason\u201d (Memorial Day\nto Labor Day, basically) and you can only make reservations online (it books up\nvery quickly). During the off-season it\u2019s different. The water stations are\nshut off because of freezing, but the electricity is still on and the pit\ntoilets get maintained. It\u2019s self-pay, and not cheap at $20\/day, but if there\nisn\u2019t a host on site nobody checks on you. These are gifts from the camping\ngods. Be grateful, and quiet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I pulled my camper up to Dowdy and found\na dandy spot in early May. Now, I had two homes: a vintage camper in the\nidyllic mountains, and a ghetto apartment in Tweakerland. The ultimate binary domicile\noption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s another story…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I was 56 years old, I realized that things were not quite working out as I had hoped they would. This was 2016. The country was finally coming out of the \u201cGreat Recession\u201d that had dominated and decimated the economy the previous decade. I was coming out of the recession too; I just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":1306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[240],"tags":[73,105,75,86,106],"class_list":["post-1305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rocky-mountain-rubber-tramp","tag-camper-life","tag-dowdy-lake","tag-red-feather-lakes","tag-rocky-mountains","tag-rubber-tramping"],"yoast_head":"\n