2022 Chevy Tracker Travels - Estes Park Colorado

What an incredibly beautiful area! Check out the pictures

Yesterday, after retrieving my Amazon package of new awning poles for my tarp set up, I decided to change my location and get back to dispersed camping (boondocking, primitive camping, wild camping insert whatever term you need to). I had finished my in town errands and had done some research and even some online - cloud storage clean up. I carefully checked weather conditions and my apps for campsites a little distance from Loveland CO, where I will be teaching Nomadic Travels+ Overlanding on a fixed income or budget as well as other sessions relating to being disabled, planning your travel lifestyle, creative use of budget gear and in Micro rigs at the next Overland Expo.

I chose, after careful research to check campsites in the Estes Park area of Colorado. The drive was fun and lovely - following a curvey rolling river up mountain roads. My Tracker doing great - although I wish my speedometer was correct because I imagine when lots of cars pass me that perhaps I am driving slower than I believe. I was a little surprised - perhaps I shouldn't have been - to find a town with a Safeway and gas station and free buses and trolleys and....no ranger station ( I had been told at a visitor center that there was one) no camping except in pay for parks like the KOA, no overnight parking, parking for 90 minutes only signs all over the place... Including in the camping areas listed on my apps. A little further exploration led me to find that even with my  National Park Pass I could not enter the Rocky Mountain Park without a reservation and that all camping in the area is full and reservation only.

Well 💩! 

I had not driven that far and it was a beautiful view from the town. Enter new adventure mode!  I took a break and walked around the crowded though air conditioned Safeway. Used most of my monthly EBT allotment of $40 for some items that I can not always find, stretched my legs - which by the way, when I got out of the car we're acting up and felt like they were falling asleep or twitching (it's my MS and has happened on and off for years) and then I turned my thoughts and driving direction around and returned to the Loveland area. 

While driving, I, of course, noticed my thoughts and initially my thoughts were filled with disappointment and reminded me of other times in my life when I was left out of something - anything for one reason or another. Like because I didn't have the money or the amount of money someone else thought I should, or I didn't have the right clothes, or I was too fat, or had my period or I was paralyzed, or my car was to unreliable or ... I had the last name I did or was associated with xyz person, or --- so I voice texted a friend. More to change my thoughts than anything. 

I eventually began to realize that even though this disappointment happened around me, that I was being led to choose a different more suitable adventure. The experience of driving up to one of the campsites outside Estes - on a very steep, dry rocky, curvy dirt road to find out that it is closed and then driving back down that scary road... helped me to remember that I don't love mountains! There's a beauty in them sure. Wow - had I forgotten, perhaps I never acknowledged that fact. Mountains are not my happy place! 🤔 Hmmm.

Get happy! Happy place - that sounds like a good subject for another post....wait for it