Forget the map, who needs gas?

Day 8: Routt National Forest, CO to Ridgeway State Park, CO via Aspen, CO. Trip Total 2,819 miles.

My forehead is peeling. My brother says it’s because I didn’t moisturize.

In the middle of the night the wind picked up, the flapping of the tent woke us up. It also woke up something else. I don’t know if it was wolves or coyotes, but it sounded like there were hundreds of them, all around us in all directions, some close, some far away, all howling at the moon. Eventually the wind dies down, as does the howling, and we get back to sleep.

It’s now 3:00am, and Katie is shaking me, and says exactly what you don’t want to hear at 3:00am in a tent – “Daddy, I had an accident in my sleeping bag”. Especially when the tent is on a slight hill, you're both laying on an inflatable mattress, and she’s slightly uphill from you. I get her clean clothes, move her sleeping bag into the “porch” area in the tent, then her, her elephant, and her bear squeeze into my sleeping bag with me. She goes straight off to sleep. I can’t get back to sleep.

I’m up at first light, go find some more firewood and get the fire going, and wait for everyone else to wake up.

After breakfast we pack up camp and a miracle occurs – for the first time ever I manage to get my sleeping bag rolled up tight enough to fit in its bag on the first attempt! I check in with the wife, and instead of saying anything when she picked up the phone, she just simply holds the phone to her computer and plays the dueling banjos from Deliverance. This is what I have to put up with.

While driving through Steamboat (three times) the previous day, nothing jumped out at us as, so we decided to skip the 30-mile drive back to go look around. After my brother has finished moisturizing, we head south towards Aspen.

It’s a scenic drive, and by this point we are both sick with each other’s iPods, so the radio is on. The only decent channel we can find is actually playing good music – Rolling Stones, followed by the Eagles and then Steppenwolf – until my brother points out everything this station has played so far is also on my iPod. Didn’t bother me.

When we left the campsite, we had about 3/8ths of a tank of gas, so started looking for a gas station straight away. We didn’t find one, and soon we lose cell signal again. By the time we are 12 miles away from I-70, the gauge is showing empty and still no cell signal. Driving carefully, we manage to get the car to the Interstate on fumes – to a small town called Wolcott. We don’t see a gas station, so my brother runs into a small restaurant to ask where the nearest gas station is. It’s in the next town west – in Eagle. 12 miles on the Interstate, or 10 on the back road. We take the back road, hoping it’s mostly down hill. The back road runs alongside a river with numerous people white-water rafting down it, but few other cars on the road – if we run out of gas, we’ll be trying to hitch a ride on a raft.

We make it to Eagle, get gas, and a Subway for lunch for the third day in a row.

From there, heading west on I-70 is spectacular. There is a river, train track, and two sides of the interstate winding through a deep valley, crisscrossing, and going through tunnels (which Katie loves).

Once we pull off the interstate, first stop is a Wal-Mart – my brother stocks up on more t-shirts and underwear, and we get a new sleeping bag for Katie, before driving down to Aspen. A couple of hours are spent in Aspen – I unsuccessfully attempt to get an internet connection (laptop problems) while Katie and my brother look around some nice, but somewhat overpriced shops.

After getting Katie an ice-cream (and my brother moisturizes again), we double back, and then head south again until we hit Ridgeway State Park a couple of hours before sunset. It’s not until we’ve paid and pulled into the parking lot, that we realize the camp site is across a narrow bridge spanning the river, past the big bear warning sign, then half a mile up a very steep incline. They provide big-wheeled bins to haul your stuff up to the campsite, but we are still at almost 7,000 ft and it takes us 3 bin loads to get our gear to the campsite – after getting up there my resting pulse feels about 300. It’s then we realize our 13’ by 17’ tent won’t fit on the 12’ by 12’ raised pad at the site. Moving the big, heavy, metal picnic bench out of the way, we manage to squeeze the tent on the ground in front of the raised pad, with the door opening right next to where the fire is supposed to be - no fire tonight then.

Katie writes her name in giant letters in the empty raised tent pad using the heel of her shoe, we eat, and call it a night.