Camping in the Colorado High Country

It's a great day when your little granddaughter can come for a summer visit and stay without her parents for awhile.

This girl is so much fun.  She always has a smile on her face and loves her Grammy dearly.

After sending her parents on their way home we loaded up the trailer and headed to the high country for a few days of camping.

The snow capped Collegiate Peaks are a couple hours away from our house and we were headed to my all time favorite Forest Service campground at 9200'.  Most of those peaks are around 14k feet and are named after famous colleges such as Harvard, Princeton, Oxford, Columbia, Yale, etc.

We encountered grapple on the drive and when we arrived at the campground it was snowing, but thankfully not sticking and yes, it was cold.  It was 36 degrees when we started up the fire pit.

A little cold can't keep us from enjoying being outside in nature.

Before our trip we had a second battery installed in our fifth wheel so that we would have heat throughout the below freezing nights.  It was a great investment! Miss G still had eight blankets on her bed plus Maisy cuddled up with her.

We had a couple nice days to do a little fishing at Cottonwood Lake.  Miss G reeled in three fish the first day, all of them were too small to keep.  At one point she reeled in two fish within two minutes.

There was lots of exploring and hiking through the trails at the campground.  I was angry at myself for forgetting the bear spray, but we were adventurous anyway and thankfully we didn't encounter any furry creatures.

We moved to a deeper area of the lake on the second day of fishing to try to catch some bigger trout.  

We could clearly see the trout in the crystal clear water, but they weren't biting!

I occupied myself with a little plein air painting of the beautiful scenery.

After a few hours we decided to move over to the dock and within a couple minutes Miss G brought in a beautiful 10-12" trout.  And then guess what--she brought in two more in no time at all.  My mouth was watering for the taste of a trout cooked over the campfire, but Miss G said it would be cruel to eat them so they got thrown back in.  I love her empathy for even the slimiest of critters.

Is there anything more precious than a Pappy and granddaughter fishing together?

By now it was six fish for Miss G and zero for Pappy.  He said we weren't leaving until he caught at least one.  Then he hooked a beautiful rainbow trout that we weren't allowed to keep either.  Whew!  I thought we were going to have to stay there all night.

We saw some amazing wildlife including this herd of big horned sheep.

I've never seen a larger herd.

There were lots of deer to be seen.

These two have become best buds.

Good thing we arrived with a full tank of fresh water because the pumps in the camp had not been opened for the summer yet.  The camp host told us we wouldn't want to fill our tank with that water anyway because there's lots of rust in it.

There were lots of championship games.  G is the trash winner, Pappy is the Sleeping Queens winner, and I was the Barbie Uno winner.

Miss G got to learn what a vault toilet is.  She used it a couple times, but greatly preferred the bathroom in our trailer (just like her Grammy).

I love the sass!

On our last night we cooked some foil dinners over the campfire.

Potatoes and some Italian sausage.  YUM!

A future tree hugger.

Love, love, love!

Maisy was not a happy camper. She's definitely a city dog. She shivered the entire time and we fed her hamburgers and hot dogs because she was on a hunger strike and refused to eat her dog food.  She's been on a diet for a couple months and lost a few ounces during the camping trip.  Once we got home it was back to reality and her prescription weight loss food.

Miss G liked to borrow my camera and took a few dozen pictures of the tree tops. 

We all had a great time, but were exhausted by the time we got back home.  Several days in the forest is good for my heart and soul.  Can't wait to go again!