I'm going to take some things out of the Arctic Fox and put them in my storage room in Divide tomorrow. I've been meaning to do this ever since I got back to Denver this spring but driven by laziness and procrastination it just hasn't gotten done.

I'll probably spend the night somewhere in the area since the little bronco camper's still on the back of the truck and  come back to Denver Tuesday morning.

Which reminds me of how convenient it is to have a camper that goes wherever you go without getting in the way and instead of being a problem and adding difficulty and worry to whatever you're doing it actually gives you more freedom. And to me of all the freedoms I can have, freedom from worry Is at the top of my list. I think I mentioned before that my attitude towards worry is, if the problem can be fixed, fix it, and if it can't be fixed, don't worry about it.

It seems like even though we may not have much of anything to worry about we will make something up, after all you can always worry about money, or your health, but worries like that don't accomplish anything except to make your life miserable and what's the point of that? like I mentioned before I try to follow what Bobby McFerrin sang about in his hit song, "Don't Worry Be Happy" I try my best every day not to worry and just be happy.

Now one of the ways to be happy is to remove as much worry from your life as you can, and one way to do that is to remove the things that bring worry into your life even if it's only for a short period of time, and that's kind of what this blog post is about, the lack of worry I have when I'm traveling with the little Bronco slide in camper. Soooo...

When I'm traveling with the Palomino Bronco slide in camper I don't worry about....

Four extra tires on the road that are wearing out and can pick up a nail and go flat at any minute.

Backing up.

More bearings wearing out or seizing up.

Finding gas stations that are big enough for me to get in and out of.

Windy days that making driving hazardous.

Hoping I can find a pull-through camp site.

Going slower than everyone else.

Getting pitiful fuel mileage. The Broncos fuel mileage is 50% better than pulling the Arctic Fox.

Finding a place to park in town.

Camping where it's not allowed. I can leave the top down, sleep on the sofa, and look like I'm shopping at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Backing up.... I know I've mentioned it before that's how important it is.

Going to places I wouldn't dream of taking a trailer.

There's more but I think you get the picture. Going somewhere with the little Bronco on the back of the truck is hardly any different than going somewhere without it in terms of worry and hassle. But it gives me the ability, on the spur of the moment, to spend the night somewhere if I decide I want to, and how do you get more free than that.

                     theboondork

So how did the shakedown cruise go? Overall I would say it went very well, there were some annoyances but there was nothing that would cause me to want to change this way of taking mini-vacations and go back to sleeping in a tent.

Years ago when I was traveling in my Hallmark pop-up I always had a home to come back to so there wasn't much I had to carry with me. Any problems I had I would just live with until I got back home and could fix them. I wouldn't even do laundry on the road in less I was going to be at a friend or a relative's house, I would just carry enough clothes to last. So given my experience with the Hallmark pop-up and now the little Bronco pop-up I have a lot of respect and admiration for people who can full-time in a home that small.

But in this case the smallness really didn't matter the bronco has plenty of room for me to live in for a short period of time. And even though there wasn't a lot of pantry space, the fact is I was never so far from a store that I needed to stock up on enough food to last for weeks.

I really liked the memories that came back to me about how easy it was to go anywhere with the Hallmark pop-up, and it's the same thing with the Bronco. Having it on the back of my truck was never a detriment to me going anywhere I wanted to go whether in a crowded town or up a Jeep trail in the mountains, I felt I could go anyplace that the truck alone could go.

Annoyances? I don't like the fact that I have to strike a match to light the stove so I might buy a BBQ type Piezo lighter and install it on the main burner.

Getting into the bed is a bit more difficult than I would prefer because it's a little higher than my hallmark was. I can get in and out of it okay but I would prefer if it wasn't such a stretch, but then again maybe I'm just more geezerly than I used to be.

My biggest complaint is the annoyance of having to tuck the canvas into the camper when I put the top down. On the Hallmark pop-up  as the top was coming down the canvas automatically tucked inside. On the Bronco the canvas billows out and I have to walk around the camper tucking it inside before the top can come all the way down. This is not a difficult problem, it just takes an extra five minutes before I'm packed up and ready to go, I just find it annoying to do because I didn't have to do it with the Hallmark, but then a Hallmark cost twice as much.

Some of the annoyances I had were simply me not being used to living in the Bronco and knowing where to put things or where they are after I put them there. But most of that will just take some getting used to. I'm leaving a lot of things in the Bronco, some will stay there permanently, and some will stay there until I leave in the fall, but the next time I go somewhere most things I need for the trip will already be in the Bronco, so my mini-vacation checklist is now rather small.

So the little Bronco kept me warm and comfortable, I don't know if it will keep me dry because it never rained. It allowed me to go places I never would've taken the trailer. And made getting around in town, or down a narrow Jeep trail worry free. So all in all it was a heck of a lot better than sleeping in a tent, and a thousand times better than sleeping in the truck so any annoyances I have need to be compared to my previous way of taking a mini vacation.

                         theboondork

By 8 o'clock this morning I was packed up and headed back down the miserable Jeep trail that got me up to this National Forest campground where I spent the night. Surprisingly enough I made it back to a paved road in less than half an hour with no damage visible. Of course its not always the visible damage that gets you, it's the internal damage to the tires that worries me the most.

I stopped in Buena Vista, the locals call it Bueny "rhymes with puny" and took a few pictures, it's really hard to drive through Buena vista without taking a few pictures it really is a pretty place, I guess that's why they named it Buena Vista.

Then it was on to Leadville which is really an interesting place and has more history you would think one town could have. It's an old mining town of course and was saved from ghost town status by being on a major highway, and realizing early on the value of tourism.

I'm boondocked in the National Forest tonight and since I'm kind of in the middle of nowhere I have no phone service or Internet so when you see this it will be Friday