Some of today was spent loading up the little Bronco camper with all the stuff it takes to keep me comfortable during my mini-vacation which hopefully will start tomorrow morning. I won't leave early because of Denver traffic so I'll probably get started about 9 o'clock.

I'm glad I didn't start this trip a couple days ago because some of the places I'm planning on going have been way below freezing at night and not exactly comfortable in the daytime. But next week is supposed to be warm and nice so I don't anticipate any weather problems even though it's probably still going to be pretty chilly at night.

I hope I'm taking everything I need because even though I'll be in or near mountain towns their little grocery stores are usually fairly expensive and you only want to shop there in an emergency, like if you run out of beer or something.

I believe every place I'm going will have Internet so I should be able to post every day, if not I'll just catch up when I move to a new boondocking spot. I'm going to try and stay in national forest campgrounds because they're normally pretty cheap to stay in especially with my half-price geezer pass. They normally don't have any hookups, but are often fairly scenic.

                   theboondork

Today has been chilly and rainy with a high in the mid 60s, making it hard to believe it's now officially summer, and the same is expected for tomorrow. I heard that the high country got a little bit of snow but nothing that would affect my mini-vacation, shakedown cruise that's allegedly starting Monday.

I've been trying to think of a theme for my supposedly upcoming mini-vacation next week, because unlike my unscripted, unplanned, wintertime rambling, a vacation is supposed to have a theme and a destination even if it's a short, tiny, inexpensive vacation like I take.

The only thing I've come up with so far is I would like to visit some little mountain towns and take pictures of the late 1800s architecture that is so prevalent in the mountains. Most if not all Colorado mountain towns were built for one reason, and that would be mining. So there all fairly similar since they were all built at approximately the same time, normally from the 1870s till 1900. Often the biggest differences are how well the town was preserved, or if it was preserved at all. And the state of preservation is usually based on how long the mineral deposits in the area lasted, and whether or not the town adopted tourism to save itself.

I guess since I made a living during the last part of my working life in the old mining town of Cripple Creek, which by the way was saved twice from becoming a ghost town, once with tourism, and later with legalized gambling, the look and the history of old Colorado mountain towns has always interested me.

So maybe on this mini-vacation I'll visit a few mountain towns, take a few pictures, revive a few memories, and maybe even dig up a little history because all of these mining towns have a story to tell often of untold wealth and abject poverty, but whatever the story is it always seems a little clearer when you're standing on Main Street looking at the buildings that were built by the hands of the tough, rugged, hard-working men, that walked the street you're standing on.

                     theboondork

I think what I'm going to do is install my rearview camera on the back of the little Bronco pop-up while I'm on my upcoming shakedown cruise.

I have found that when I'm going places I have lots of free time to do the things I enjoy doing. And when I'm traveling, due to my one track mind, my truck and whatever I'm living in are more interesting to me because my life is revolving around them when I'm traveling. So installing the rearview camera will be something I'm more interested in doing then than I am at the moment, and I'll have plenty of time to do the install since I'll have no other commitments.

I wish I wasn't like that, I wish I did things based on how badly they need being done, but unfortunately I do things based on how much I want to do them and not how important they are. While living a normal life this causes all kinds of problems but somehow I've managed to survive and reach a point in my life where I'm able to, for the most part, just do the things I enjoy doing and put off the things I don't, or in some cases just let them slide on by.

                    theboondork