Colorado Vacations in the Early 1980s

Before we moved away from Texas in 1983, we made two summer road trips to Colorado. We loaded up the car and headed to the mountains where it was bound to be cooler that Texas! We were always thrilled to get into Colorado and away from the very flat – often boring – land between Dallas and Colorado.

The first trip was in August of 1980 and everything in Colorado was new to both of us.

We spent some time enjoying the sand dunes (Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve) that collect at the edge of the Rockies before we headed along the southern part of the state camping at National Forest campsites along the way. There was a beaver lodge on a pond near one of the campsites and we saw beavers actively working on it and slapping their tails on the water’s surface.

In July 1982, we made a second road trip to Colorado and focused on Rocky Mountain National Park – further to the north than we had been before. We camped again but in the National Park at a more developed campground than the campgrounds we had stayed in before.

It was thrilling to see the snow on the peaks and the lush growth in the valleys.

Above the tree line – the tundra was a new experience for us and so was the occasional wildlife sightings.

After the national park, we camped again in the National Forest and roaming backroads. Just as we do now – wildflowers,

Interesting clouds,

And birds were topics we chose for photography.

Camping 35+ Years Ago

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, most of the vacations we took involved camping. It was a way to travel inexpensively and we enjoyed National Parks and Forests. One of the first places we camped was at Mesa Verde National Park – driving from where we lived near Dallas all the way across the panhandle of Texas and Colorado to get there. We borrowed a relatively large tent and purchased a Coleman stove and lantern…some ice chests. My husband took one campsite documenting picture on that trip. I was only in it for scale! Surprisingly – we still have and use the green ice chest seen in the picture.

We bought a smaller tent that took a lot less space for subsequent trips. There was an annual fall foliage trip to southeastern Oklahoma (Ouachita National Forest). On one such trip there were 3 couples. Our new 2-person tent is the one in the middle.

We made trip to Colorado the next summer with the smaller tent. The space we saved by having a smaller tent was taken up with the addition of a lawn chair. We still had the Coleman stove but often cooked our meal over a camp fire in a ring of stones. By that time, we had our own grill to put over the fire that we also packed with our camping gear.

The chipmunks were interested in everything going on in the campsite. We were glad we had not left the bag of M&Ms open! This picture also reminds me that we were still using borrowed sleeping backs (the red, yellow and brown colors behind the rodent).

The spring before we moved to the Washington DC area, we made a trip to the Grand Canyon with friends. We camped the night before we hiked down to the plateau. I vividly remember my legs being very sore before we even got back to the top and realizing that my hiking boots were not as broken in as I thought they were (raw ankles). Standing in the camp shower (coin operated) felt so good and I used up all the change I’d taken with me! We were all feeling even more sore the next day – no additional long hikes for that vacation. The blue ice chest in the picture is still something we have and use; our choices of ice chests have proved to be very durable. The blue car with the trunk open is a 1983 Honda Accord that we had just purchased; we owned it until the early 1990s.

Between that time period and now we have not done much camping. We’ve recently bought a new large tent and two air mattresses. The motivation is not so much to save money but to be able to stay at Dark Sky sites for Star Parties. The camping equipment can only take about half the cargo space because a telescope has to come too!