campchaos returns to Maine

One 16' Penske Truck loaded with furniture, gear and other toys plus the 4Runner containing the 4 legged members of the crew traveled over 2,600 miles to relocate campchaos to Maine. It's been a long couple of weeks with a flurry of packing, driving, unpacking and settling back into Valley life.

 so far these two seem pretty happy to me....

The last month has looked a bit like this (cue photo montage)




In the last month we moved everything into storage, drove to Maine and back, moved things out of storage and into new place, spent time with friends, played with the puppies and got married.

Phew...

a trip down memory lane via the Last Dollar Road

Dave's enroute to the East Coast right now (should be landing in Boston any moment) and Chaos and I are home with the spaz of a cat holding down the fort. I've been catching up on cleaning and even managed to trap the cat in the storage under the window seat when I made the bed. It's ok... she meowed an hour later and I let her out... really- I didn't leave her there on purpose. Although I may wish I had later when she's overtaking my pillows. I've been waking up congested a lot and blame this on the small furry one.

Oct 2007 Last Dollar Road

On our way home chaos and I took the shortcut. Last Dollar Road was the first way Camp Chaos ever attempted to drive into Telluride. The 2006 Visitor Guide showed the road and Dave and I thought it would be a good shortcut. Although it is shorter it is a more scenic drive on a dirt road in the mountain, in late April 2006 we found this out the hard way and didn't make it the whole way. We had to turn around and go on the Sawpit road instead--- but not before killing the midpipe of the subaru's muffler in a deep puddle. In April 2006 the road had been partially snowed in and was impassable. We have had some snow this season but only small patches remain in the woods and the 4runner had no issue with our scenic route today.

Our 2006 road trip covered Maine to Washington in three weeks and over 9,000 miles.

We packed a subaru and thule box with all the things for a good trip and only managed to camp out one night... where we didn't even set up the tent because it snowed 4".  It's funny now to think that we wanted to camp in Colorado in late April!

The trip gave us a chance to see ski towns all over the west and try to plan where we wanted to move... we ended up in the town that we spent 3 hours in. We had came into Telluride during the spring off season and it was a quiet town. The gondola was closed as were most of the shops. We walked Chaos in town park then grabbed pizza at BIT while taking advantage of their free Wi-Fi to send out an email update.... this was before camp chaos became bloggers and had a crackberry.

Chaos looks so young in all the photos. He was a year and four months old and still living up to his name. He had a sweet set up in the back of the wagon. Chaos was still using a crate so we packed his foldable soft sided crate along with his LL Bean dog bed for the trip. I loved that crate but am glad that phase is over. It's a lot easier traveling sans crate.  We used to take it into hotels when traveling with him. When we moved cross country we had Chaos with his crate and Munee Kitty and her litter box plus their food and our stuff to contend with each night.

While going through photos tonight I found this shot of the Last Dollar Road and also the one above taken in October 2007. It's funny to see how we capture the same mountians and now view them so differently. In April 2006 we thought this was a great shot of pretty mountains... after three years here I can now see how  this isn't...it's almost drab in comparison to the Fall 2007 image.

It also goes to show you how long we've been here now. This September marked three full years in Telluride.

heading west again...

after plum island (it's in Mass... google it) Chaos and I headed to NH to meet Conor and catch up with JJB then to CT to see Carol. We caught up on some work and worked in a hike as well. Gertie, our trusty GPS, sent us down to South Carolina through NJ/NY instead of PA and we listened... while it made for some fun city driving it was a long day in slower traffic.
chaos has been enjoying the warm weather...although the high of the trip was 95 degrees in new hampshire... he had kendra direct him to every park and water fountain available and took a day off in AC comfort while we visited with family in North Carolina.
Today Kendra took us outside the city and to Rainbow Falls. Chaos loved the hike except for the part where he had to go down a pretty good sized obstacle. tomorrow it's back in the car where we hope to make it to a new time zone by the evening...

a little drive....

so for off season i thought i would use up some vacation time and go for a little drive. We left Telluride two weeks ago and ended up back in maine. Dave came along for the first part of the trip and we went bouldering on our drive in Kansas, stopped in MA to see his parents and visit Fenway then hit Sugarloaf for some Reggae and time with good friends at sno dundah. Dave flew home then i hit the road with chaos to visit family in northern maine then will head to south carolina in a few days before making the drive west again.



Here's a little video of Elvis and Chaos playing this morning at a park in the county (super northern maine). My brother has a pretty sweet computer hookup and last night I played Elvis some videos of her cousins in Asia.

Summer Update...

For those of you who may not know we are planning a trip East in July. We've managed to secure some time off from work and will be packing into the tacoma for 2,600 miles of fun.
Before you ask...

why not fly home?

Well we have 3 homes to visit and a wedding to attend and as the saying goes "you can't get there from here". By the time we bought 2 plane tickets and rented a car for 10 days we would spend a lot more money on the trip. Plus Chaos really wants to come see his East Coast friends.

how can you drive cross country again?

We're a bit odd and enjoy long distance road trips. There's a lot more freedom having a car and going where you want versus being stuck at an airport waiting. Plus we love the simple pleasures along the way like driving through Kansas or Nebraska! Ok there really are fun things... tune back in July for the details! It also gives us something to put in the blog.

will you come visit me too?

Sorry, due to the high demand for Chaos appearences we are limiting our trip to 3 main locations. Contact us as we would love to see everyone and we can let you know the best location to see us in. We do wish we were able to visit everyone at their homes but vacation time is hard to come by. You can always come visit us in Telluride too!

aren't you worried about gas prices?

Isn't everyone? I like to label this as things I can't control so I can't worry about too much.