Back in one of my fav states: CO – Colorado National Monument

 We left our wwoofing crew at the vineyard around noon on a nice sunny 90 deg day. On our way to Colorado National Monument we ran into a cattle parade – check out the pix. We got to the park at 6pm on a Sat.; campsites were full. We drove around trying to find people to ask if we could share their site, but the one we asked already said yes to another guy. We saw a spot that looked vacated, though it had another night on the ticket. We figured if they come back, we will ask to share and if not ask some others. No one came back so we saved $20; next day paid for that night.

We had our best weather for sure on this trip, but now the bugs were coming at me. We left the rainfly off the tent and it was cool to see the stars from it.  

There are only one-way trails here. We did the Monument Canyon trail 3.5 miles one way w/ 850 ft elevation gain in the sunny heat. What a temperature change!!  The hike was kinda boring and the canyon is not so diverse. Keep in mind we have explored 8 National Parks and one other National Monument within 2 months. So like any other long term traveling, it takes more to excite you. Not to worry, Alaska will be such a huge scenery change I should perk up. But I will miss finally getting to wear some summer clothes. Can’t have it all, can we?

Mon, headed to Denver to stay with our fav couchsurfing couple, Annie and Ian. Shipped some winter gear to NY and summer gear to Seattle to condense my crap into 2 bags for Alaska today at 8am. Got me some bug spray and a mosquito head net; I’m ready for the wilderness!  Click here for  more pix.

Wwoofing Finale: Wine Lesson, Beer Pong & Giant Cookie

Danny gave us a quick tour of the vineyards and man-built cave where he bottles his wine for friends and family. The rest of the grapes are sold. It takes 10 pounds of grapes to make a bottle of wine. He manually runs a metal device that de-stems the grapes and crushes them to juice. The vines grow 30 feet tall within a year. He found hybrid vineyards from 50 yrs ago buried underground, that were planted by a priest for soil testing, which he is trying to rescue.

A tractor from 1917 has been converted to pump water irrigation. Danny said, “it just wont die” as he will need a new and bigger one down the road. Once up until 1000 AD 10 thousand people lived in these canyons. Now there are only a handful of families. Danny has vivid plans to expand and make all the wine here; projects are endless and I admire his young, strong, visionary spirit.  We learned that UT has some crazy water rights, where he needed a lawyer to help get approval to be allowed to well from his own water. It’s a dry county thing.

We played beer bong for hours. Danny is pretty good and I was on his winning team 5x in a row. Carissa also made 3 batches of chocolate chip cookies; one was a giant delicious cookie pizza! I am so gaining weight here.

 We had the day off as Danny went off roading. Joey took us to Recapture Lake and we just chilled in the sun. When the wind blew, I felt like the Earth was breathing deeply. We basked on flat rock towards the sun like turtles I have seen in Hawaii. My feet felt like sandpaper, so I gave it a natural mud scrub by the lake. 

 

I’ve been exposed to a variety and new music that I would never have otherwise discovered; it is a cool travel benefit, just like trying new food dishes.  Heard 2 hours straight of music by “Girl Talk”. I also just realized that in the past 11 weeks of traveling, I have watched 3 movies (1 was new-Paul) and a handful of 30 Rock and Office via Hulu. Can’t complain though, I am likin real life. I feel that TV supports laziness, isolation, confinement, and inactivity.

Friday, we finished putting up all the dry wall and Greg finished his electrical work. The spot b/w by thumb and index finger is so dry and sore from drilling. Our last night we made a fire and had BBQ for dinner. Oh and I got talked into a silly game of tequila shot w/ hot sauce race then slap the person; the drink was worse than the slap. I will miss seeing the stars as I will have 21 hours of daylight for the next 3 months.

Overall wwoofing was a great experience

From the little farm work I did, you quickly see how much hard work goes into it and really appreciate food. It will be interesting to try it out again in a few days in AK. Click here for more pix.

Summer time in Alaska in in 5 Days

I have decided to catch a plane on 5/11 to Homer, AK. I will be wwoofing off the grid on a remote island for about 3 weeks at http://www.seasideadventure.com.  A friendly, older couple runs a small ecolodge and kayak business.

Then I will travel a bit through AK, hopefully hitting some state and national parks. Only 10% of the state is travelled by road, so it gets tricky and $$ to catch planes, ferries, and buses. I plan to wwoof again in July roughly for a month at whaleseye.org, on another remote island, near Juneau.

Most likely will travel my way down (via train, bus, or plane) to Vancouver, Seattle, hopefully hit Mt Rainier and Olympic NP in WA then PDX in late Aug. And hopefully check out Yosemite and Redwoods with some friends.

That's my update for now at least :) Greg still plans to drive up there and be in Alaska in mid June for a month, so we might meet up again. Nothing major happened between us, but traveling on the road for 2 months is stressful and frustrating. This will be a nice break for both of us to do our own thing. I am excited to be in AK for longer and working at some cool places. The not so fun part is trying to fit everything in a backpack. I won’t have any camping gear besides me sleeping bag. I should have Internet access but most likely phone won’t work much.

Wwoofing Part 3- Shootin, Construction, and Massive Camping

Danny (24 yr old Farmer from Cali) is building an 800 sq ft solar cabin to house additional wwoofers.  He gets many wwoofing requests and there’s a lot to do here. Only the frames were up from last Fall. After Joey (21 yr old from Austin, TX) and Greg (35 yrs old Canadian) did the electrical work, we all worked together to put up the insulation and dry wall. A very new, dusty, and unexpected experience for me; but now I know the construction biz ain’t for me and that insulation is itchy. Also framing is mucho important; we had to work around some uneven walls. But I must admit I feel like a bad ass when sawing dry wall. The work is not has hard on your body, at first, as farming; but after a few days by lower back is aching.

We work hard and play hard here. Danny brought out his shotguns, rifle, and hand pistol for us. I’ve never tried shooting skeet before. I hit two, which was pretty exciting. After a few rounds of the shotgun, I needed a break as it is a powerful weapon and hard on your chest/shoulder area. The rifle gun was easier to handle and so fast and loud. Hand pistols are a piece of cake :)

We cook our meals together and being a group of 8, you can imagine how much time it takes to get things started and the clean up process. We tend to eat dinner by 9. One night Joey started making Enchiladas while Lee (21 yrs old from SC) started making chips for nachos. YUM YUM!

 

Our first weekend together, Renee (25 yr old from MA), had friends from the east coast living in Salt Lake City, going camping and mountain biking in Moab, UT. We met the crew of 15 in a canyon with free camping spot. It was the windiest camping night so far on this trip. Red, small dirt tornadoes seen forming right before our eyes and in less than a New York minute, it was all over our faces.

The next day, I realize it was pointless setting up the vented summer tent. We were covered in dirt and a pain to wrap up. But the group was cool; we warmed our bums by the fire under the open dark, glittering night till 4am. I tell ya these 20 something year olds are trying to kill me. We have had a few late nights (or rather early mornings) dancing in the living room, playing beer pong, and just chillin on the floor talkin.  I use to go the bed by 11! Click here for more pix.

Part 2: Wwoofing week 1: Farming & Drinkin with New Friends

Day 1: We start the day at 9am, which is surprisingly late, but it is still cool out there.  It’s so darn cold inside the house that I wear as much clothes as I did when I camped in March.  During the day, we dig holes, a feet deep, to plant new shrubs. I smelled wild sage; it was a lovely companion as I put my hands in the hard dirt. The intent is that the shrubs will keep the sinkholes from getting bigger and stop the erosion caused by from the canyon wind. I was startled when I heard a loud terrible sound.  A poor animal was in pain. It was a donkey; my first one for sure, but at least he was not in pain. The canyon land just amplified the sounds.  

We (five wwoofers) planted 300 plants consisting of Arizona Cypress, Utah Juniper, Big Tooth Maple, Box Elder, Cottonwood, and something-something Berry. There’s 150 acres of land; 21 of which is for vine grapes holding 20,000 vines (a mix of red and white as this is the largest vineyard in UT and he needs to diversity his portfolio). Unfortunately for me, they already planted the vines and in the Fall is when you pick them, so I did not get to learn much about the vineyard industry. We pruned the pear and apple trees and prepped them up for mulching. HAd to duck for the bees and keep a close eyes on our feet and hands for fire ants. There seem to be everywhere and quick and sneaky little buggers.

There is so much hard back and hand breaking work to do on a farm; my hands got sore within hours and every day I felt a new body sore. But I suppose there’s an adjustment period. And, I am just a city girl learning the ropes and always dreamed of working outside (careful what you wish for).

Day 2: While planting, a bad storm was passing through town and we got some gusty winds and very quick snow running right through us. It was so strange to see it coming for us and had nowhere to shelter.  That motivated us to work much faster. Thankfully, it flew by us quickly.

We all live in the same beautiful large ranch style house.  I have never lived with more so many people before. I felt like I was on Real World, but less drama! It's strange as sometimes time feels to be warped and I am accustomed to my solo time. We are also a tad isolated from town and spend our days and nights together here. Dinners are like 3 hrs later than normal for me, but darn yummy and variety. Danny, made us Petron tequila with orange liqueur margaritas. Renee made 3 delicious pizzas from scratch. Worth the long hungry wait! Our pantry also seems to have an endless supply of PBR, which is a common, hum light beer. I've never had so many in my life, but we get it from CO so it's way stronger than the beer options in UT.

We use solar power with a back up generator.  I now realize how much energy a dryer takes when we used up all the energy to dry one load. I felt so guilty but was not informed of this issue. We hung dry our clothes one day and the wind took some down to the dirt and lost Joey's underwear in the process. We have fresh well water and they need to haul everything in and out. And we haul out the recycling and garbage to town.

Click here for more pix.

Eating Well & Traveling Green

Amazing, we’ve been eating pretty healthy and organically with veggies, salads, and even wraps with quinoa, which is my new favorite veggie friendly substitute for protein. It’s kinda of similar to rice and couscous. I have been eating more meat lately, but that was a given. Did not want to be picker than I already am and sandwiches are just cheap and easy when on the go.  

We’ve been very good at maintaining a green life while on the road. Always bringing reusable bags to the store and even not using those small plastic bags for veggies.  Some stores in CO give you .05 cents for bringing in your own bag. I’ve been even saving every plastic bag from trail mix, loaf of bread, granola mix, crackers, etc. to reuse as small garbage bags. This is perfect for any road trip as you do not want to hold on to your waste too long in the car.  And, you never know when you need one, for example it was great to store my wet sandals in them when we were back country camping.

I know traveling in a jeep is not an eco-friendly mode of transport. But Greg was going to this road trip solo, so technically my footprint is 0 :) This jeep is my home for a dew months besides tents and staying with people here and there, so I am at least using what I got and I don’t got much these days. In a way I think being homeless is greener!

Part I: wwoof wwoof- city girl on a farm for 2 weeks & doing manual labor!

We arrived on Easter Sunday at an organic farm vineyard Montezuma Canyon Ranch; we are staying for 2 weeks. I t will be nice to stay in one spot for a few days. For the past two months on this trip, the longest stay we had was 5 nights in Denver. I’ve never stayed on a farm and was unsure what work we will be doing. The deal is the farms usually provide room and board in exchange for you working about 6 hours a day; usually 5 days a week. We signed up as members for USA wwoofing, set up a profile, did a thorough search and review of all the farmers, contacted this farm, and bingo, he accepted us. 

There are four other wwoofers here from MA, TX, TN, and SC; all in their young 20s. The 24 yr farmer’s, Danny, mom was in town; she made an awesomely moist carrot cake, homemade fruit and nut bread, asparagus soufflé, and we have brownies every day… When we were camping, I mentioned the chocolate easter bunny that is hollow on the inside. Had not had one in ages and they were just sitting here waiting for me. It was a great Easter dinner with a bunch of new friends. There are also three sweet dogs too. No other animals on the farm though except bees and ants and a neighbor's donkey :( Will do a summary on the farm experience with pix later on.