Cabin Trip, Summer 2006

2006 Cabin Pictures

Thursday, July 6th
This year the trip started with me traveling to Steve's house a day early to help him with a few things. He needed help moving the rest of his stuff from his old office to his house. And I was hoping he would get his motorcycle fixed for the trip. That failed but a quick call to my uncle and I had him set up with a 1982 Yamaha XT250 that was supposed to run. We finished the night by packing as much as possible into the truck and trailer.

Friday, July 7th
We got up at like 6am in order to be in Taos by 8am to meet an old friend Mike. We arrive in Taos at about 8:30am and met up with Mike and his wife to have breakfast. Due to our lack of knowledge of Taos, we chose a breakfast place close to Wal-Mart and it ended up being a fairly nice little coffee house. We all ate and talked for a little over an hour before heading north.

Our next stop was the Rio Grande Gorge out side of Taos. Nice view. It is always interesting to look 650 feet down off a steel bridge and have a semi-truck drive over it. The oscillations lasted several minutes. After leaving the bridge, we drove to Dillon where we ate at the Dam Brewery. It was very nice. Then we drove to Boulder where we stayed the night.

Saturday, July 8th
The next morning we were up and on the road by 8:30am. This put us in Douglas by noon. We talked with my aunt and uncle for a bit, loaded up the XT250 and enough propane to scare up a little, and then headed to Casper for supplies. Once we had purchased and packed everything we needed, it was off to Midwest to do a little computer support on my Grandma's computer. During our short stay with here (about an hour) it started raining and never realy stopped for the rest of the day. We arrived in Buffalo at about 7:30pm where we filled up and had a quick bite. We did not leave Buffalo until almost 8:30pm, which marks the latest we have departed on the way to the cabin. It rained on us off and on while traveling the 40 miles to the cabin. We were a little worried about the roads being muddy but once we arrived, we were pleasently supprised to find the roads nearly dry.

This is where we got to try out our offroad motorcycle skills. We unloaded the bikes and road the last quarter mile to the cabin. Considering that it was our first time to ride down a 30 degree incline on a rutted road, we did very well. We unlocked the cabin, checked for large mammals and then went to get the truck. This marks the first time that Steve has driven his 2wd F-150 all the way to the cabin. We unloaded it and he then parked in back on top of the hill for safe keeping. We setup camp, read for a bit and the hit the sack.

Weather report for the day: Very light rain and about 65 degrees.

Sunday, July 9th
The first day at the cabin is always our rest day. After driveing for two days and setting up the cabin for the week, it is much needed. We used it well. The only interesting thing that we did was search out a geocache near Crazy Woman Camp Ground. It turned out to be a 2-3 mile hike over the hills while having to cross a river, weave the trees and trudge through a marsh. Then we could not locate the cache. Finally we found it and it was a bit disappointing. Then we had to hike back. Lets just say that I slept well that night. The trip racked up about 50 miles on the bikes.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and warm with a high of around 80.

Monday, July 10th
Our plans for the day included cruising around on bikes and that is what we did. We started by riding south on Hazelton Rd. for about 10 miles and then we were forced to make a decision. Go left to the Slip or right to a spring. Left it was and over the mountain we went. Once we got to the top, we made the decision to head to Kaycee and then to Buffalo for the day. After the Slip, the ride was just back roads for about 70 miles. It was a pain in the butt, literally. We made several stops along the way and walked off the stiffness. But soon we were in Buffalo where I got some keys made and bought a fishing license. Steve needed a GPS mount for the motorcycle and he found one. Next we ate at The Bozman, home of the famous weather rock, and had a good meal. After fueling up, we headed back up the mountain to the cabin. I can say that riding motorcycles up the mountain is an enjoyable experiance. You always have lots of power, especially to pass all the slower cars. We put approx. 155 miles on the bikes during our day trip.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and warm in the day with some clouds and a light misting in the afternoon. High around 80.

Tuesday, July 11th
This was my fishing day and I started it off great. I got up just as the sun was starting to rise and was down to the lake before it was free of the horizon. At first the fishing was slow but soon I was getting bites and reeling them in. I got many good strong bites and in the end I had pulled 3 rainbows from the lake. The first was about 11" and totally swallowed my hook. The second was about 12" and the last was about 14" as well as too thick for me to hold on to. Of course I was fishing catch-and-release and so I have nothing show for my efforts except for my memorys. By what I am guessing was about 8:30, the action was slowing and I decided to head back to the cabin. This is where I made a grave error. I left my worms in the bikes cargo area and soon the sun was beating on it. Lets just say the worms did not make it and I was unfortunatly done fishing for the day. The rest of the day I spent reading.

That evening we decided to run to Buffalo because we were totally out of ice and we needed a few supplies. We also needed our last day steaks we always cook.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and warm with the high around 80.

Wednesday, July 12th
This day was slow to start with both of us sleeping in. I spent the late morning reading and once Steve finally got out of bed, we went for a ride to explore Bear Trap (I think it is called). The only annoying part of this ride was the fact that a dude spent all day grating Hazelton Rd. Now this might be great for the cars and trucks but having to ride bikes on 10 miles of loose gravel is tiresome. We spent several hours riding and finally headed home. Again we put about 50 miles on the bikes.

We made dinner soon after we returned. The sky was threatening rain, so we drove the pickup down and loaded some of our stuff.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and partly cloudy in the afternoon. Windy in the afternoon. High around 80.

Thursday, July 13th
This was our day to leave the cabin and drive to Salt Lake City and in an odd occurrence, Steve got up early enough for us to get packed and heading out by 9am. This was a whole hour before I planned on leaving. We drove straight through to Salt Lake City, not even stopping for food, and arrived there at about 6pm.

Once arriving, the plan was to get Brian and get food. This took much longer than Steve or I hoped but in the end we did get food.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and clear in the morning. Hot in SLC. High in SLC was 104.

Friday, July 14th
We slept in while Brian headed to work. The day included meeting Brian for lunch, hanging out at his work for a bit and then heading to the drag strip for a night of racing. All went well and at 3:30am, we arrived home only to sit up talking until nearly 6am.

Saturday, July 15th
After a long night of racing, we all slept in and around 2pm we went out to get food and to buy Fight Club which apparently Brian had never seen. We were going to play some golf buy the very hot weather made up choose to stay inside. We watched a few movies and that was about it. A nice relaxing day.

Weather report for the day: Sunny and hot with a high of 104.

Sunday, July 16th
Getting a late start, we grabbed lunch before heading to Farmington. The trip was uneventful. I did see lots of elk arounf Durango though. We arrived in Farmington at about 8:30pm.

Monday, July 17th
The plan for the day was to get up and then take a tour of the Bolack Electromechanical Museum before heading to Los Alamos. Except for being chewed out by the owner of the museum for being in the wrong place, we had a nice time looking at all the stuff they have. After the tour we headed for Los Alamos by taking NM126 over the mountian. We arived in LA in the early afternoon.

Tuesday, July 18th
I got up early and left out for Socorro. After stopping for snake food and luch for myself, I arrived back in Socorro at around 1pm.

The trip was over and it was nice to be back home.