Dear Maia and Isaac,

This weekend, Maizzy, Kachina, and Sazi traveled with me to Crawford State Park for a camping trip.  This is the area where my dogs came from – the Black Canyon Animal Sanctuary.  In fact, Maizzy’s and Sazi’s original families lived really close to the place that we camped.  We got there late, so didn’t do much.  I watched the stars – the Milky Way is so awesome up in the mountains.  I was thinking mostly about you two, actually.  It was a weekend full of decisions and I wished I had you nearby to hug.

The next day, we drove around the three little towns up there – Paonia, Hotchkiss, and Crawford.  Paonia is cool – the newspaper that is run out of there, called High Country News, was started partially by my Aunt Marge decades ago.  I want to go up sometime and just read all of her columns.  We had mac and cheese – and cherry cheesecake ice cream.  I love the ice cream places in small towns!   We stopped an looked in some of the little shops, too.

Once we got back to the campground, I got set-up for fireworks, because one of the towns was holding a celebration called Crawford Pioneer Days.  The fireworks were right on the lake where the dogs and I were camped.  It was fun.  I never had fireworks in a tent before. And, the coolest thing was I was the nursing teacher for one of the campers next to us a few years ago – I had never met her in person because the course was online.  In small towns, that kind of thing happens all the time.  She came by to talk about my dogs.

It was a short adventure because I work most of the time.  But, I make a point to go someplace different every 2 weeks.  What is your favorite place to camp?