I had successfully pulled off a surprise visit to my boyfriend in Gunnison. I spent the next couple days soaking in time with the boys before it was time to trek across Colorado again.
It was almost Christmas and I was going back to Michigan for the holiday. I did the drive back to Denver, dropped Dakota off to be boarded, and parked Forrest at the airport.
My time back in Michigan was wonderful and difficult, too long and too short. When I returned to Michigan last year for Thanksgiving, I drove there. That meant I had Dakota and Forrest with me. This time I was solo and was feeling especially lonely.
My family has grown over the past few years to include significant others and babies, which is amazing. But it is hard sometimes to be the only family member in attendance alone. Last year, I had Dakota as my plus one and that made a tremendous difference for me. As each year passes, I find it more difficult to be away from her. We spend every second together and when we’re apart, I feel like I’m missing a part of myself, as crazy as I realize that might sound.
The combination of the holidays, being surrounded by happy couples, and missing the one thing that makes everything alright was really difficult for me.
Although I felt lonely, I did enjoy the time I was getting with my family. We are all spread across the country, so it isn’t often that we get to be together.
This year, with my sister’s new baby and her cancer diagnosis, my parents spent a lot of time going back and forth to North Carolina to be with her. While there is no part of me that thought it should be any other way, I really missed seeing my parents this year.
My mom and dad are first-time grandparents and for them, the whole world revolves around my little nephew.
Our schedules, mealtimes, and Christmas festivities were all organized around the life of a 7-month-old. While this normally wouldn’t be a problem, my overnight work schedule means that the baby isn’t the only one that needs to get to bed early.
For the few days that I was in Michigan, dinners were eaten around 8pm once my nephew was asleep. I worked every day, which meant trying to get to bed as soon as dinner was done and trying to sleep through the noise and excitement of family game nights or late-night chats over bottles of wine.
Not having Forrest with me meant I didn’t have a quiet place to escape to or work from in the early hours of the morning.
I was trying to spend as much time with my family as I could while working overnight and still trying to maintain a normal person’s schedule. I was working while everyone was sleeping and then I was doing my best to be awake while everyone was awake. I was crashing and burning quickly.
I was also going from living a slow-paced life with most of my time spent alone to spending every second either working or socializing and bouncing from one Christmas celebration to another. Exhausted didn’t even come close to how I was feeling.
In addition to time with my family, I managed to find a day to spend with my best friends. The three of us hadn’t been together since my wedding many years ago and it was such a treat to have a day to catch up.
I had hoped to be back in Michigan for a week or more so that I could squeeze in all the busy Christmas festivities while also having some extra time to spend with my parents once the holiday stuff calmed down. Their schedules didn’t allow for the long trip, so after just 4 short days, it was time to fly back to Denver. I didn’t feel like I had gotten the quality time I was yearning for with my parents, but it was nice to see them, nonetheless.
Now I was heading back to my home and my dog and was looking forward to catching my breath back in my own routine.
The vet in Denver that was watching Dakota had limited pickup hours on the night that I was returning, and it was going to be a challenge to get to her before they closed.
They were happy to keep her until the next morning if I didn’t make it in time, but I didn’t want to spend the night in the van without her.
I got off the plane and hurried through the airport to the shuttle. First stop: Forrest.
I sat down on the shuttle, nearly sweating after rushing through the airport, and was relieved to see how much time I still had until the vet closed. But then we didn’t leave. The shuttle sat there at the airport. The driver got out and chatted with other drivers as people slowly trickled on. Finally, the driver got back onto the bus.
Anxiety was coursing through my body. I was trying to calm myself, knowing that stressing wasn’t going to get me there faster.
Instead of sitting in the driver’s seat though, the driver came back towards the passengers and asked to see everyone’s parking ticket so he could tell each person which stop they would need to get off at. It was my worst nightmare.
20 minutes later, the shuttle I was sitting on finally closed its doors and took off for the parking lot. Now there was no way I would make it in time.
When I finally got to Forrest, I started him up and called the vet. I still had a 40-minute drive to get to Dakota, but I let them know I was on my way in the hopes that they would wait a few extra minutes for me.
The good people of Denver Veterinary Hospital waited and minutes later I was reunited with my sweet baby. The relief that finally swept over me as I crawled into bed next to my stinky dog was overwhelming. I was home.
The next morning I headed straight for Copper Mountain, back to the Kayak Lot to get back on the slopes.
It was almost New Year’s Eve and some favorite van friends would be there for the holiday. My boyfriend was also making his way there so we could spend New Year’s Eve together.
The weather had dropped below zero overnight and my heater wasn’t working well, so I had stayed in the camper with my boyfriend. We planned to ski (at our respective resorts) on New Year’s Eve day but then we’d meet back up that evening. I was going to ski with Natacha and Vincent of MissLollipopVan and that night we’d meet up with Emily and Danny of The.Vandersons and Kate and Curt of GoGoGallagers.
I went to the van to get ready to ski and put the key in the ignition to warm the engine up. I turned the key, but the van wouldn’t start. The last time I left Gunnison it took a few tries to get the van started because the temperature was so cold.
This time though, it wasn’t budging. Diesel fuel can gel at low temperatures and when that happens, it won’t start until the fuel warms up.
At the same time, my boyfriend was also warming up his truck, or at least attempting to. His diesel truck was also frozen.
Meanwhile, I heard MissLollipopVan next to me making the same sad engine sounds that Forrest was making.
Their van is also a diesel.
We all got out of our vehicles and congregated in the parking lot. That’s when we noticed another sprinter van with the hood up, having the same issue.
Everyone else from the lot who had gas vans were already out at the resorts, enjoying laps of the snow. The rest of us with diesels would have to just wait until it warmed up.
The Kayak Lot sits in a little spot between two mountains and therefore the sun is only between both peaks for a short window of time. Combine that with extremely short days and a low sun angle, and we only had a couple hours of direct sunshine to use.
Eventually, Forrest (with his new engine) got warm enough to start. My boyfriend, Dakota, Natacha, Vincent, and I all piled into Forrest and drove to Walmart to pick up a heater and a generator to get the other two vehicles started.
We spent the next couple hours getting the other engines warm enough to start and eventually we were all up and running again, just in time for the slopes to close.
My boyfriend and I enjoyed an amazing taco spread that evening in MissLollipopVan and then we all wandered into downtown Frisco to Highside Brewing to ring in the new year.
We met up with the rest of our friends, drank good beer, and welcomed the beginning of a new decade.
Shortly after midnight, my boyfriend and I were ready to call it a night (I had been up since 2am) so we strolled back to the Kayak Lot and let the rest of the crew venture around downtown in search of a midnight snack.
Although we had intentions of skiing the next morning, we instead opted for sleeping in and grabbing breakfast before my boyfriend had to head back to Gunnison.
That’s when I made the spontaneous decision to head to Steamboat Springs in hopes of catching the next storm.
I knew I’d be cutting it close on timing. I needed to get to Steamboat before the snow came in to avoid a dangerous drive. I pulled into the parking lot just as the snow started to fall.
I parked at the transit center, which I had heard was alright to park at overnight. I had been to this spot before; it was the parking lot I cried in after leaving Kremmling back in May (you can read that story here).
Steamboat was also the last place I had seen the guy I dated in the bus before he went back to Utah and we never saw each other again.
I was ready to make some new Steamboat memories and enjoy it in an entirely new season. We were supposed to be getting over a foot of snow and I was ready to take advantage of it.
When I woke up the next morning though, I was struggling. I was exhausted from the weird New Year’s Eve sleep schedule and my crazy work hours and I napped longer than I should have after work that morning.
I finally got moving and got to the Steamboat parking lot around 9am. I still had to eat breakfast, get dressed, and take the shuttle to the resort.
I finally got to the resort to find that 40,000 other people were also there. The line to get on the gondola snaked all the way back to the parking lot, and the singles line was even longer.
I had never been to this resort before and didn’t know my way around at all. I skipped the gondola and got on a chairlift instead to find a more round-about way to the top. I figured that would be better than waiting in lines and I’d try and make it over to some of the more difficult terrain.
It felt like I spent the first half of my day riding down a 2-minute section of a run and then spending the next 20 minutes waiting in line for the next lift. When I had finally made it over to the terrain I was looking for, the powder was completely tracked-out (that means nothing fresh was left, it had already been packed down) and the lines were only getting longer.
I was frustrated but knew I only had myself to blame for getting a late start on a powder day.
Around lunchtime, the lines started to die down but my frozen granola bar wasn’t holding me over as long as I had hoped, and I knew I needed to head back to the van soon for food.
Feeling defeated by the crowds still exhausted from not enough sleep, I called it a day. I took Dakota for a snowy walk on a path near our parking lot home and did my best to get to bed early, knowing I needed an earlier start tomorrow.
I did a much better job for the next few days as I got used to the new resort. I enjoyed powder day after powder day and found smaller lift lines as the holiday crowd went back to work.
My ski pass included 5 days at Steamboat and I planned to use all 5 before heading back toward Gunnison to celebrate my birthday.
I had just finished day 3 and upon returning to the lot I had been sleeping at, I saw a huge camper trailer parked sideways across 4 parking spots. This spot didn’t technically allow overnight camping but there were a few other vans parked there somewhat stealthily each night. It seemed as if authorities had sort of turned a blind eye to us overnighting and so far, there were no issues. Seeing this gigantic RV though felt like a bad sign.
One of the perks to traveling in a van is the ability to “stealth camp,” or get away with spending a night in a spot where camping might not be allowed. When you want the comforts of a huge fifth wheel, you lose that perk, and instead, you must pay to stay at places like a KOA.
I decided to stay anyways, knowing that there weren’t really any other nearby options. I crawled into bed and fell fast asleep.
I woke up to a distant pounding noise, thumping over and over and over. It wasn’t on my van but several minutes of this knocking was enough to wake me. I realized it was the sound of someone knocking on the van next to me. It was the unmistakable “cop knock.”
I appreciated the head start so that I could change out of my pajamas and be ready to answer the door when it would inevitably be my turn.
Sure enough, I was next.
I opened the door to the blinding light of a cop car spotlight, illuminating the parking lot as they roused all the sleeping campers. There was also a fresh 4 inches of snow on the ground.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience ma’am but you can’t park here,” he said. I found it funny that he was apologizing to me.
As always, I happily obliged but I also asked if he had any recommendations of where to go. There was a big country music festival happening at the ski resort in the morning and he suggested I try one of the parking lots for the festival. I drove to the ski resort to find that parking lot and immediately knew that overnight parking would not be tolerated, so I hurried to think of a plan B.
It was snowing hard and the roads hadn’t been plowed. I was worried about driving around too much and knew I only had 2 more hours before I had to work. I eventually settled on trying to stealth camp at a nearby hotel.
I pulled around to the back of the hotel parking lot, put up my blackout curtain (window shades are a dead giveaway that someone is sleeping inside), turned on the fan to keep the windows from fogging up, and hoped for the best.
Although I’ve gotten away with stealth camping many times before, I really don’t enjoy doing it. I don’t sleep well worrying that I’m going to be kicked out of a place. Winter makes stealth camping even harder because it’s too cold to sleep without the heater on and that makes a lot of noise. Luckily, we made it through the night, and I was incredibly relieved to leave in the morning.
I drove straight for the ski resort, knowing that this would be my last day, despite having 2 left on my pass. I knew I couldn’t handle one more night at the hotel. It was time to go.
I enjoyed my last day at Steamboat, letting myself lap my favorite run over and over and over until the lack of sleep caught up to me. After a quick parking lot nap, it was time to begin the drive towards Gunnison.
This drive took me back through Frisco, so I did a quick overnight at the trusty Kayak Lot, relieved to sleep somewhere cop-proof.
My boyfriend was also skiing in the area, so we found a quiet, non-parking lot place to spend the night with our homes tucked up next to each other.
He had to get back for work the next day, but I took my time venturing back to Gunnison. It was almost my birthday and I wanted to stay the night in one of my favorite campsites.
I woke up on the last day of 20’s and spent my morning doing my favorite activity of wandering around camp with my pup while the sun made its way over the nearby peaks. Then it was time to make the final stretch of the drive.
That night, on the eve of my 30th birthday, I pulled into a parking lot at Crested Butte Ski Resort.
I made my way across the street to the ski slope to find the humming engine and flashing lights of the snowcat that grooms the slopes. My boyfriend flung the door open and I climbed into my birthday chariot.
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
