Korey Atterberry’s Idle Chatter

I am now officially a Wikipedia contributer. Tonight I submitted my article on popup campers on Wikipedia. I’m surprised that no one had ever written one up until now, but hopefully my submission will be deemed worthy and not deleted. I included a couple of pictures of our popup, since it’s easiest to use your own “work” (otherwise getting permission is a bit more convoluted).

This is my first real contribution to Wikipedia, and I’m neither a professional writer nor a world-wide expert on popups, so help out the article if you can!

We like to take our kids camping in our popup, but one problem I hadn’t solved yet was the lack of a night light. Evan likes to have one, and it’s nice to be able to see a little bit when sharing a “room” with kids. What I did was modify an existing light in the camper to add a night light feature.

Once I figured out what to do, it was a fairly easy project. Check out the project page for more information.

A couple of weekends ago some buddies and I took a weekend trip to Starved Rock for a men-only camping trip. There were five of us: me, Jeremy, Dave, Eric and Colin, but the camper wasn’t all that crowded. Parking was, however, since most of us had to drive separately.

Jeremy and I headed to camp early Friday afternoon. We dropped the camper off at the campsite then drove to Ottawa in the rain, where we played a round of disc golf in the rain. Afterwards, we drove back in the rain and set up the camper in the rain. See a pattern? Dave showed up around 7pm and the rain continued pretty heavily until about 8:30pm. Around 9:00, Colin and Eric showed up.

On saturday, we hiked most of the trails at Matthiessen State Park. The weather was very cooperative, but the previous rain made most of the trails in the lower dells very muddy; Colin found himself knee-deep in the mud at one point. I fell in the pool at the bottom of the falls (apparently wet slanted rock is slick). Colin was attacked by a salamander at the same pool (okay, it just climbed over his foot).

Dave and Jeremy had to leave around mid afternoon, so Colin and Eric and I headed out to Starved Rock afterwards. He hiked up St. Louis canyon followed by heading up Starved Rock itself around sunset. On top of the rock we ran into a group of amateur “ghost hunters” looking for “orbs” in their digital photos.

Sunday morning, we ended up sleeping in pretty late, so Colin and Eric had to leave. I took the opportunity to winterize the camper. Now it’s time to wait for spring… Actually, I’ll likely try to plan a tent camping trip like last year if I can swing it.

I posted the pictures from our excursion on the photos page. In case you’re wondering about the pictures, I’d just gotten a new camera, so we did a lot of fooling around trying to get interesting action shots.

Last weekend, Derrick, Dave and myself finally got together for a guys-only winter camping trip. It was my first tent-camping trip in a couple of years and the first guy time I’d had in quite some time. In the days preceding the trip, we decided to do a sort-of double trip. We planned to camp from our bicycles on Friday night and head to Jubilee for Saturday.

On Friday night, we met up at the Alta trailhead for the Rock Island Trail. We got reacquainted, shuffled around some gear, and loaded up into my pickup to head to our starting point north of Princeville, leaving Derrick’s truck in Alta. When we got there we set up the bikes and loaded the trailers with our gear. We didn’t all have lightweight backpacking gear, so Derrick and I pulled toddler trailers full of gear. Dave strapped some firewood to his bike rack and carried a backpack.

We’d initially planned to get started on the trail around 4 or 5pm, but due to some unforeseen circumstances we didn’t set out until about 10:30pm. Oh well The temperature was around 40 degrees and it was misting slightly for most of our journey. Unfortunately the hard pack trail was a little soft and made the going a little tough. We took our time (mostly because we weren’t all in stellar shape), stopped fairly frequently and headed through Princeville and Dunlap. About 8 miles in, we were making pretty slow progress. It was about 12:30am and I was having a hard time keeping up, being up way past my bedtime and in awful shape. I usually ride a recumbent, so I was also experiencing the joys that mountain bike seats provide! Derrick lashed my trailer up in tandem with his (each of which weighed probably 50-60 lbs). Obviously in better shape than us, Derrick easily pulled the 6 wheeled monstrosity and we made great time finishing the last three miles.

We pulled in to the Kickapoo Creek Recreation Area around 1:30am It’s a nice little campground accessible only from the Rock Island Trail, and since it was winter it was all ours. We rested for a while at the picnic shelter, set up the tent, sat by the campfire and had a snack. Around 4am we turned in for the night. The temperature was pleasant and I for one slept very well.

In the morning, we packed up camp and looked for a geocache in the campground. We finished the ride back to Alta, picking up another cache on the way. At the end, Dave waited with the bikes while Derrick and I took his truck back up to the top of the trail to retrieve my truck. We loaded up, grabbed some lunch, and headed out to Jubilee.

At Jubilee, there were a number of hunters at camp, but still plenty of room to breathe. We set up camp and started a hike. We picked up three geocaches and made our way back to camp as the sun started to set. After a mighty meal of bratwursts and chips, we settled in around the campfire to relax. As we turned in for the night, the temperature had dropped to around freezing and was rather humid, so we left the door flap partially open. Apparently Dave got cold in the night, so he shut the flap in the middle of the night, resulting a very crunchy tent in the morning. The condensation made the entire outside (and most of the inside) of the tent covered in frost.

On Sunday morning, we broke camp early and went our separate ways. Dave and I were home before 9:30am. I had to travel on business in the afternoon, so it was good to have some time at home before then. I was bummed it was over, though. It was nice to have a little time to be a “guy” again, at least as much of a guy as I ever was, anyway.

Oh yeah, a little epilogue: when I got home, I set out my stuff to dry. I put the tent up in the back yard and staked it down. When I returned from my business trip 4 days later, I thanked my wife for taking the tent down. When she didn’t know what I was talking about, I searched the neighborhood. Despite the stakes and my 6ft privacy fence, my tent traveled about a block and became firmly lodged in the thick woods at the edge of the neighborhood. One pole was broken and I’m assuming the tent itself is a little messed up from the thorns. Oh well, the tent served me well, but new gear is fun too!

For photos of the trip, see the photos page.

Well, we arrived back home shortly after midnight last night after a 800 mile day of driving. Everything seems to be in order (i.e. the house didn’t burn down), the cats are happy to see us, and Evan’s happy to be home. For we adults, it’s back to the same-old-same-old, but at least now we’ve got some new stories to tell.

Hanging out with the DML was a great time. They’re a fun, easygoing bunch of guys (and girls) who made us feel very welcome. As I’ve read about in the past and experienced on this trip, they do anything they can to help each other. I enjoyed meeting them, putting some faces to the names, and being a part of their adventures. Everyone traveled between 700 and 2000 miles to get to the meet, and I for one can say it was worth the journey. I hope we can meet up again in the future.

It was good to see Tim and McKenzie again. When they left for Denver last summer, I lost a large percentage of my local friends. We didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time together, but it was nice to do some catching up. I can see why they moved out there.

It was also good just to spend some time together as a family. A few days in, it seemed that Evan realized that I wasn’t leaving to go to work. We made it through the two weeks with a lot of good memories, very few disagreements, and lots of attention to each other’s needs. I think we struck a good balance of fun activities for each of us.

In closing, it’s good to be home, but I can’t wait until we can do it again!

Day 14:

• Packed up the trailer and parked it in DML HQ
• Left camp at 8:15am
• Traveled to Pike’s Peak
• Caravanned up Pike’s Peak
• Photos at the summit
• Descended Pike’s Peak
• Returned to camp
• Left for home
• Lunch at La Casita in Colorado Springs
• Dinner in Limon, CO
• Stayed at Super 8 in Colby, KS

Surprisingly, we got an early start as a group today, leaving camp around 8:15am. Everyone at the meet visited Pike’s Peak together. The vehicles we had were Dave and Jan, Jon and Ed, Jason and Norah, Mike, Don (with Tom riding along), Jason’s parents, Walt and Ingrid, and us. When we arrived at the entrance at the bottom, there was a sign saying that the top 6 miles were closed due to fog, so the fee was 50% off. We decided to take our chances that the fog would lift and headed up anyway.

We stopped at the first visitor’s center on the way up and looked around for a while, killing time hoping the fog would lift before we reached mile 13. We moved on and reached the dirt portion of the road, which was very nicely graded. When we reached the 13 mile station, the road had been opened so we continued after a short stop. As we neared the top, we got into a lot of fog (clouds, really), which made for a neat experience but often reduced our visibility. We reached the summit and parked the trucks for a few pictures. Many of us visited the gift shop and the lookouts, and we got everyone gathered for a group photo at the summit sign.

Some of us weren’t feeling too well at that altitude, so we headed down before too long, though visibility was very poor. Jon fearlessly led the group down, apparently using his infrared vision. The grades were steep enough and speeds slow enough that most of us used low range on our transfer cases to take advantage of greater engine braking. At the 13 mile checkpoint, we pulled over, since Don had alerted us via the FRS radios that he was hearing a clunk in his front suspension. Thankfully we had a lot of mechanics and tools in the bunch so we pulled his front tire and discovered a loose a couple of loose bolts in his suspension, presumably caused by the folks who did his front end alignment two months ago. Before long we were on the road down, stopping once to take a picture of Ed in front of a whimsical “Bigfoot Crossing” sign. Due to his tall physique and his complaint of all the hair in the public showers, he acquired the nickname “Nasquatch” (apparently a non-hairy Sasquatch…).

At the bottom, we traveled to a restaurant to have lunch together but discovered it wasn’t open for lunch. We then headed back to camp. At that point, we hitched up the truck, said our goodbyes, and headed out. We stopped for lunch in Colorado Springs, for dinner in Limon, CO, and for the night in Colby, KS. We were very drowsy and decided that was far enough for the day.

More stuff:

• A sign at Pike’s Peak warning that the local squirrels can carry the plague
• T-shirts that said “Got Oxygen?”
• Amish people at the summit of Pike’s Peak
• Evan running around at 14,000 feet as if he were at sea level
• Walt’s roof-mounted video camera
• Motor graders, concrete trucks, and trucks pulling drags un the dirt section of the highway near the summit
• Road workers at 13,000 feet (I imagine they have to take a lot of breaks)

Day 13:

• Took Tom to drop off his truck for repairs
• Left camp around 11:30am
• Offroading near camp
• Lunch on the trail
• More offroading and geocaching

First thing in the morning, I ran with Tom to drop off his truck in Divide at a shop. He had discovered some u-joints that were bad and encountered some stubborn parts attempting to replace them. The trip was pretty quick, even though we went a few miles the wrong way on US-24 at first.

We returned to camp, and the group got stuck in a “I dunno, what do YOU want to do?” mode. We decided to do some offroading and geocaching nearby, since a few of the guys had found some neat areas the night before. We left around 11:30am. Dusty was kind enough to let me ride along with the DML gang and she took Evan for the afternoon. The offroading group consisted of Adam’s rental jeep (with Jackie, Jayson and myself riding along), Jon’s rental jeep (with Ed and Tom as passengers), Mike’s Dakota (with Don riding along), Walt and Ingrid in their Ram, and Jason and Norah in their Dakota. I’m not entirely sure where we went, but Walt and Jason both were navigating with GPS maps.

At one point in the trail, we encountered a fun spot that was a little two deep and narrow for Jason and Walt, but the rest of us pressed on down the trail, which ceased to exist according to the maps. We turned around eventually and had our lunch on the trail. When we got to the fun section, Adam and Mike took a few runs up and down the path while Tom and Walt took video and a bunch of us took photos. Jason, Norah, Walt and Ingrid were parked right above that section. After that section the weather was starting to look bad so we figured we’d better get off that hill before the storm. We had some pretty heavy rain on the way down, but everyone made it down safely.

The rain passed and we found a couple of new areas to explore while looking for a couple of geocaches. Jason and Norah split off from the group. In the afternoon we climbed a couple of large steep hills on foot in search of geocaches, one of which was in a burn area that was gated off (though there was a sign asking us to shut the gate after passing through. We also traveled through a muddy area marked as a “flash flood area” (good idea, yes we know). We found another geocache that was placed near an old S-10 that had presumably been rolled off a small cliff into the woods. We also found a OHV playground, where a few shenanigans ensued. Adam got the front wheels of his jeep up on a large boulder, with Mike’s direction.

We returned to camp around 8:00pm and sat around the campfire. It was Jan’s birthday, so Dave surprised her with a cake and ice cream, which we all shared. We didn’t stay up too late, since we had early plans the next morning.

While we were gone, Dusty and Evan visited Old Colorado City and downtown Manitou Springs. They tasted the water from three of the springs in Manitou Springs, and Dusty reports that one was good and the others tasted like baking soda and sulfur. She got the oil in the truck changed while she was out and returned to camp where Evan played in the trailer, since it was raining unfortunately. After the rain stopped Evan got to play in the sandbox at the campground before dinner and bedtime. When Dusty put him to bed, he didn’t want to sleep, thereby revealing a flaw in our little wall we made for the bunk end. Evan got his head stuck between the wall and the side of the trailer (actually the lifters for the roof). He screamed, but Dusty rescued him without incident.

More stuff:

• Walt offroading in his show truck (which was cleaner after the trip than mine has ever been), complete with laptop, GPS, FRS radios, and webcam.
• Ingrid holding back a branch as Walt passed, and having to walk after the truck until his stopped in a large mud hole
• Jumping the jeep over a berm in the trail – too bad we didn’t tell Tom in time to videotape it
• Mike’s truck walking through the hardest line on most obstacles with little problems, except for having to reseat a coil spring once
• Finding an animal skull (actually more of a severed head) near the geocache in the burn area
• Putting pennies in the tread of Adam’s jeep’s spare tire
• Tom reporting many useful facts along the trail, including the fact that he had 4 bars of cellphone signal
• Jason’s parents visiting camp from Utah

Day 12:

• Left camp around 9:30
• Toured the Coors Brewery
• Lunch at the Blue Canyon Grill
• Visited Red Rocks Ampitheater
• Stopped in Castle Rock for supplies and gas
• Returned to Camp

Today we were supposed to leave camp by 9:00am to be in Golden for our reservations for the Coors Brewery tour, but we finally left camp at 9:30am, which meant a pretty quick drive to Golden. The participants in the tour were, Dusty, Evan, myself, Adam, Jackie, Jon, Ed, Walt, Ingrid, Mike, Don and Jayson (who met us there and identified us by our DML t-shirts). The tour took us through the process of beer-making, a little history of the company, and an explanation of the equipment. During the tour you could have a sample of Coors or Coors Light before it had even been bottled. You ended up at a lounge where each person got three drinks. I tried a couple of new varieties of Zima (not too bad) and Dusty had a Zima slush. Evan got sick of being inside, so Dusty left a little early. We took the shuttle back to the parking lot and walked a block to the Blue Canyon Grill (where Dusty and I had gone before) for a leisurely lunch.

After lunch we drove down to Red Rocks to see the ampitheater. Where we met up with Jason and Norah. Dusty and I had already been there as well, but Evan got a chance to run around and burn off some energy. He climbed a couple hundred stairs, holding our hands of course. We spent a little time there just relaxing, enjoying the views and the fresh air. The initial plan was to go to Bandimere for some drag racing, but everyone was too tired and the weather was threatening rain. It’s probably best that we went to camp, for Evan’s sake, but unfortunately Jon had made some custom bracket racing trophies.

We left to go back to camp and stopped at Castle Rock to pick up some more supplies and gas. Jason and Norah went to Golden for a while, and a few of the others did a little more offroading. Once again we finished off the day chatting around the camp fire. Once again we had some rain in the evening, but that didn’t pull all of us from the fire. We had a lot of firewood, but were restricted in how much we could use by the size of the fire ring. Nevertheless we got an awful lot of wood in the fire!

More stuff:

• Adam giving Evan an empty beer cup, which kept him occupied for most of the tour
• Some creative “sharing” of beer stamps on our wristbands at the Coors tour
• A couple of people who weren’t driving after the tour (that’s a good thing)
• The Coors shuttle, which takes you off of their property (assuming that’s for liability reasons)
• The question “What is the DML?” many times in reference to our t-shirts
• Tom’s “altar to carnage” as he used our magnetic light to help put his truck back together
• Raccoons again ransacking DML HQ, even when all food and trash was taken care of

Day 11:

• Left camp around noon after lunch and a nap
• Visited the Manitou Cliff Dwellings
• Went to the Cave of the Winds, but decided not to take the tour
• Visited the Royal Gorge
• Dinner in Canon City
• Returned to camp

Today we got a later start since we slept in. After we both had showers, Evan had a nap, and we had lunch, we set off for the day. The DML guys had a long day of offroading planned, but we passed on that. As I type, it’s almost 10pm and they haven’t returned yet. Evan wouldn’t have handled that trip very well.

Our first stop was the Manitou Cliff Dwellings. There wasn’t an awful lot there, but we explored it all and visited the museum and gift shop. Evan had a good time- we let him climb the stairs and walk around a lot. Our next stop was the Cave of the Winds. When we saw what the length of the tour, the conditions, and the price were, we decided to move on. We weren’t sure Evan would enjoy that, and there didn’t seem to be a bail out plan.

Finally, we journeyed to Canon City and visited the Royal Gorge. The way it works is that you pay your admission and all the activities, etc. are free. We took the incline railway to the bottom and back, walked across the bridge, hopped on the trolley, saw the far side of the park, and returned. I was there many years ago as a kid, but the only thing I remembered was looking down between the planks on the bridge and seeing down 1000ft. They let cars drive across it, though they have to weave between pedestrians. When a car passes, it rocks the boards you stand on, which I’m sure bothers some visitors.

Since it was getting pretty late, we grabbed a bite to eat at a Mexican restaurant in Canon City and headed back to camp. Evan went to bed, and overall had a pretty good day.

• A group of Hawaiian teenagers at Royal Gorge – they wanted to know what “rappelling” was, since there’s a spot on the bridge where a guy rappelled over 1000 ft down.
• A flatbed loading a late-model F250 on 24W. It looked like it had problems pulling a giant 5th wheel up the pass
• Sunset over Pike’s Peak after a rain storm
• Manitou Cliff Dwellings, and Evan in an oven (an old clay reproduction)
• Petroglyphs at the Manitou Cliff Dwellings
• A giant pile of wood – the DML ordered $100 worth
• The skycoaster at Royal Gorge, and many insane people paying money to swing out over the edge of the canyon
• Hummingbirds at Royal Gorge (we saw dozens at a time in Estes Park
• Many canopies at DM HQ collapsed or collapsing from the rains

Day 10:

• Left camp around 10am
• Visited Garden of the Gods
• Had Evan checked out at a doctor’s office
• Caught up on some shopping
• Grabbed dinner in town
• Returned to camp and hung out by the camp fire

Today we didn’t get an awful lot accomplished. Around 10am we left camp with most of the DML to see Garden of the Gods. We looked around the trading post, drove through the park, and started down a 1.5 mile paved loop. A little ways Evan got extra fussy, so we turned around and went back to the truck to get him something to eat. He’d been very upset all day long, was pulling at his ears, and was getting worse than he was yesterday, so we decided to find a doctor’s office to check him out. We found one in Colorado Springs and the P.A. took a look at him. He’s got some sort of infection in his throat making him uncomfortable. They did a quick strep test, but it was negative. We’ll see what the longer test shows though.

The rest of the group finished up with Garden of the Gods, met of with Jon and Ed, and toured Rampart Road. We may go take a look ourselves later.

After leaving the doctor’s office we stopped at Walmart for some supplies. We were low on groceries, and our lack of FRS radios was making communicating with the group difficult. I picked up my 30-amp extension cord, and now the AC or space heater can run just fine (which is nice). We found some nice FRS radios- they also have weather band on them, which will be handy.

We returned to camp and shortly thereafter the skies blackened. None of the DML had returned yet, so I checked to make sure their camps were weatherproof. They rolled in a while later, Evan went to bed, and we just hung out and took it easy for the evening.

More stuff we saw:

• Some neat formations at Garden of the Gods
• Downtown Colorado Springs
• Dave’s RC truck jumping over the wood pile
• Adam blatantly disregarding the “No rock climbing” sign
• A short hailstorm, and trying to get Walt’s truck out of it
• Ketchup chips and dill pickle chips