I wanted to catch you up on my first several days of this adventure, that i skipped. I did not take many pictures or video...but i will describe them for you.
After driving almost 4 hours from Ohio i made it to Allegheny National Forest, to enjoy my first night boondocking offgrid, by myself, in the middle of the woods. Finally!
I drove up and down this forest road and could not find a campsite that had a fire pit. The sun was starting to set and settled with this secluded spot. I made a small makeshift fire from downed branches nearby that lasted a few hours. I cooked a few hotdogs over the fire and heated up some maple baked beans on my propane stove. It was very peaceful, the food was great and i slept like a rock.
The next day i drove to the closest gas station. Which was only 10 miles away, up highway 321, if im not mistaken. I bought a couple iced teas and sat in the van for about an hour to use my tablet. I did not have service at the campsite, but here it worked great. I texted everyone to let them know where i was and that everything was going well.
Then i decided to find a new campsite that actually had a fire pit. I drove back into the national forest and turned down the first dirt road i saw. Not far down the dirt road there was a nice pull off that had a small fire pit made of rocks. There was a ton of shade and lots of downed trees for firewood.
I spent 2 days at this campsite and had to leave. i did not take any pictures of the second campsite. The temps were mid 90s during the day, and low 80s at night. It was really hard to sleep the second two nights in PA. Tho this spot was nice, it was just too hot.
The reason PA was my first choice to try out boondocking was because Allegheny was the closest national forest with free camping. Plus i wanted to stay close to home just in case i forgot something or something went wrong. Everything went great and i did not forget anything, so i called my first trip a success and decided to head to higher elevation.
I read on cheaprvliving that you lose about 3 degrees every 1000 feet in elevation you climb and they recommend spending summer at 7500' - 10000' for the best weather and temp.
I decided then to spend the summer in the Colorado rockies and started heading west.
The drive took 2 days. The first day i drove back through PA and Ohio, then Indiana and just entered Illinois. I ate at a truck stop diner and spent the night at a walmart. The second day i drove through Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and just entered Colorado. It was weird driving through all of the timezones the second day. I think it helped me keep going. I spent the night at Loves truck stop that night and i actually ate taco bell in Kansas for diner.
The next day i drove 3 more hours into Denver, right to one of the premier dispensaries and picked up some trees for the next few days of camping. I drove around denver a bit. Honestly, i did not like the busy city and the traffic was nutty.
So i got on freecampsites.net and looked for at least 8000' elevation national forest and found a highly rated area outside Boulder, CO. And that is where the first dtube video comes in.
I did not realize at the time that i was going to be driving up a mountain, on a dirt road. It was brutal to say the least. I am glad i have a van and not an rv, because i would not have been able to drive up that road in an rv. Some spots were really rough and i had to walk the van over the rocks very slowly. There were tons of campsites with fire pits and lots of people around there.
Once i made it to the first available fire pit, i called it home base for the next week. The weather was at least 25 degrees cooler up there. Well worth the drive halfway across the country. And the cheap legal weed was the icing on the cake.
