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Brandon O'Brien

Travel and Adventure Journal

I wanted a place to journal all my travels and adventures around the world. I always enjoy going back and reflecting on my past travels and getting to relive them through my words and photos.

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A Weekend in Salida, CO for FibARK

A Weekend in Salida, CO for FibARK

Sunday, June 19, 2022 @ 6:00 PM in General Travel

Even though Sam is eight month's pregnant, we still wanted to get out for one last adventure weekend while we could. Greg, Mattie and Aaron were all planning on going up to Salida for the FibARK festival (First in Boating on the Arkansas) so we joined up with them for the trip. The festival takes place on the Arkansas river in Salida where there are activities all weekend. The one even we were really excited for was the Hooligan race which is where people build their own rafts and try to float down the river without their craft falling apart.

Sam took Friday off from work so we packed the truck up with all our camping gear and a ridiculous amount of food and then left Santa Fe around 9:30 in the morning. Greg, Mattie and Aaron had gone up there on Thursday to secure a camping spot, so we weren't in a rush to try and take care of that. We rolled into Salida a little before 1 in the afternoon and decided to get lunch there. We had pizza at Amicas, where Aaron and his buddy Steve met up with us.

After lunch, we met up with Greg and Mattie by the river and watched some of the activities taking place. There were a lot of kayakers practicing for the freestyle event which would take place on Saturday. It was pretty neat watching them do flips and rolls in the big rapid right in town. We had some beer by the river and watched Greg take his inflatable kayak out so he could try and ride a smaller rapid. The boat ended up getting filled with water and flipping. Fortunately there weren't really that many people around to witness it, lol.

It started to thunder and lightning so me, Sam, Aaron and Steve decided to bail and head back up to the campsite so we could get our setup put together. We somehow fit Aaron and Steve's bikes on the truck and got them in the cab as well. On the drive up to the campsite, it started raining really hard. Steve remembered he left a window open in his camper (directly above his bed), so we booked it up there so he could get it closed. Fortunately his stuff wasn't too soaked.

We set up our camp and then had dinner while waiting for Greg and Mattie to come back from town. It got pretty cold and windy so we hung out in Aaron's truck for a little while. When Greg and Mattie showed up, they started a fire in their Solo stove and we hung out there until we were ready for bed. It got really windy and rained a few times that night which meant I didn't get great sleep. I still woke up around 6:15 in the morning so I got started with coffee. We brought stuff to make breakfast burritos which was really nice on a chilly and damp morning.

There wasn't a real plan aside from Sam and I trying to squeeze a hike in. We decided it would be easiest to head into town and hike around there. That way, we could park the vehicles somewhere near town so we wouldn't be too far from the festival. Aaron and Greg rode to town on their mountain bikes while we drove down. We parked right next to the river and set out to do a hike up and down S Mountain. The hike was only about 3.5 miles but got you some really nice views of the town. While up hiking, it sprinkled on us a little bit but nothing too bad yet.

We had lunch at the cars by the river when Aaron text me and told me to come to the Boathouse Cantina for a birthday shot (my birthday was going to be in two days). I went over there and had a shot of Mezcal and a beer. While there, it started to down pour again so we hung out there for a few while Sam and Max were in the truck. When the rain let up slightly, I ran out to the truck where we waited until it was sprinkling enough to feel OK about going and hanging out by the river again.

Greg had a spot he really wanted to watch the Hooligan race at, so we got situated there around 3pm (the hooligan race didn't start until 5:30). We left a few times to drop Max off, get some ice cream and more booze. The last time we returned with some booze, it had really filled up and people started giving us the stink eye even though we'd been there for a few hours already.

We watched the freestyle kayak competition which was taking place before the Hooligan race. Before the Hooligan race started, they brought out a gigantic bike ramp so BMXers could do tricks off of it into the water. Some of the people were able to pull off some extremely cool tricks. The Hooligan race had several heats of four rafts each. Most of them fell apart long before they hit the rapid we were waiting by. It was still really funny to watch what was left of the rafts try to navigate the rapids. I took an obscene amount of pics during the hooligan race, so be sure to check out the full photo gallery for all the action.

After the race ended, we met up with Maggie and decided to go back to the campsite for dinner instead of having it in town. Steve has a really cool camper which actually has a microwave in it, so he was able to warm up our lasagna for dinner which was very cool. It started raining again so we went back into Aaron's van and hung out for a while before finally calling it an early night. We had a lot more wind come through overnight (fortunately no real rain), but the wind was really blowing our canopy around and kept me up for most of the night.

In the morning, we had more coffee and breakfast burritos before slowly starting to tear down camp. Greg and I decided we'd ride down to town and meet up with everyone else before heading home. Our campsite was right next to a really nice trail system that went right into town. We rode Beasway, Rumba, Cottonwood and Chicken Dinner. It took me a little while to shake the lack of sleep and hangover, but the trail was really fun.

Sam and I had lunch at the Boathouse Cantina before driving home. Greg and Aaron had left a little bit before us in his van and we joked that Greg was bad luck and Aaron should be careful with his van. Greg has had a lot of issues getting stranded in his camper van in the past. Unfortunately, we got a call from Greg when we were about 20 minutes outside of Alamosa. Aaron's van shut down when they got to town and it wouldn't start back up. Greg had work travel on Monday so couldn't afford to miss it. We picked up Greg and loaded up the truck with all his stuff while Aaron was waiting on a mechanic to get back with him.

He was pretty sure the alternator had given out which was causing the battery not to charge. This meant there was a cascade of errors and problems. Aaron was ready to spend the night there while waiting for mechanics to show up, but fortunately found an alternator in town and was able to install it himself. This probably saved him a day of wasted time and several hundred dollars!

We got back to Santa Fe in the midst of a huge monsoon storm. We had to wait to unpack a little while, but were definitely not going to complain about any rain. The trip as a whole was a lot of fun. It was a lot of things rolled into one (almost Father's day for me, my birthday weekend and our last outing for a while due to a baby almost here). If we do FibARK again, we'll probably aim to camp in town so we don't have to drive back and forth so much.

Teaser photos:

Hanging out in Aaron's van
Hanging out in Aaron's van
Camping spot near Salida
Camping spot near Salida
Hiking S Mountain in Salida
Hiking S Mountain in Salida
Tired Max at the festival
Tired Max at the festival

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Tags: colorado, camping

Posted from: United States

Overnighter on the Conejos River in Southern Colorado

Overnighter on the Conejos River in Southern Colorado

Sunday, June 5, 2022 @ 4:00 PM in General Travel

On Friday, Sam had the urge to get out of town for the weekend. Unfortunately, most of the National Forest in NM is currently closed due to fire danger so we had to widen our radius slightly. We were looking for somewhere that was within about a 3 hour drive from home, had water nearby and wouldn't be slammed with people. After talking with some friends, we landed on the Conejos River between Antonito and Chama. One of our friends mentioned she had some friends who were planning on camping up in this area so we figured we'd try it too. We actually did a several night backpacking trip up in this area several years ago and remembered it being really beautiful.

We packed up the car and were out the door by about 9:30am on Saturday. Rather than try to prep any food, we just went to Market Street and bought some premade meals for food. We bought a salmon salad with pasta salad for lunch #1, some fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner and some more fried chicken for lunch #2. The drive up to the campground was pretty uneventful and surprisingly lacking any real traffic aside from one area near San Antonio Mountain where the road was under construction and down to one lane.

We got to the campground a little before 12:30 and found a nice spot directly across from the river. We pulled out our coolers and camping gear and had lunch before heading out for a walk down to Spectacle Lake and the campground there. There were several people fishing for trout in the lake and we actually saw a few people catch some fish. The lake definitely looked stocked since you could see a ton of fish just swimming around.

After getting back to the campsite, we relaxed in some shade and read books for a few hours before it was time for dinner. Some motorcyclists pulled up to hang out by the creek and snap some pics. I went over to talk to them and snapped some shots for them. Turns out they weren't staying the night but just making a little detour while they were on their way back to Taos for the night. We shared some quick stories of our various trips before they took off. To reheat dinner, we just used our camp stove and a frying pan with some foil, which worked surprisingly well. We spent the rest of the evening relaxing before we finally called it an early night and went to bed in the back of the truck.

Due to some combination of white noise from the river, the temperatures being on the cooler side and having tall cliffs all around us, we actually slept in until about 7:30 which is "late" for us. We ended up with about 10 hours of sleep which felt amazing. Breakfast was some coffee, a muffin for me and some overnight oats for Sam. We packed up camp after drinking our coffee and drove up the road about 10 minutes to the South Fork trailhead.

There was a little debate about whether this was the same trailhead we started our big backpacking trip from, and it turns out it was. We hiked about four miles and enjoyed being in some greenery again. Near the trailhead were a few stream crossings. On the way out, we tried picking our steps carefully to avoid getting wet. On the way back, we just sloshed right through the water since we could put sandels on when we got to the car. When we had just crossed the river, we saw some people from Santa Fe (the friends of friends who were staying in this area which spurred our idea to camp here). We chatted with them for a bit before getting back to the truck and having lunch.

The drive back home was equally uneventful aside from the one section where the road was down to one lane.

Teaser photos:

At Spectacle Lake
At Spectacle Lake
Max after a dunk in the Conejos river
Max after a dunk in the Conejos river
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner
Fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for dinner
Hiking on the Roaring Gulch trail
Hiking on the Roaring Gulch trail

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Tags: camping, colorado

Posted from: United States

Downhill Mountain Biking in Vail, Colorado

Downhill Mountain Biking in Vail, Colorado

Monday, July 7, 2014 @ 4:18 PM in General Travel

I'm writing this post a little late since I just uploaded all the photos from the trip. Scott called a few weeks ago to see if I was doing anything the weekend of June 28. I didn't have any plans yet so we decided we'd head up to Vail, Colorado and try some downhill mountain biking.

Scott booked a flight on Southwest to Denver which arrived on Saturday night. I drove up and picked him up from the airport and then we drove out to Vail. We didn't get into our hotel until around midnight since Scott's flight was delayed about an hour. One nice thing about driving that late was the complete lack of traffic on I-70 through the mountains.

We woke up pretty early on Sunday morning and headed into Vail to purchase our lift tickets and mountain bike rentals. We found out that we could buy a full day lift ticket that came with a half day mountain bike rental included for $73. The guys at the bike shop said they didn't really follow the half/full day rental schedule so as long as we returned the bikes before 6:00pm then we'd be fine.

We were given two Trek Fuel Ex 5 29ers to take up the mountain. The bikes are full suspension and seemingly ran over just about anything without a problem. We did a couple runs including some pretty steep blacks then went back to the car to make some sandwiches for lunch. Scott had a little trouble with his rear brake not working too well so he had to take it in a couple times to get it tightened up.

Our favorite run of the day was Radio Flyer. It had some really nice smooth curves, jumps and dips. It's basically what both of us were imagining when we booked the trip. Several of the other runs were a little too rocky or just plain too steep to feel comfortable on.

After a full day (9:30am-5:45pm) we decided to turn the bikes in and head back to the hotel to shower and find some food. All the riding really wore out my wrists... I think due to the vibration of flying down the hill. My right knee was a little banged up because it kept hitting the top bar of the bike and I think I smacked my left ankle on the pedal once. Other than that, it was an incident free experience!

For dinner we went to a place called Yellowbelly that did a modern take on soul food. I had some roasted chicken, citrus quinoa salad and "smashed potato fries". They also had some natural cane sugar sodas that were all pretty good. There wasn't much to do in town so we tried the hot tub and sauna but both seemed to be broken. The hot tub was cold and the sauna never started steaming. We were both pretty wiped out so we ended up just heading to bed.

I think both of us slept really well considering we didn't even wake up until our alarm went off around 8:30am. Our plan for the day was to check out of the hotel, head to Copper Mountain and take advantage of a lift ticket deal and do some hiking at the top of the ski area before dropping Scott back off at the airport.

We had a quick breakfast and then drove to Copper Mountain. The deal was if we showed up with a receipt that showed we spent $10 in the Copper village then we'd get a free lift ticket for the day. Rather than buying any unnecessary junk, we sorta scammed the system and each bought $10 worth of gas for my car. They didn't seem to have any issue with it so we got our free lift tickets and jumped on the lift.

We only had about an hour to spend up there before we needed to start our journey back to Denver. The hiking was nice and the air was thin. We were up over 11,000 feet and there was still plenty of snow around from the ski runs.

We hit a bunch of traffic on the way back to Denver since they're doing some major construction on one of the tunnels near Idaho Springs. It slowed us down by about a half hour but we still got Scott to the airport with plenty of time to catch his flight. After dropping him off I had the long 7 hour journey home. I stopped in Colorado Springs along the way to check out a liquor store called Coltrains. I always like to pick up some beers I can't find in New Mexico when I'm up in Colorado. Coltrains was right off I-25 which made it really convenient. I bought a bunch of stuff I'd never had and then drove home.

It was a lot of driving for such a short trip but I definitely want to do some more downhill mountain biking. Scott and I definitely made the most of our time on the bike but we both agreed that it would be nice to do a couple days and take our time and not ride all day. It was just too draining.

Teaser photos:

On the gondola up to the trails
On the gondola up to the trails
Vail ski runs in summer
Vail ski runs in summer
A black run at Vail
A black run at Vail
Hiking at Copper mountain
Hiking at Copper mountain

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Tags: vail, colorado, mountain biking, downhill, copper

Posted from: United States