By the end of year three, we had spent over twelve weeks in Colorado. Clearly we enjoyed it, because we then proceeded to spend all of summer 2025 in that colorful state. From Denver’s Front Range to Durango and Pagosa Springs near the New Mexico border, there are so many things to see and love. One of the things we appreciate the most is the strong focus on being outdoors. Not only does the region include incredible outdoor spaces, but there’s a real investment in making sure folks enjoy them. The area is chock-full of guide companies, staffed by really nice people with a clear passion for Colorado’s rivers, lakes, and mountains. There are hiking and biking trails everywhere, serving folks of all ages, interests, and abilities. 

When it’s easy to get outside, and everyone else is doing it—one is much more motivated to join the crowd! Colorado ended up being the place where we definitely “tried new things.” Inspired by a good friend, we decided to give disc golf a try. According to him, it’s a “real Colorado sport, with dogs, beers, and bros.” We loved it, and not surprisingly, Andrew was great at it pretty much immediately. He has this innate ability to pick up just about anything quickly, a fact that I try to celebrate, not get cranky about. I, having not thrown a lot of things as a kid, needed a lot of practice! Colorado is also where we tried fly fishing and white water rafting — both of which we decided we needed to do more of (although given that one can purchase a starter disc golf set for under $20, the disc golf habit is significantly less expensive than either of those two!). 

Our Colorado summer started off in Pagosa Springs. Like many Colorado towns, Pagosa Springs has a big personality, thanks to a lively blend of tourists there for the hot springs and hiking; young people working seasonal jobs; and wealthy Texans escaping the heat for the summer. It’s also the place where Andrew completed his first Habitat for Humanity build with their RV Care-A-Vanners program. Volunteering with an organization like Habitat is not only a great way to give back and feel good about doing so, but it’s also a crash course in the region, and a great way to get to know other RVers. Most of the Care-A-Vanners builds include a social element — a welcome dinner, often something hosted by a local board members, and informal RV park get-togethers. Between the conversations on the job sites, and the stories told at these gatherings, we gain deeper insight into the concerns and priorities of each community, and we build some wonderful relationships! It’s pretty much guaranteed at this point that if there are builds in Pagosa Springs, we will be there (we are already committed for four weeks June/July 2026!). 

Earlier in the spring, we had spent some time exploring Jerome, Arizona, a storied mining town that’s been successfully reinvented as an arts mecca. Inspired by that experience, we decided to visit other old mining towns as we traveled through Colorado. a state that experienced its own transformational Gold Rush a decade after California. In towns like Ouray and Silverton, we wandered down main streets populated by restaurants, shops, and galleries, nestled amidst soaring mountains. Every town had its fair share of flyers plastered all around, promoting their unique community events — farmers markets, music festivals, summer theater, etc. 

However, Cripple Creek won our prize for the most unique event designed to bring the community together and attract others to the town. Every summer, the Two Mile High Club (“We Take Care Of The Cripple Creek Donkeys”) hosts the weekend-long Donkey Derby Days. Apparently, when the mines were abandoned, so were the donkeys that worked so hard and long to support the miners. The Two Mile High Club raises money to care for the donkeys (more likely their descendants, although donkeys do live a surprisingly long time!), and the Derby Days is just one of their fundraisers. The event included donkey racing (think two humans trying to coax a donkey downhill along a mile-long stretch of the main drag); music, arts and crafts, and food vendors. Cripple Creek is also home to the family-owned Cripple Creek & Victor Narrow Gauge Railroad, so for $38 we took a fun 45-minute ride through mining history!  

The Creede Repertory Theater is a fascinating example of the power of art to create and sustain lively places. With a population of 300, Creede sits at 9,000 feet in a box canyon nestled in the Rio Grande National Forest. When the silver mines declined in the 1960s, town leaders were looking for ways to attract new revenue and avoid becoming a ghost town. They decided to reinvent their old opera/movie house as a theater, and with $32 in the bank, mounted their first season in 1966 — staffed completely by the local Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) and 12 eager students from the University of Kansas. Today, this award-winning company produces 7-10 plays in rotating repertory, each summer, hosts numerous musical events and concerts, develops new works through the Headwaters New Play Program, and offers nationally recognized educational programming. The theater has a budget of $2 million and is one of the largest employers in the county. 

There’s so much on social media about adventures at National Parks, and a lot of excitement about “crossing them off your list.” While we loved our National Park visits, we have also realized that state parks have a ton to offer folks like us. That started to become apparent after our first visit to Colorado way back in 2023, where we stayed at Chatfield State Park in Littleton (about 10 miles outside of Denver). Unlike traditional RV parts, state parks tend to nestle their RV and tent sites into the landscape, and they tend to have a few separate “loops.” That means you’re not typically on top of another rig, you’re often surrounded by much more native greenery, and you’re more likely to enjoy more quiet and darker evening skies. 

Chatfield was a terrific example of that. For the past three years, our site has been oriented parallel to the loop road, with our doorway facing in. That means that our primary view (and my office view) was low grasses and shrubs (and hummingbirds and mule deer). The entire park is incredibly well-maintained, there are miles of paved hiking and biking trails around the park, and a bunch of places along the lake for kayaking and stand-up paddleboarding. It’s also wonderful to be so close to all that Denver has to offer, and while the area around Chatfield is fairly overdeveloped, it’s also a great place to restock on things we need and can’t always find in more remote locations. Full disclosure for anyone thinking about following our lead and living in a larger rig — the layout and natural surroundings that make state parks an attractive alternative to RV parks can also make them an obstacle course for larger RVs like ours!