Day 16, 17 and 18: Back on the Road and Gettin' Clean

Heyo, final adios coming through the fingers of Casey...

(BTW we have written all of these together, so if you thought that it was one or the other, nope.  We switched off who was typing each post; with one typing and the other offering grammatical and theatrical additions to the works.)

 

So the adventures of Synchronicity and The Bus Collective were coming to an end.  On day 16 we got to have a slow morning where we helped design a garden for the awesome folks out there in West LA.  This garden will be fed by the greywater coming from their laundry system.  In doing some research on detergents that can be used, I found that there is not much on the market that is healthy for the environment.  This leads to the conclusion that if you don’t make it yourself, you don’t really know.  This has been a theme for the whole trip.

We rounded up a few of the best oranges we have ever had (out of their backyard), said bye to all our new friends, and hit the road. 

Our plan was to make the drive back efficient, yet comfortable.  With that in mind we stopped, first, only a few hours east of LA in a sleepy little town called Apple Valley.  Colton has history here as his aunt and grandparents call this high desert home.   They are a group of adventurers, showing me a side of Colton I hadn’t really appreciated just yet. (This new found side also includes baby pics of Colton, so cute!)

We cruised through the rest of California, and then the lit up valley that holds the sprawling conglomerate called Las Vegas, with a very nice pace.  Happily, we were able to make it to Arizona and found a peaceful place to catch some healthy zzz’s.  This makes it our second time of this trip sleeping off the side of the highway in Arizona. 

 

Day 17, the next morning, had us trekking on through the human-less terrain known as eastern Utah.  What a gem this area is and I recommend to all you Coloradans to get your camping boots on and check out this wide-open playground. 

We took a brief stop in the far reaches of Eastern Colorado in a land known as The Trail Through Time.  As one graffiti artist had written on a sign post, “This place has dinosaurs (bones), hiking trails, scenery, and time traveling. The spot has got it all.”  We couldn’t agree more.

 

On day 18, we awoke at CRMPI for a quick pit stop (this was our landing destination the previous night).  It was a lot muddier (and warmer) than the time before, but our buddies John and Dave were still moving along bringing CRMPI into the next phase of its evolution by re-furbishing the current climate battery systems and introducing new ideas of automation and efficiency.  These guys are exploring a different avenue of permaculture by integrating ecologically centered practices with smart technology (such as open-source Arduinos), and are even pondering going into the business of designing fully automated green houses.

We finished our adventure up at CRMPI by getting a few fruit trees (woot! woot!) that Colton so generously wants to put up at the Red Feather Educational Site.  I am excited to one day eat from an apricot, a mulberry, a plum, a pear, and a black apricot which is a cross of a plum and an apricot. Food=Exciting!!

Anyhoo, we’re back in Denver area and we’re sad to sign off..... psych! We got one more blog post coming.  This weekend we are attending a BioNutrient Food Growing Workshop, and we would be happy to share our findings with you.  We also want to add some photos to the blog to give you some visual aid to our adventures.  So, stay tuned, we have more coming your way...

Thanks for the welcome back,
CColorado

PS Shower time!