cow camp adventures.

last week, nate and i had ourselves a wilderness adventure a la historicorps when we helped to rebuild the historic off cow camp. the camp was in rio grande national forest of southern colorado where we spent the six most pleasantly strenuous days of our lives.

on the road again...

our driver, damion.

adventure number one: i had my first funyun. 

as an onion hater, it wasn't as scary as i thought it would be.

adventure two: creepy gas station fun.

adventure three: cow in the road.

little did we know that this would only be the first of several cows we would have to deal with.

our home base, the fitton guard station.

gross outhouse amidst the nice scenery.

our little tent and damion's blue fortress.

tent fun.

our personal bathroom suite.

more cows.

hiking down to the cow camp.

our project site: cabin, barn, and soon-to-be outhouse.

peeling and shaping of the logs

these logs were felled in the surrounding forest and then were brought down to our site by an amish fellow.

most of the peeling and shaping was done before we got there...

but we got in on a little of the action.

i'm due for a tetanus shot, so, if my mom asks, i avoided this task which involved big rusty blades.

starting to put together the barn.

damion putting his muscles to good use.

by the end of the day, we had the barn looking like this.

(obviously i mostly helped by taking pictures.)

and then we built a roof on it!

dobbing

katie mixing the mortar.

un-dobbedness.

damion going to town on that wall.

teamwork. i like it.

nathan, the project assistant, was by far the best dobber of the group.

at first, i really liked dobbing. after five days of it, i really did not. 

the outhouse

for the outhouse, a big hole was dug to bury the tank... and then the hold was filled in.

i filled in most of the hole because nate was complaining too much to get anything done.

(just kidding... mostly.)

then cement was poured around the base.

dave, a shop teacher from chicago, led the framing task force.

i probably had an entirely inappropriate amount of fun with this circular saw.

damion and i squared all of these boards and quickly became dave's (favorite) little helpers.

the aftermath. 

sorry, boards. it had to be done.

damion and i built this roof. dave only helped a little.

max and nick, the identical twins that thankfully had unidentical facial hair.

dave and his wife, kathy, hard at work on the outhouse door.

raising the walls!

topping it off with our lovely roof.

nate's floors

they had to make new holes in the fancy tool belt for my fun-sized bf.

life lessons from jonas.

the beginning of the floor action.

what a hard worker.

all finished!

other

our view.

a nice break from those obnoxious paddle boats slash paddle boaters.

view of our work site from the guard station.

my newest bff, lucy.

and leia.

chewing on a tasty treat...er... log.

lots o' cows. i think we counted 85.

the crew cow watching.

the marmot.

us.

hiking out.

our reward to ourselves after a week of hard work: slurpees. 

as a big germaphobe, i was pretty proud of myself for dealing with dirty fingernails and massive amounts of cow dung for six solid days. i could have probably stayed my whole life had i had just two things: 

warm running water

and my golden girls.