Dirt. I gave it up as a kid. As an adult, I relegated it to the garden and the yard. I didn’t need to sleep on it. Growing up a very satisfied non-camper, I enjoyed things such as a heater, sheets, and carpet. As my friend said, you don’t pay the mortgage so you can live like you’re homeless on the weekend. But I married a man who enjoyed back country camping; that weird version of camping that requires awkward utensils and sleeping bags that condense to pillows weighing 2 pounds. This was not the camping I ever intended to do. So when my husband asked me to go camping with our then 5-year-old son in the Rocky Mountains near our home, I immediately said no. Or maybe, but with specific requirements. Like a bathroom. And hot food. And actual forks.

Before I knew it, sleeping bags arrived. And actual camping plates and forks materialized. And a campsite with a bathroom. A real bathroom. And so we went camping on Father’s Day weekend at 8,000 ft. elevation to a beautiful campsite full of tent-only campers. And I discovered I liked specific things about camping. Quiet. Games. Stars. Eggs and bacon made on the campfire. And some things I didn’t like too much, such as waking up in the morning to below freezing temperatures in June.

But we continued tent camping until last summer, when we decided that the tent camping season in the mountains is already so short that we could extend our camping season if we had an enclosed camper with heat. I had not been inside a camper for approximately 25 years, and I was pleasantly surprised to see the updates and improvements. We required a small camper, lightweight (towable in the mountains by our Ford Explorer Sport), and something that would make our lives easier, not more difficult. After an exhaustive search for campers, we purchased a 2018 Winnebago Micro Minnie. Since we are only practicing for retirement, we don’t live in our camper and we can’t camp all the time. But we do love to explore new campgrounds and beautiful, dirt-filled places. This blog is created to share the adventures in our Minnie out West.