Travelling Campervan Style

Monday morning we went into Denver to pick up our Escape Campervan. Escape is a business that rents large passenger vans that have been converted  into a small RV.  They take out all the back seats and insert a seating area that converts into a bed and a very small kitchen (with a small refrigerator, a camping stove, and a small pump sink), which can be accessed through the back doors  of the van. Then, they spray paint the outside of each van with a unique and colorful mural. We walked into the Escape Campervan office super excited to see which van we would get and walked out about 30 minutes later with two keys to the "Delawhere?".

The Escape Campervan office in Denver

Guys, this was fate. Aaron is unabashedly patriotic and here is a van with an American flag on the hood and a painting of George Washington's crossing of the Delaware River on the side. A more perfect van couldn't have ended up in our possession.

We took the van to Aaron's Uncle Nathan's house in Arvada, which was about 20 minutes away. Nathan wasn't home at the time, which was odd, but we just locked up the van and headed out to lunch with Aaron's Aunt Melissa and her family. We got some super tasty bison burgers at Ted's Montana Steakhouse and caught up with them for a couple hours. Then we stopped at Walmart and bought some perishable groceries to stock our camping refrigerator. Finally, we get back to the campervan and started putting all our gear away. Nathan still wasn't home, but we had plenty of things to do.

Lunch with Kingston, Melissa, and Robert

About an hour later Nathan texted us and wanted to know when we were going to come to his house. To which we replied, confused, "No, when are YOU coming to your house?" As it turns out, the address we were given for Nate's house was one number off. Basically, we had knocked on a complete stranger's door, left a giant van with a portrait of George Washington on it parked in front of their house for HOURS, and then looked like we were moving into the van. Oops!

Once we finally had the right place, we spent time going over our trip route with Nathan before going out to Mexican for dinner.

We got a late start on our drive yesterday because I've been feeling a little under the weather but we got the van packed up and were on the road by 9:30. It was a 6 hour drive to Moab, UT through the Rockies and the mesas of Southwestern Colorado. Aaron drove most of it because I have a hard time reaching the pedals of the van (shocker) so I could only really drive in the flat spaces, which are few and far between in this area of the world. We stopped for a quick bathroom break at a view point for an area called Glenwood Canyon and enjoyed a quick walk to stretch our legs and enjoy the scenery.

We decided to take the longer route to our camp so we could drive along the Upper Colorado River Scenic Byway through the canyons of Moab. The views were truly stunning and I'm so glad we took the extra time!

We got to our campground yesterday at about 5:00 PM and went about making camp. Aaron made a delicious dinner and we cleaned ourselves up in the showers. The facilities at our campground are really nice and we are really enjoying using the Campervan. We went to bed early to get in a good night sleep before heading into Arches National Park tomorrow morning!