HMS Beangle

Last weekend, the amazing Miss Carmen personalized the HMS Beangle and it turned out just as were hoping.

She made us some cozies for the propane tanks, too. That will keep the tanks out of direct sunlight, which reduces the chance of hot, heat-expanded gas leaking out. They’re just so adorable.

Let’s talk nuts and bolts. Even after selling or giving away nearly everything we owned, we still have way, way too much stuff. Ok, maybe that’s not news, but all that remained got packed (one might even say, stuffed) into either the truck bed, truck back seat, or the trailer.

With a mere hour until Go Time, we popped the bike rack onto the trailer, slipped the key into the extra heavy duty lock holding the ridiculously heavy chain wrapped around Jeff’s hybrid and my mountain bike in the garage storage closet, I did live in the Netherlands, for a sec, and it wouldn’t budge. It was ‘No ma’am, I like it here’ stuck. We tried everything. We sprayed copious amounts of lock lubricant into it, wiggled the keys to loosen the tumblers, flipped it upside down to let gravity do its thing, and even banged it against the wall. Ok, by that point we were pretty deep down the desperation tunnel.

We were scheduled to return the apartment’s keys back to the owners at 11am, so after a second round of — Maybe it just needs some more lubrication — to no avail, I called a local locksmith, explained the situation, and asked if he could cut the lock off the chain so we could get on the road. “No problem,” he said, estimating that he’d be there in 30 minutes to an hour. He arrived, tried to pop the lock for good measure, and then pulled out his industrial strength grinder. Amid a shower of sparks, the glorious clunk of a sliced-through lock clanged onto the concrete floor and our bikes were free. He asked if we wanted the old lock. We did not. It can rot in lock hell for all I care.

Just a few hours behind our planned time, we arrived at our first campground with all of our remaining belongings. I did a full reset of all our clothing, putting warmer items into our big duffels and packing the clothes cubbies with the remainder. While doing so, I filled four kitchen trash bags with Didn’t Make This Cut clothes, shoes, sheets, old ratty blankets, etc. They’ll get dropped off at a thrift store as we leave the area.

The no-signal-to-be-had at our Ansel Watrous riverside campsite’s along the Cache La Poudre River made it all worth the hassle.