Bear Trap

Many of you have heard by now that a long and wonderful program may be winding down after 32 years.

Bear Trap Ranch is a beautiful camp nestled in a valley about 7 miles west of Colorado Springs. Seven miles doesn't seem like far, but on this twisty road it's like going to heaven. Far, far away, yet still close enough to realize you can always return to the busy and hectic world in just 45 minutes.

I have been going to Bear Trap Ranch for 21 years spending 5-6 weeks there every fall with a local school districts outdoor education program. Every week a different group of 6th graders would load school buses for the trek up the mountain. It was the unknown for them, and often very scary. The sense of excitement when they got off the bus was amazing.

For many of the kids, this was their first time away from home, not to mention many miles into the wilderness....... Or so it seemed.

The students would then make their way down the road to the main cabins and lodge, where they would await their teachers for cabin assignments. I too awaited to see which students would be assigned to my cabin. Sometimes I would get to choose a student who needed a little encouragement and then there were the other trips that I got the luck of the draw. Typically it would be me, my high school pride leader and as many as 12 students in my cabin! Fun times for sure.

I bring this all up now, because just a few minutes ago I was looking up at the stars and thinking that right now during this very time during the school year I would be getting prepared to spend the next month or so at Bear Trap Ranch. Not this year unfortunately.

The outdoor education program was moved to the summer of 2012 and Bear Trap Ranch has closed due to lack of funding with no real word on the camps future. It saddens me to even think of this. For so many years I have been participating with thousands of kids enjoying the experience. And now, nothing.

I have a huge place in my heart for BTR, and now a large hole exist there because things will never be the same for me or the children in Colorado Springs. They will never get that experience of hiking by the waterfall, climbing to the summit of Devils Slide, rappelling, playing in the pond, the ghost stories and sing-a-longs. For me, I think I will miss the trusting and close conversations that I had with my students. It was a time to bond, and mentor. To make new friendships, that as I look back now are life long.

I want to spend this fall looking back at my experiences at Bear Trap. The times of real pride, and some of the events that inspired true positive self esteem. I have stories of the sick and injured and then the stories of tragedy too. Mostly what I remember are the fun times and again those amazing relationships with my students and the adults that cared for them.

Twenty one years of outdoor education at Bear Trap..... Worth more than all the money in the world, because of all the lives that have come and gone thru that very beautiful place. I will do my best to recreate and paint the picture of this amazing location that so many people treasure in their hearts!

Location:My Back Porch

It's been a while!

Wow.... I can assure you that I have not been getting lazy with my post. I just have been busy and needing a break from technology.

Have you ever noticed that when things go bad.... I mean really bad, that things get worse? Now when I say bad, I guess in the grand scheme of things these "bad" things are nothing.

So here is what I have been doing or fixing for the last 5 days.....

My computer had an electrical spike and fried the mother board and power supply. I ordered the parts and fixed it. That same night that I got the computer up and running the Torsion Spring snapped on our garage door. It's a 44 inch spring that was under so much pressure that it could launch a car from Colorado to the moon in 30 seconds. Of course I slept thru it. My wife says, " so did you hear that loud noise in the garage around 3:30 am?" she said it sounded like someone was trying to break in. Did she wake me up? Of course not..... she must have known it was the Torsion Spring all along! So.... I order the spring and wait 4 days for delivery. Only cost $42.00 and saved me $300.00 by doing it myself. I was concerned about being launched to the moon, if for some reason I screwed up, but all went well.

So just hours after the spring was installed..... I discover a wet floor underneath the refrigerator. Oh yes, the ice maker sprung a leak. Only 4 ounces at a time, every two hours! New ice maker and tubing installed and it works beautifully! I have perfect cubes again!! Yay!

Next morning I needed to put all the stuff back in the garage since the door was now working again. Bummer for me..... The Yamaha 4x4 ATV will not start. Did some diagnostics and discovered the starter was bad. Off to to dealership for parts. Ahhhhh everything working until I get the phone call from my daughter Brittney. She says she is coming home from school and her laptop will not start. Argggggg, really? She gets home and I have to reformat her hard drive and reinstall Win 7 and all of her software, etc. This takes about 24 hours and it's working fine! Well it was working fine until the next morning when I turn it on again. Long story short...... She needed a new hard drive. I race down to my not so favorite store AKA, Best Buy and buy a 500 gb hard drive. Have you ever noticed how cheap hard drives are now? $44.99 is what I paid, of course I had to ask them to price match themselves and give me their online price. What a rip off that is for people who know nothing about their online BestBuy.com website. They insist they are not affiliated with that website. Huh??? Well I didn't care and asked for the $20.00 difference. They did it only after the cashier ran over to the kiosk to verify. The website on my phone for proof was not acceptable.

Took my goods and hurried home to get the computer up and running for Brittney.

That brings me up to today. Ahhhhhhhh, everything was wonderful except when I get the phone message from my wife while working. She says, " Brittney's car is on fire." Oh no, so I call. When I ask if the car really was on fire I get..... "Well it's smoking." So, I ask... Is it smoke from a fire or maybe just steam? The response..... "lots of smoke." I asked the question again, but the response was about the same.

I get home and look under the hood, because that's what you do when you have a car problem. Everything looked good. I suspected a broken or damaged hose since the coolant was gone and I did not see the remains of a three alarm fire. I ran some water thru the radiator and engine and did not see any leaks. I'm guessing that her coolant level was low and the engine over heated causing it to boil over in the cooling reservoir causing steam. Tomorrow's job will be a radiator flush and new coolant before she heads off to school. Glad it happened here on our road rather than on I-25 this week!

So that's my week. Did I mention that I completely remodeled our utility room 9 days ago. New carpet, paint and put in new shelves with grouted inlayed tile? Probably forgot to mention that. Oh, did you know that 7 days ago while cleaning up the work site around the utility room that I stepped in dog diarrhea? Yeah.... Some of you may have read the gory details on my Facebook page. Basically what happened is I did not have my eye contacts in and I stepped bare footed into Talon's mud pie. It was approximately 10 inches wide and at least 2 inches thick. Ooze and goo between my toes! I will say that I have softer feet now, so I may be on to something big because of this discovery.

So there you have it. That's why I have not posted in a while.

I do have to say that I'm very blessed that I have the ability to fix all of these things. Some of it is natural...... Thanks to my dad! Some of my skills come from YouTube. Got to love the good ol' YouTube videos for the DIY situations.

Just remember...... (I'm listening to myself) no matter how bad things get it will get better. If you can't fix something then ask for help. If that doesn't work then try YouTube! God's always there with you, so your never alone..... I just wish he would have whispered something in my ear as I was approaching Talon's mud pie on the floor. Even a "hey put your shoes on" would have been appreciative. Oh well, there was a lesson there too, but that's for another day.

Hope everybody is doing well and I did not bore you! Next week I'll be in Breckenridge, Colorado so I'm sure I'll have something to write about.