It's Sunday.... I'm late for Friday.

I know. I know. I didn't post on Friday. A man gets busy. Sue me. (Please don't sue me as I have no money and it might make me cry.)

So......

I've said it before but probably the coolest thing about living in Colorado is the amount of free shit there is to do around here. Or should I say seemingly free shit? Oh sure, you can go hiking in the mountains for free, and camping fees are very cheap, even going out to dinner can have very little fee associated with it if you have the right coupons. However, with the hiking and the fishing and the camping I do have a bit of a gripe: You gotta have a lot of gear and that gear ain't free!

I can already hear the people trying to argue with this. "You don't have to have a lot of gear... just go minimalist!" Fuck you. I don't do minimal. I go overboard. That's how I work. For hiking I feel that you need to have at least a liter of water for every mile, a roll of T.P. for emergencies, two knives, if I'm deep-woods hiking than I would want another form of armament as well, a G.P.S., snacks, and a spare set of clothes. And that's just for hiking. I've never even been camping before but when I do finally get to go I would want all the amenities of home. A camp stove would be a must. We'd possibly need a bigger tent. I don't have a sleeping bag yet. Mess kits and utensils for camping would be needed. There's also probably a lot of other things we would need that I don't even know about because, as mentioned above, I haven't ever been camping. The gear for the hiking I already have, but I've been shopping around for the camping gear and that brings me to my question of the day:

Why is it so expensive to take advantage of free things to do?

This shit is pricey. Really pricey. I've been trying to off-set some of the cost by shopping at Arvada Military Surplus store, but even still I could get wiped out by how much all this stuff is. I'm actually having to practice patience and not just buy everything I want all at once cause I just can't afford it all right now. And that's just not me.

But really. All I want to do is enjoy some of this nature stuff before someone decides to drill for oil here. So why is it you make me pay through the nose for the gear to do so? Don't you think that there should be a free service that has all the gear you need? For a state that touts its natural beauty as much as Colorado does, you'd think they would have state funded "Camping Stations" set up at scenic areas with the campsite all set up and everything ready to go so all you have to do is hike in, throw your gear down, go down to the lake and catch some dinner, come back and cook it, get drunk, and repeat the next day. When you're done camping, all you do is hike away and the Camping Station attendants (housekeeping staff without the house) comes into the site and preps everything for the next reservation. I'm thinking an outdoor hotel. Come to think of it, that's not a bad idea for a business...