Sense of Place Part II

  I’ll admit when I first joined Court’s family on their annual camping trip, I did wonder why we always stayed at the same campground and reserved the same site, year after year.
  After all, Colorado is full of amazing destinations, more than you could ever see in a lifetime. Why visit the same place twice? Let alone dozens?
  Sure there is the practicality of Chambers Lake having reserve-able campsites (who would want to drive from Illinois to Colorado, hoping to get a good spot?) And there’s the convenience of simply walking down a hill to fly fish and the proximity to favorite trail-heads and it‘s not too far from where relatives homesteaded many years ago... you get the picture.
  But more than all of that, Chambers Lake has become a second home. A vacation home without walls if you will.
  Just like any home this place holds memories that span generations and a level of comfort and familiarity that you miss when you are not there.
  Court and his brothers came out to Colorado every summer for years, not always just to Chambers, but more often than not, that was the destination. Inevitably as teenagers they refused to go on the family vacation, but luckily as young adults they started making the trip once again. 
  By then we had moved out here and it’s been awesome camping with my in-laws and brothers-in-law, becoming closer to them than I ever would have without these trips. Drinking around a campfire, watching the stars (and I swear some UFOs too), hiking up mountains, sliding down snowy summer hillsides… I am so grateful for all the memories. 
  And now we all get to share this very special place with Layla and hopefully next year her baby cousin too.
  Now I am far from wondering why we go to the same spot, but only anxious for next July, when we get to go home again.