AMERICA’S HIGHEST CITY (an unexpected adventure)

[Applause] [Music] [Applause] we're kara nate and we spent the last four years traveling to 100 countries but 2020 brought us back to the us where we bought a converted sprinter van to explore our own backyard we spent the last couple days in southern colorado at great sand dunes national park sleeping under the stars in the largest sand dunes in the u.s while still covered in sand we began a three-hour drive north to the highest city in america was not planning on stopping but i really want to get it all [Music] so five years ago before we started traveling full-time the number one thing on my bucket list was to trek to everest base camp thank you tsunami for getting us here yeah well done and back in 2016 that dream became a reality when we did the trek with a company called i trek nepal after we completed the trek the owner just happened to be in kathmandu where we briefly met and we've ended up keeping in touch ever since so long story short rick the owner his wife beck and their two daughters when they aren't in nepal they live here in leadville running this super cool bed and breakfast they've offered us a free place to park in the driveway a big comfy bed for the night and most importantly a hot long shower because i'm pretty sure that i still have sand in my hair from the dunes because the only shower we've had up to this point was the freezing cold one we took in the public showers at the national park i feel so much better this is my first time using a hairdryer since we bought the fan [Music] i could stay here a little while so while cara was in the shower rick showed me around the house and this house was actually built in the 1800s leadville was kind of this this mining boom town back then and this was one of the original houses that was built so it just has a ton of character [Music] and this house was actually owned by a banker in the community and our room specifically has one very unique feature what is it what if i told you there was a trap door in this room awesome can i find it like is it like hidden yeah a hidden trap door challenge accepted uh you're like kind of warm [Music] one of these things push in you were touching it that's it can i open it yeah it's very heavy oh gosh [Music] that was like the most haunted sound i've ever heard it's literally concrete stairs into blackness can we go in there yeah this is awesome where does it go so it gets even crazier the the story goes that the banker owned this house this was his bedroom the room that we're staying in they've named the banker suite and it's just kind of this i don't know this weird kind of like concrete brick basement but apparently there actually used to be a tunnel that went between this room and the bank that's on main street in town somewhere behind these bricks there's a tunnel and i want to know so bad nothing sounds hollow goodbye creepy room [Music] you'd never know i was there crazy kind of makes me think of the movie parasite that one that won all the awards this year all right so we are going to attempt to show you how long this tunnel actually was so we're standing in front of the house now and to get to the bank the first thing you have to do is walk to main street still in the tunnel so this building right here that's now been turned into a steakhouse is the old lake we've been told that there's a photo in the back of the restaurant that actually has a picture of the guy that used to own the house and the bank it's only 1 30 now but we'll come back later tonight and try to find the photo okay so it's later we're back at quincy's and this this is the banker that used to own rick and mac's house where we're staying and it's quite beard super cool all right back to the vlog as we were driving into this town it almost felt like we were being transported back in time and we've learned a little bit more about the city since we've been here apparently it really got started in the 1800s when there was a mining boom for lead hence the name leadville then once all the and and then the lead dried up the town kind of died down again then they discovered silver in the early 1900s and that's when the town really boomed and it had 10 times the population that it has today and that's when like a lot of these buildings that you see around here were built [Music] the buildings are so beautiful and all the signs are like the original old signs it almost feels like the road should be dirt and there should be horse and buggies driving down it as opposed to cars like that would fit the vibe of this town a lot better they have all these little mining carts used as decorations as like flower pots and stuff i love it so the first time that we ever heard of this town was actually earlier this year during quarantine we got in this habit of watching ultra endurance documentaries i think we were just feeling like super trapped and super lazy and it was really entertaining to watch people suffer their bodies can handle we got super into it and one of those documentaries that we watched took place here in leadville every year there's this crazy race where people come from all over the world to run a hundred miles and the majority of the course is at over ten thousand feet a hundred miles at altitude i can barely walk up the stairs without feeling like i need to take a break and breathe so yeah every every year some of like the most hardcore athletes in the world descend on this town and the reason that i'm telling you this is because this building behind us i'm pretty sure is like the the check-in for the race so after watching that documentary even though it's closed it's kind of cool just to be here the documentary we watch is called the y by billy yang and it's super good 100 you should stop watching this video go watch that one and then thank you appreciate all this so much more it's pretty incredible like if you've never gone down this rabbit hole of ultra endurance racing before it's just a world that we didn't even know existed [Music] [Music] so we picked up some food from the local mexican restaurant and we've driven up to the old mining district that sits up above the town to watch the sunset and tonight we have a very unique one i believe the fifth largest wildfire in colorado history is happening right now so normally we would be looking at mount alberts which is the tallest mountain in colorado and in a beautiful lake but right now it's almost hard to see the town from here this morning we've driven about 30 minutes outside of town up to 11 000 feet and we're attempting to do something that we figure no one else has ever done i have a 40 pound inflatable paddle board on my back and we're hiking up to an alpine lake that sits at 12 000 feet i think we might be the only ones crazy enough scary all this stuff so it might be the first people to ever paddle board on this lake by we we mean us and our friend rick their daughters frankie and evie his wife beck and their friend olive feeling the altitude a little bit yeah all right very grateful that a four-year-old setting the pace that's about the only way i'm able to keep up it really made it sit down but i just kind of fell and ended up like this you can do it you can do it the snow august and there's still snow up here [Music] i can already tell [Music] [Laughter] how good did that feel yeah [Music] there's a a reason we're gonna be the first ones to ever do this we spent the next couple hours just soaking in the gorgeous views stand up paddle boarding and catching up with our new-ish old friends was that camera still on over here hi [Music] [Applause] we may be crazy we're gonna see how many people we can fit on these boats to go to the other side oh and olive who is eight years old paddle both me and frankie all the way across the edge it's way easier if i stand up [Music] ah there are a few things more frustrating in life than trying to get a sleeping bag into it and we're going to get in the water we're up bright and early to prep for a trip that we've been invited on morning i cannot believe we're gonna be in the water today we've been invited to go overnight white water rafting with our friends which is something that we've never done before this is the boat that we're gonna be taking down the river i honestly didn't even know that this was a thing that people did like i knew that there were companies that did tours but i didn't know anybody own their own white water raft so once again we are loving the flexibility of van life we were only going to stay on level for a day or two to say hi and regroup but this family is just too much fun when we got invited on this overnight rafting trip we just couldn't say no so i've done zero of the planning for today so i'm not exactly clued in on the details but we've just driven two hours in some direction we put someone else's boat on top of our boat and now we're going somewhere else the one thing i do know is that we're putting these boats in the colorado river and we're making our way 25 miles down river over the next few days i leave my keys in the gas tank and the guy some river bum that i've never met is going to come take my car down to the red and put those keys back in the gas can no way and the gas tank lid yeah do we have we met the person that you don't know yet no no and we won't but if you ever need a car just desperate for a vehicle just come on down to the colorado river [Music] i'll jump on back the trailer parking all that messing around just became so this is basically going to be our life for the next 36 hours yay it's just going to be floating in the things the occasional beverage and having a lot of fun breaking back have two other friends who also own their own raft so they joined us too plus their super cute dog back the video would look so much cooler if you were standing up oh i'm just kidding i'm just kidding so from what i've heard this next set of rapids that we're going through is kind of like the most sketchy part that we'll encounter on this entire stretch of river and uh it's a little bit of family we got a history here hey frankie what does this rapid scare you enough yeah why there's a bunch of hey frankie what happened last time you went down the rapids last time we saw two bald eagles right about now that's not the story that i heard well that was what happened before i hit the kids in the head with your all right jason you're red that makes one of us here we go all right that wasn't quite as smooth as last time but i didn't remember the eight-year-old who paddled me across the lake she does rabbits too i feel like most of the time on a trip like this you pack like pb js and doritos for lunch backpacked us asian pasta asian lettuce wraps with buffalo meat i get use this i'm a huge weenie when it comes to jumping off of high things into the water ned on the other hand not that i just can't be sure about nature i love it i have no interest in doing it oh great it looks so much higher i feel good i can't breathe that's the worst part oh the long drop is the eight-year-old talking trash nothing inside of me wants to do this i'm glad it's over oh god i did it oh it's so cold oh dad i am getting old that was like every ounce of willpower i had emmy to jump off of that good job old man you're not old just yet all right lunch break's over and we may be in danger [Music] everybody cover your heads everybody watch oh we're hitting the rocks in between the rapids was blissful and gone especially when nate wasn't the captain we even saw a bald eagle [Music] beautiful cara cara star spangled banner is about to be disrupted the eagle seems to like her singing it to her [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] that was awesome i think i might have broken my fingers i'm sorry frankie i'll get you falling in 120. [Music] did you lose your sunglasses no he's gonna be so upset gummy bears make everything better next it was my turn to be the captain wow with beck's help of course oh okay any rocks up there kiddos now maybe get away from these rocks on the right so let's go yeah and now push that now i would back backward you're right yeah that was crazy [Music] we made it that was super fun but my arms are pretty useless now [Music] all right this is a home for the night the way it works here on the river is there's just all these free campgrounds and as long as someone hasn't taken it yet you can camp there for free all right we just got camp set up and first things first i'm going to check out the toilet situation normally i do a toilet tour but i've never used one like this so rick's going to show me i call it the groover i'm fairly new to it myself but basically you do it in here okay number two's only there's some like some uh some kind of chemical in there that helps it smell less and then the little packet that that bag comes in also has this bag so once that's at capacity we fold it up and we stick it in there air tight zip it up it goes in this waterproof can and so even though the can smells a bit funky it's not anything too terrible it's just that these bags have been in there but hopefully the outside of those are pretty sanitary this isn't a one-time use no you can usually use it a few times we're still new to it too so we've heard two or three times maybe but that's it cool and they call it the groover which makes it sound fun almost i don't know how fun it would be i feel like this is the dreamiest toilet tour we've ever given typically it's perfectly acceptable to just dig a hole far off the trail and do your business there and cover it back up but apparently river camping takes the whole leave no trace thing to a whole new level and you literally have to pack out your waist so that's why we have the fancy potty [Music] we ended this awesome day with glow-in-the-dark bocce ball and s'mores around the campfire [Applause] morning [Music] all this fun on the river definitely doesn't come without quite a bit of work but it's totally worth it breakfast was amazing [Music] good work frankie hey redemption from yesterday [Music] oh look and this is uh this is the counterweight that makes the door easier to open and close yeah here why don't you stay down here you can watch it go down ready bye and now i'm i'm trapped in the basement let's see did you lock me down here i can see you you can't do the hole i'm sitting on it i realize you can see me busted actually pretty warm in the water yeah i know right it's so long we're heading all the way over there you're fast carl okay yeah trying to be hello frankie say something cara say something put my shoes back on my feet are all wet and muddy from our truck over on the beach chill bye i think one of the more difficult moves is frankie is um rowing should be like getting a beer at the same time and watching can you stay here with me frankie what do you think of nate's rowan he's awesome this is great and then a big no-no is peeing in the gruber yeah okay apparently just don't solids only solids only so if you have to get down near the water somewhere to do your number one but that can be tricky sometimes they go hand in hand so yeah i do think that would be tricky yeah we ate this pistachios what are you doing to do what are you doing subscribe to kara and nate's channel subscribe to karen and jay's channel hit the red button

Channel: Kara and Nate

Views: 1,689,668

Keywords: van life

Id: UvufThfWvc4

Length: 28min 14sec (1694 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020