Why Are We Here??

A couple of weeks ago Rachel, Emily, and I went camping. This trip was Rachel's baby. She was so excited and really got into it: planning, buying food, making bags of "trail mix," getting the wood and lots of lighter fluid, printing out maps, checking weather reports. The big day came along with a snowstorm and warnings that it was only going to get worse, but despite my apprehensions we left right on time. The drive out there was fun, even though there is absolutely nothing cool to see between here and Moab.

 

 We got there and had so much fun driving around and seeing all the arches. We saw Courthouse Towers and...Seven Sisters? I think that's what it was called. And we saw an arch that collapsed a few years ago. That was cool too. The whole point of this adventure was to hike the Delicate Arch, which we were planning on doing Saturday morning. We decided to just hike the half mile to the viewpoint and it was amazing! Those arches are good stuff. I can't wait to come back here when there isn't mud and snow everywhere. See that little itty bitty bump to the right of Em's head? That's it. It was more impressive in person.

 

By the time we got to the Devil's Garden, which is where the campground was, it was getting dark. Now it was time for the fun stuff! We got all the "fire stuff" out and started to build what was going to be the most amazing fire ever. We don't need Boy Scouts, we can build a log cabin as good as anyone right? Well...it took about an hour and a half to get this fire going. It would start and then we would get all excited, and then it would go out. It wasn't our fault though, the wood was too dense and it was starting to snow a little bit. But we finally got a roaring fire started (ok, it wasn't really "roaring" but it was going strong). We were starving and ready to stuff our faces with hot dogs, warm ourselves by the fire, and have some good campfire conversation!

Here is what actually happened...

 The predicted snowstorm came with full force and the biggest snowflakes I have ever seen. They snuffed our fire out in about 30 seconds.

I was so mad! It was kind of funny, but I was mad. And hungry.

So we got into the back of the Jeep, which is where we were planning to sleep, and had hot dog buns, popcorn, and candy for dinner. It was so ridiculous, we just laughed and laughed at ourselves. 

Well after awhile there wasn't much left to do so we decided we would just go to bed...but as soon as we all laid down we realized that the back of the Jeep wasn't as big as we thought it was. 

Crammed like sardines we were cracking up for awhile, then fell silent as we tried to sleep. The sooner we fell asleep the sooner we could wake up and get out of the car! The silence was broken by an outburst by Rachel, "Guys! WHY ARE WE HERE??" Twenty minutes later we were on the road home. We hit a really scary snowstorm and couldn't even see the road for about twenty minutes but Rachel did a marvelous job driving and we all said lots of prayers and once we came out of it the road conditions were ok. We stumbled into their apartment at 1:30 am, took showers to get off the sick nasty smoke smell, and fell asleep in our nice comfy beds. I love camping.