The Ward Campout

Elloh ladies and gents.

I hope you are all having a splendid week thus far.

If you recall from a prior post, this last weekend Denver and I went to his family's annual ward campout. We had a grand ol time despite the few roadblocks it took to get there.

There were literally roadblocks.

There was a bicyclist event going on Saturday morning so they had a large chunk of Springville’s roads blocked off and the roads we had to detour on were under massive construction- so that was a bit of a pain.

I’m getting ahead of myself, though. To begin with- we were able to smoothly check in at the local Days Inn and we stopped by Wal Mart to grab a few things before heading up the canyon. By the time we got around all of the roadblocks and through the dirt road construction- it started POURING rain. The car was literally booming it was raining so hard… And of course neither of us had jackets with us. I made Denver turn around and go back to Wal Mart where we could pick up some $10 jackets and an umbrella.

Of course by the time we got back to Wal Mart it had stopped raining… Why not, right? We figured if we abandoned the mission the rain would pick right back up, so we still went in and got some. (The best part to that is that we both already own the exact same $10 zip up hoodies we got there. So now we have doubles…)

By the time we made it back to where we turned around it was much later than we wanted it to be. OH WELL. Not everything turns out the way you plan. We kept on truckin.

We were going off of the vague directions Denver’s mother had emailed us a week prior, and although we had gone up to the same area last year, we were not really recognizing the drive. At some point we were supposed to come up on a “stone monument thing,” “before or after” the golf course and having to stay to the right when coming up on a fork in the road, bla bla bla. They were confusing directions, to say the least.

We passed the golf course, never having seen a monument or an obvious fork in the road. We waited and waited for the fork to come up, and when it did, we of course stayed to the right.

Well about two miles down that road we were stopped by a gate revealing a mansion behind it. Goodbye road? Where were we? I turned Garmin (our GPS) and the road we were on was not even on the map… So we turned around and headed back.

When we got back to the fork Denver proceeded to go the other way, assuming we took the wrong fork. The problem with this scenario is that the paved road disappeared… We ended up on a dirt road, but we kept going because Garmin was showing a fork in the road up ahead. (Granted that was a few miles up ahead and I do not know why it hadn’t crossed out minds that we never had to take a dirt road to get there last summer…)

By the time we reached the fork in the dirt road (that was far too bouncy for Denver’s 2007 Passat he’s owned for about two months) I chimed in saying we should stick to the left. The map on Garmin showed that both roads eventually met back up together a mile or two down. The road to the left was a straight shot and the road to the right was all sorts of winding and did a lot of back tracking. Denver was all too frustrated by this point and ignored my thoughts on the situation. To the right we went.

Boy was that a mistake… Our dirt road that already had Denver furious became a four wheeling trail that was too narrow to allow us to turn around and go back. We had no choice but to proceed.

I kept my mouth shut for the most part after this point. That or I was holding my hands over it because I was so scared of the looming rocks we were rolling over at 4 miles an hour for the next 40 minutes… At one point we reached a turn so sharp that the foliage on the sides of the “road” were scraping the underside of the car… It was at that bend though that the entire canyon was presented to us with the sun setting, casting stretched out rays and shadows straight towards us.

It really was astounding. I appreciated the fact that we would not have been able to see that view from anywhere else but that bend on that four wheeling path at that moment.

I tried to lighten Denver’s mood by having him look at the view and feel the same way I was. He looked out the window for about a quarter of a second (I don’t even think he looked- I think he just turned his head quickly) and said, “Cool.” It might have- no- it would have worked if we were in my old Nissan. As it was, he was about to lose his hair over the potential damage this was wreaking on his baby.

Right after we made it around that nasty corner, a dear came darting across the path right in front of us. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. It was incredible how effortless it made ascending the steep mountainside look. I looked over at Denver exclaiming the awesomeness of what just happened and noticed his hand was over his heart. All he could think of was the fact that it came so close to his car. I’m not sure what exactly about gave him the heart attack- it’s not like we were going fast enough to even tip the dear over and I doubt it would have jumped onto the car if we’d been in its way. Actually… Maybe it would have. Either way- his reaction was a riot.

Once we finally met back up with the other road we took the straight road back down. Although this one was straight- it was pretty steep compared to the other. We continued at our five miles per hour pace with Denver grumbling the entire way.

We were more than thankful once we got back to the paved road and could pick up some speed. Only now Denver was so frustrated he felt it necessary to speed. This was part because of how slow he’d been forced to go for the last hour and part because we were running so late for the campout. There was no phone signal so he assumed he mother was assuming the worst. I had to remind him of the apparent dear nearby and the amount of damage it would do to his car if we hit one going as fast as we were. This immediately slowed him down. (Never mind our safety- I just have to remind him of his precious car and he’ll listen. Men…)

We decided to head all the way back down to the golf course and we eventually saw what appeared to be a “stone monument thing” that in no way stood out as a monument. I saw the thing on our way up and thought nothing of it.

We met up with the group and chowed down on some delicious chili. Denver calmed down and we played card games with his family and friends.

The night took a turn for the better, and can I just say thank goodness for that?

The next day Denver got his fill of Frisbee football and I got to take plenty of pictures of the scenery and a couple of the adorable girls that were there. I’ll be sure to post them as soon as I can (which will honestly not be for a few days).



**On a side note- I’d like to send a blog-o-sphere shout out to Jackie and Brenton- our lovely neighbors who so kindly took care of Rosco in our absence. From the sound of it our seven month old pup had a hard time sleeping without us there. They tried to leave him at our place in familiar surroundings, but he barked and barked for far too long. They could hear him from outside and they were afraid a tired neighbor might call the cops if it kept up. They decided to move him into their place for the night- placing his kennel in the same location we have it at home where he could see they were right there. Apparently this did not quite do the trick. He whined off and on all night, not knowing why he was there or where we were.

Let’s just say they were pretty tired by the time we saw them around five that afternoon.
We may not have a puppy sitter in the future now, but we sure did appreciate their help on this trip!