A Family Get-away Gone Awry

It was supposed to be a simple 3 day getaway – a special time in honor of Serenity for her 8th grade graduation.

I’d bring all the food; we’d camp out; costs would be minimal.

Simple.

Zachary’s “boss of the year” cleared him and Seth (who is working with Zach for a few weeks) from working Friday, so the plan was for them to arrive home Thursday night and we’d take off Friday morning.

Reality!

After being gone all day, me and my wonderful assistant, Serenity, packed and prepare food till 11 p.m.  By 12:30 we were all in bed but up again by 4.

Red eyes with grit in them.  That’s exactly how I looked and felt the next morning.

Zion National Park in Utah was our destination, a mere 6 hours away.

There were beautiful things to behold…

Interesting rock overhangs…

unusual tree roots… look at how this one stretches across the road before the actual tree.

Zion was like the person who reminds you of someone else; for some reason Zion reminded us of many other places right here in Arizona – Sedona, the Grand Canyon and even Tonto Natural Bridge.

So we were a little disappointed.

I’m sure we would have loved it but there were people.  Lots of people. Lots and lots of people.

And we kind of like lonely spots when we go to see nature. A few people, okay.  But not thousands

We thought it was going to be off-peak for tourists but it seemed like the pinnacle of their peak season.

Serenity was feeling starved and all the food was packed in such a way as to be inaccessible. Not the best of plans, I agree.

So we decided to find our campsite, set up in the daylight and have some supper.

This is when the fun really began.

Truly.

Zion’s campgrounds were full. Uh, oh.  This wasn’t supposed to happen.  This is off-peak.

Lesson learned – call ahead even if you think there will be plenty of room in the camp

So we left Zion went into the town next to Zion and then in and out of a few other towns and 20 minutes later, this is what we were looking at…

A barren countryside with no place to camp

Turn around is what we did. After all we wanted to be a little bit close to Zion.

We found an RV/Tent Park in town but really this is just not our idea of camping out.

Somehow this spot just didn’t appeal to us either, although I’m sure we could have been his neighbor for the night.

So we moved on.

We were told about a place just out of town where people could camp free of charge. The lady figured there might be a porta-john left over from the road construction crew .

She was right.  Right on the shoulder of the road it sat. Conveniently located. haha

And off the road, across a sea of weeds/bushes there was a spot we could have had to set up camp.

But can you believe, there were about 5 other desperate campers already in that small area?

So we moved on.

Down a side road we went, finding nothing appealing.  Turning the car around and joking about this cow pen, Audrey looks up and says, “Are we staying here?”

Poor child.  What have we put her through for her to think we would ever do something like that?! 🙂

At another rv/tent camp we paced back and forth looking over the area they had available to our large family of 8.  Having more than 4 people, we were given the corner campsite, with only a wall separating us from the highway and as an additional bonus there was a path near the back of our tent for all the customers at the RV park to use as access to the river.

About this time Russell is starting to get a twitch. I’m starting to get annoyed.  And we all determine it’s time to find somewhere!

I almost had Russell convinced to just stay there at the campground, we could handle it.

But almost isn’t the same as the actual doing of it.

So we moved on. Again…

This time we went 25 miles up a lonely road till we got to Kolob Reservoir and our. final. resting. spot!

Our quest had ended a mere 3 hours later!

Yes, I guess you could say we Russell can be quite determined when it comes to picking the perfect spot that’s quiet and private.

Setting up in the daylight didn’t happen, neither did being close to Zion…

but it was private. 🙂

Stay tuned… more to come. 🙂