24 hour camping EXTRAVAGANZA! Part 1

After I got home from girls camp, Nils declared to me that he wanted to go camping the following weekend- which was last weekend. I bought him a big fancy tent for Father's Day and he's been dying to go camping for a few months. DYING. Literally. I agreed, thinking we'd go up one of our many local canyons or whatever, roast s'mores, sleep in the tent and come on home.

It all went so wrong. So, so wrong.

Nils made a reservation at a camp site near Flaming Gorge. Apparently it was one of the only spots available in the entire world for the 4th of July weekend. Did you know that Flaming Gorge is 4 1/2 hours away from our house? Really? Huh. I did not know that. When I learned this small detail, I declared that we would not be driving that far to simply pitch a tent and be dirty for 2 days. Nils didn't cancel the reservation because he is stubborn, and was secretly hoping I would change my mind, which I was NOT. The big day rolled around, and I told him we could sleep in the backyard. He was grumpy. I suggested we go up the canyon for a picnic. He was still grumpy.

After a few crappy things happened that day, I had a split-second moment of sympathy and extreme generosity, and I made the horrible mistake of opening my mouth in that exact moment. "What do we need to do to go camping tonight?", I asked in my delirious state of good will. Well, that's all it took. 3 hours later we had the van loaded up and were on the road. The following is a breakdown of the next hell-filled 24 hours:

5 pm: On freeway, excited children, excited husband, generous me. With a bit of a toothache. Like any moron with a toothache, I ate some Skittles. Fatal error.
6 pm: Pull off side of canyon highway to let 3 kids pee. One of them peed on my pants and shoe.

7 pm: Stop in the town of Duchesne, Utah. WARNING: NEVER STOP HERE. EVER. This place is a pit. A hole. It sucks. Just keep driving, people. Learn from our mistake! We were all so hungry, and the only place to eat in this town was a super scary "pizzaria". The first sign that we should have kept driving was the parking lot made of mud, and the artificial flowers PLANTED in dirt outside. There is so much to tell about this frightening hour of our trip: The twelve-year old boy with bed-head who took our order, the office chairs doubling as "bar stools", the bathroom with a sample cup of urine sitting on top of the toilet paper, the woman who kept muttering under her breath as she made our pizza. But most bothersome was the old man who followed us around the joint, jiggling his belly, saying how much he liked pizza, and then saying to our children, "How'd ya like it if I took yer mommy home with me? How 'bout yer daddy?" Seriously, never go to Duchesne because it will haunt you for the rest of your days.

9 pm: Roll into Vernal. Compared to Duchesne, Vernal is a friggin' paradise. We were still quite shaken from our last stop, and so impressed with Vernal's relative awesomeness, that we missed our turn and continued driving East. An hour later, when all we saw were signs for DENVER, we decided to turn around. Just so you know, there is no cell phone service or data service in "The Basin", so Nils' brilliant plan of using his GPS app failed miserably.

10:30 pm: Roll in to Vernal. Again. I wanted to go to a hotel. Nils wanted to camp. By this time my teeth and mouth were ablaze and I thought I might need to go to the emergency room to A) get some narcotics and B) get out of driving any further. Nils and I...ahem..."discussed" what our next course of action should be. There may have been some bitter feelings at this point, just saying. Eventually we continued on, finding our turn and making our way up the canyon that never ends...

-To be continued-