CAMPING CURSED!

We really wanted a pop-up camp trailer so we could start taking our kids on camping trips. Finally this summer, we have one! We thought we would go camping many, many, times over the summer. Our summer filled up really fast, and at last in August we planned and embarked on our first camping trip. We had decided to go to Grand Junction to the Colorado River State Park. Kirk loves this place, and we were really excited to go and use our trailer. During this attempt we had two flat tires, decided to camp closer to home after we found new tires, it started pouring rain, all the food was in the trailer, and the storage compartment had come open sometime along the way and dropped our handle we needed to crank the trailer open. On top of it all, we received the call about my brother's accident. Not a good attempt at camping.

Since we needed to travel to Utah, school started, and, of course, our handle was missing, we didn't get a chance to try again until Conference weekend. We decided we would go just an hour from home so we could be close by, just in case. The day before our trip, I went to the only camper store in the Denver area (30 minutes from here) that sells the crank handles for pop-up trailers. I purchased the handle, and proceeded to head home to finish packing the trailer. I was feeling quite proud of myself for using our trailer at least once this season. I'm sure you know what's coming....the handle didn't fit. Our trailer is so old, you can't buy the right handle. I spent the rest of the day looking for something that would work. I finally found the little gizmo the trailer Salesperson told me to try after trying many, many different stores...and it didn't work either. Thursday morning, the day we were supposed to leave, I decided to try the last thing I had thought of during the night. If this didn't work, our camping trip would be canceled. With a 1 1/4" square steel tube cut by the helpful people at Home Depot, and the gimpy handle I had found on the side of the freeway hoping by some slim chance it was the one we lost, I rigged a new handle! I know, I'm totally my fathers' child....they don't call him Dumpster Dan for nothin'! I packed our trailer, and we set out before anything else could happen. Our one hour drive turned into two hours because of an accident on the freeway. We were losing daylight fast. After missing the exit for the camp ground, we finally made our way to the Chief Hosa campground ready for our adventure to begin.

CLOSED FOR THE WINTER!

Yup, the campground had closed two days before. The attendant was still there and Kirk asked him if any other campgrounds were still open. The only ones he knew of were at least 2 hours away. We were not going that far. We headed back toward our house, and I told Kirk "We don't really want to camp anywhere, we just like to hook up our trailer and drive around to look cool." After stopping at two more campgrounds, both full, we decided to camp at Cherry Creek Reservoir....5 minutes from our house. Pathetic. After driving for 3 hours, enduring a screaming "I HAVE TO GO POTTY" fit from Monique, "are we there yet?" every five minutes from Izabella, and crying from Olivia because she had just had it....we ended up 5 minutes from our house.



To top it all off, our batteries died in the camera, and this is the only picture we ended up taking. This is Olivia experiencing her first campfire. Yes, we could have just run to the store and grabbed some more batteries, but what was the point? We're five minutes from home. Olivia went home to have a nap Friday afternoon. Kirk rode his bike home Saturday morning. We are sad, sad, cursed campers.

I wonder what will happen when we try to go next year....maybe we should just stick to Cherry Creek...5 minutes from Home Sweet Home!