Flaming Gorge 2009 - A Novel

When I was a child, my cousins and I eagerly anticipated each new installment of The Wilderness Family movies that always seemed to be playing at the ultra-cool movie theater by my Grandma's house. Back then you could buy a ticket and stay for the whole day if you wanted to and more than once we did just that. As long as we had enough pocket change to buy another giant pickle from the massive jar on the counter, we were ridiculously happy. After spending so many hours watching the family that "flees the city for a deep forest, to escape the pressures of life, and to help their sickly daughter" - I wanted to know where I could sign up. I mean, who wouldn't want Skip Robinson for a dad? This guy could build cabins, wrestle bears, and make primitive living look better than a day at Disney Land! (And I remember him being oh so very cute too!) I credit the Wilderness Family for my love of the outdoors.. oh alright, my parents had something to do with it also, since they were always taking us on camping adventures in the summertime.It should be no surprise then that I want my children to experience the great outdoors as I perceived it to be all those years ago.

The only problem with camping is that, as parents, the work never ends. Let me repeat that. THE WORK NEVER ENDS. Getting ready for camping is an arduous and expensive task! When I take a step back and look at the process objectively, I find it absurd that we dismantle our lives at home, box everything up, and then reassemble it all out in the middle of the mountains. There's no air-conditioning, no showers, and that's also where they keep the vicious, wild animals. But for some reason, we can't wait to escape the pressures of our life for a deep forest, and I hope we never change!

Recently we traded our air-conditioning for the fresh mountain air and headed to Flaming Gorge with all six of our girls in hopes of making some Wilderness Family memories of our own. Our caravan included the truck pulling the boat, and the Durango pulling what felt like the entire house on a trailer. Oh yeah, did I mention how I suck at pulling the trailer? Forget about asking me to back it up.. I was not born with the trailer-backing gene, so I avoid it 99.9% of the time and that other fraction is such a joke that I won't go into detail describing the pitiful, and I'm sure hilarious to some, scene I cause when attempting to outsmart a trailer in reverse! To my kids that are reading this, take a moment to appreciate just how much you are loved because your mom actually towed a ginormous and heavy trailer all the way to the mountains for your happiness. ;)

One steadfast rule of our family camping is that something always goes wrong. Most of the time it is that we forget to bring ketchup or Bill forgets to pack clean clothes and eventually ends up with my own carefully packed, clean socks. Occasionally the weather conspires against us, as was the case with the massive wind storm that drove us off Lone Rock Beach at Lake Powell, or the arctic rain that reduced us to shivering, soaked Mud Monsters at the Dunes last Easter. Therefore, I should not have been surprised when the fuel pump in the truck suddenly lost it's will to live right as we passed Daggett County Jail, and we came to a slow and agonizing stop on the side of the two lane road - just before a blind curve. My first thought was, "No problemo! Good thing I'm married to the Modern Day MacGyver. Pass me the duct tape and we'll be on our way!" I have seen my guy patch things up with amazing creativity and little more to work with than his own two hands so I thought he could kick it a few times, wiggle a whatchamacallit or clean off a whatzit and have us rolling again in 15 minutes tops. Little did I know that this fuel pump was about to become the unwanted star of our vacation... and if I never see 1920 West on Highway 43 again, it will be much too soon!

Another fact about me is that when it comes to the safety and wellness of my kids, I do not handle stress very well. All of my instincts started yelling about how I needed to get them home, scrap the trip and do it now! Unfortunately, for Bill, I wasn't much help there on the side of the road. Oh, I made a few calls to my sister and my dad to ask them to google tow truck services for us because my Blackberry wasn't cooperating, but all that did was ignite my Super-Dad and spur him into action. He was determined that he was going to swoop in and save us all and it fell on my poor Mom to wrangle him back to reality. My dad has always been the first hero on the scene for any of his kids and I dearly love him for that, but this was one time that he would have to sit it out and wait.

We weren't having much luck with tow trucks, the nearest one was in Evanston and would take three hours to reach us. Three! That is an eternity when you're stuck on the side of a busy road with the wind whipping the sand into mini-missiles aimed directly at your exposed skin. Bill made the decision to drop both the boat and the trailer so that we could use the Durango to pull the truck out of the way and then hook the boat up to the Durango. Just wait, the circus doesn't end there. Next, he pulled the boat the 14 miles into Lucerne and parked it at the marina, grabbed the kids' foam sleeping mattresses off the boat where we had stored them and then headed back to 1920 West, Highway 43 to where his family was alternating between baking in the sun and ducking the pelting rain and microbursts. We then unpacked what we could from the Durango and stowed it on the already loaded-down trailer to make room for the extra passengers who had been riding in the truck. We took only the necessities from the truck because we simply had no more room in either the Durango or the trailer. With great determination and focus, Bill then drove his frustrated and extremely grumpy family the remaining hour and a half to the campsite, his poor truck abandoned on the side of the road. Yes, he is my hero and someday I hope to be just like him. I am so grateful for all he did for us that day!

Once at our campsite, The One Perfect Campsite That We Must Have, Bill led the way in getting the tents and beds set up, building the campfire and making dinner. Did I mention that this guy is my hero? I was busy helping out and was coping a little better but, admittedly, I was still consumed by stress over leaving the truck in one place, the boat in yet another place, and thinking to myself, "How the heck are we going to enjoy this camping trip??"


Bill was in the mode of making the best of a bad situation and I was stuck in the mode of fix the truck so the camping can begin. He was right... I was wrong. Amazingly, the kids seemed to be having a good time in spite of all the drama. That night, as we finally headed to our beds, we looked up at just the right time and saw the space shuttle gliding by, right above our heads! I know it was the space shuttle because it was the biggest, brightest thing in the whole sky AND because Bill loves to follow anything that has to do with the space program so he knew they would be up there that night. There I was, immersed in stress that I was creating, and something so very cool was streaking across the night sky. Someone should have kicked me right then and there and said, "Lighten up, Nicole! You're supposed to be on Vacation so start enjoying it!"

The next morning I made breakfast for the campers and silently obsessed over what to do next. One thing was certain, we had to go back to where we left the truck and we had to find a tow truck to meet us there. We cleaned up and loaded everyone in the Durango for a day of long drives and more stress. I called one of the tow truck drivers that I had talked to the previous day and when he heard that we were still stuck, he felt bad and agreed to gas up and come get us immediately. Joy of joys, we found ourselves, once again, waiting at 1920 West on Highway 43 for the tow truck to arrive, but I was certain that the truck would then be fixed and we could finally start camping. (seriously, I wish I could go back and smack myself.. I should have tried harder to make the best of it like Bill did.. I need to work on that!)

That driver was either extremely confident in his driving skills or he was a maniac that shouldn't be allowed to drive! Either way, we found ourselves racing to keep up with the truck that had OUR truck on it's back. Insane! The driver told us that NAPA was waiting for us because they could fix it immediately. Finally! I started to feel a little glimmer of hope that the trip would be saved. NAPA told us that they could probably have the truck fixed by that evening so we decided to head back to Lucerne to put the boat in the water for a few hours and then head back to pick up the truck. We had already driven an hour to get to 1920 West on Highway 43, then another hour and a half to Mountain View where NAPA was, and now we were headed back an hour and a half to Lucerne. We were sick of being in the Durango and the temperatures were climbing steadily past 90. Boating seemed to be the perfect solution.

It wasn't our best boating day ever. Uncertainty and stress took a toll on the fun meter, but at least we were on the water.. and a crappy day on the water is still better than no day on the water. Around 4pm we called NAPA and were stunned to learn that they hadn't even looked at the truck yet. It was like getting kicked in the stomach AFTER falling down. We decided to head back to Lucerne (An hour ride from the dam where we were) and I would pick up the Durango and meet the rest of my family back at the Cedar Springs Marina, near our camp. Ugh. More driving. Great.

It was Thursday night around the campfire and, as usual, the food was great. The kids happily broke out the S'mores ingredients as if it was the most normal, and best camping trip ever. Looking back, I can only smile as I think of the laughs we shared around the fire and how the stress of the day melted away with the evening sun. I had given in to the camping fun and let go of some of the stress and finally started enjoying the trip.
One thing my kids have never done is float the Green River. I practically grew up on the banks of the Salmon River so rivers don't intimidate me. I have been trying for years to get Bill to go river rafting, but he had always found excuses not to. I had reserved a huge raft for Friday morning so that I could give them all an adventure they would never forget. If it hadn't been for my good friend, Joanna, we would have had to cancel the rafting that day because we didn't have the truck to park at the landing zone. We had called again that morning and NAPA confirmed that it was the fuel pump that needed to be replaced. YOU THINK?? My husband told you that when we dropped the truck off! Oh we were frustrated with NAPA! When Joanna called me from Dutch John, I suggested that we tow their raft down to the river launch with ours and then her group could give Bill a ride from the landing to pick up the Durango and trailer. Perfect! She agreed and the rafting was saved. Joanna is so much fun to be around and we had so much fun floating the Green River. We survived rafting in the rain, and although there were some tense moments through a few rapids, overall my family did a great job on their first rafting trip! We managed to get ahead of Joanna's group by quite a bit, but we didn't mind hanging out at the landing and watching all the action as raft after raft attempted to hit the ramp just right. By the time we returned the rafts to the rental company, we were tired and the kids were hungry, so we headed back to camp for an early night around the fire.


Friday night was easily the best campfire night we have ever had. I have never laughed so hard and so long. My family was clearly having fun playing games such as "Chicken - Taco" and "This is a Smudge" and it went on until our sides hurt from laughing. I have been camping for many years and had never heard of any of these games but it was so much fun. More S'mores completed the night and when we finally crawled into our beds, we slept hard because it had been such a great day.

Every morning we were greeted by not-so-lovely screaming crows and Charlie. Charlie was a chipmunk that enjoyed playing with the tents at the crack of dawn. At first the loud rustling noise at the tent door startled me, but when I sat up and saw Charlie standing on his hind legs, with his little front feet up on the screen as he peered in at us, I could only laugh. It was that cute! Moments later I heard the girls start to giggle and squeal as Charlie entertained them by scampering across the top of their tent. He repeated these antics each morning and we were always happy to see our little friend.

Our final full day began with a trip all the way to Mountain View to pick up the truck that was repaired. Finally! Three of the girls elected to stay at camp because they could not face another 3 hour drive and I don't blame them. I was worried about them though because it rained on us nearly all the way to Mountain View. I hoped they were staying dry and managing to have some kind of fun as they waited for our return. Three hours later we were alarmed at the dark clouds approaching from the south. However, it wouldn't be Flaming Gorge camping without some sort of thunderstorm and we thought this one would blow over quickly.. as they usually do up there. Once the truck was parked at camp, three days after our camping began, we wasted no time in heading to the boat. It was time to get out on the water and do some serious boating. We stopped in a little cove so the girls could get wet and wash their hair while we inflated the tube.

I could not shake the growing unease as the horizon grew blacker and when I could no longer see the mountains in the distance I told Bill we needed to leave. Years ago I learned the hard way, on Bear Lake, that you don't mess with storms when you're in a boat. I refer to this as "Chasing Trampolines" because of our wrong decision to chase a water trampoline that blew across Bear Lake...that's a story for another day, but I learned then that safety comes first. Always.
We scrambled the girls back on board the boat and pulled anchor to get back to the boat slip in a hurry. I noticed a worry line on Bill's forehead as he raced ahead of the storm that was now streaked with lightening and quickly gaining on us. There was something very cool about looking back at the 5 boats that fell in behind us, riding the smooth water left in our wake as if it was a highway to safety. We were getting rained on by then and the kids would gasp each time the black sky was illuminated by multiple lightening streaks at a time. We made it to our Durango just as the sky unleashed a torrential downpour, accompanied by impressive thunder and lightening. We spent the next few hours in our vehicles, playing games and listening to music. As I said before, it wouldn't be The Gorge if there wasn't an impressive thunder storm involved. When the storm finally abated, we prepared our dutch oven dinner and played horseshoes in the sprinkling rain and I remember thinking to myself how perfect it all was. I was surrounded by natural beauty and I was sharing it with the people I love the most on the whole planet. I am so blessed.

After the storm passed, all around us the colors were brighter and the mountain air smelled even better than before. Is that even possible? We had a great Dutch Oven dinner and decided that a sunset cruise would be the perfect ending to a perfect day! The smart ones among us had sweatshirts on.. the rest of us just smiled through chattering teeth as we enjoyed the uber-coolness of cruising the lake at night.
Sunday was the day to break camp and head home.. and none of us wanted to go! We ached for more time among the red-rock canyon walls and tried to think of ways to make it happen. Ultimately, we decided to make the best of it and as soon as breakfast was over, we headed to the dock. It was 8 in the morning and the water was glassy smooth. Once again we anchored at the newly discovered cove where Bill and the little girls decided to do some fishing. Bill was the only one to catch (and release!) anything but we had fun nonetheless. Carley normally hates the tube but she reached deep and found some bravery that day and she rode in the tube with Emily and Ashley. Bill promised to take it easy on them and he did a really great job of it. It was a lot of fun watching them lean hard to get the tube in the perfect wake spot. We spent hours playing and dreaded noontime because we knew we had to leave then to break camp and head for home.

Flaming Gorge, 2009 will always be remembered as an eventful trip. It was full of highs and lows and guaranteed to never be forgotten. I learned that I need to work on my stress management and once again I find myself so grateful for a loving husband and father to my girls who manages to keep us all from falling apart.