Day 4 – June 22, 2019

So you’re probably wondering what happened after Kathy rescued the bunny slippers for the second time in one day. As you may have guessed, we sought shelter in the van.

The wind continued to gust with hurricane level force. Our van swayed back and forth. Ashley expressed her fear that the van would be blown clean over at any moment (which seemed logical to me). My less dramatic take was that nature was simply trying to rock us to sleep.

We woke up pretty sore but happy the van remained upright. It was time to plunge ahead. We needed a new tent (which we found at Walmart) and to go do something fun.

We drove straight to our first National Park of Big Trip 4: Zion. Our only goal on this day was to give Ashley the opportunity to earn a Jr. Ranger badge.

The program is rigorous at Zion. It requires visiting 7 of the park’s unique areas, completing an intense workbook and attending a ranger led lecture about the former inhabitants of the area and their interactions with nature.

At the end of a strenuous but highly rewarding day, Ashley received her badge.

This was the first real enjoyable day of this trip. We were now 2 days behind and this was only day 4. It was Saturday and we wanted to make this stop on Thursday to avoid the weekend crowds (which were massive). Flexibility is a basic tenant of the Big Trip so it’s no big deal. What’s important is that we felt like things were starting to go our way.

We drove through Zion’s back gate straight for a tiny town called Mount Carmel Junction. Our campground was quaint with large trees and a grass pad to set up our shiny new tent. There would be no wind tonight. The only downside was that the low temperature was going to be 48 degrees. With our extra blankets and cold weather clothes, we would be fine.

But of course there was another downside because that’s the luck we are having. So far our problems have been self-inflicted and natural. But what happened this night was just plain stupid.

Now before I continue our little story, I want to assure you that what has been written here is true. It would be easy to conjure these crazy things up to provide some comic relief to benefit you, the reader. But no. Sadly bad things continue to haunt us.

So we set up the tent, ate dinner, and played a game of Clue (Ashley won) before settling into the tent. We were all exhausted from an active day and a rough night prior.

As I rolled unto the air mattress, I discovered it had developed a leak (which must have happened during the wind storm). No problem. We had a backup air mattress. But as you probably guessed by now this one also had a leak. Exhausted, I fell asleep quickly despite having that sinking feeling.

We were all shockingly awakened at 11:38 by the sound of sheets of water pelting the tent. How could this be? There was not a cloud in the sky nor rain in the forecast.

I poked my head out of the tent to discover a high pressure water sprinkler taking aim at the tent firing water like a machine gun. We just wanted one normal, restful evening where we could catch up on our sleep. The kind of night so boring there is no need to blog about it.

Again, hate to use the word surreal but this was surreal. We have camped hundreds of times across these United States. We have encountered rain and cold and heat and wind. But never have we incurred the wrath of a sprinkler timed to go on at the convenient time of 11:38 pm. I can’t make this stuff up.

We figured the deluge would end within 15 minutes. It didn’t. It was set to stay on for hours.

Eventually, the water was tuned off and a sense of quiet and normalcy returned. The tent was wet inside but there was no damage and the bunny slippers were unharmed.

And with that Kathy proclaimed, “Something doesn’t want us to continue this trip. We need to go home.”