Our Nightmare Camping Trip

So last weekend was fall break for our kids so we decided to take them up to the mountains and do some camping. Since my health and Scott's work schedule are both so unpredictable, we didn't make reservations, we just went up hoping we could find a spot at one of the many campsites we had seen last time we were to Timanooke Campground. Well, LOOONG story short we ended up making a wrong turn in the dark and ended up on this long and rocky road that had NOWHERE for us to turn our huge trailer around. After 10 minutes Scott decided we had no other option but to turn around. This would require him backing the trailer (29 feet of it!) backwards while Kaylie and I guided the trailer. Now, we were on super REMOTE road and it was so scary! But Kaylie and I guided the trailer for about 10 minutes. Then the car got too close to the cliff side and so I told him to turn the trailer. He couldn't do that without pulling forward. When he did that it pulled the trailer at a different angle and got the trailer STUCK on a tree. I started screaming for him to stop but it was stuck. Due to the cliff Scott was stuck too. Moving one direction would destroy the awning, moving the other way would send our car down the embankment. We were stuck. Kaylie, who was scared of the wildlife, and freezing in shorts and my coat, asked if we could just cut the tree down! What an idea, (Sorry to the forest) but we were stuck. So Scott got his ax out and started cutting.

A few minutes later my worst fear was realized when another car came down the road right at us so I ran into the road and started jumping up and down and waving my hands..PLEASE don't slam into my car full of children I was thinking. Well, that car ended up being a truck with Tony and his son, angels sent to help us!! After 2 1/2 hours and much help from Tony we finished cutting the tree down, strapped it to a second tree and moved our trailer out of the way. Then they chopped the rest of the tree down so they could clear it off the road and away from dangering others. Then Tony scouted out up ahead and found spots he thought we could turn around. We tried 2 of them with no luck and it was SO stressful as we almost got stuck another time. At last we found a spot we were able to turn around...our paint job on the Sequoia isn't quite a pretty, but at least no one was hurt. We feel so blessed to have been given Tony and his son to help us through our dilemma. Almost 3 hours after arriving in the campground we finally parked our trailer in a parking lot. We were too emotionally and physically drained to drive anywhere. Our kids had been crying and scared and we were just done.

So we called it a night and prayed we wouldn't get a ticket from the rangers that night and we didn't. So you'd like to think the story turned happy there...well it did NOT. The next morning as we were planning to find a campground Scott came out to find a HUGE 3 inch wide gash in one of our trailer tires. Not surprising given the road we were driving on. So after much time in changing the tire we finally found a campground to camp in. Well, it was 34 degrees outside so we were playing games in the trailer when the next problem occurred. Our battery decided not to hold a charge and gave out. We tried charging it with the car and it would get to 100% and then go out 15 minutes later. So needless to say we could not camp without power since that meant ho heater and no fridge and that just wasn't going to work. So we let the kids play a bit and then we headed home. This trip was not meant to be!! We met up with Amy's family for a bit on our drive home and ended up roasting marshmallows with some friends back in Centerville. Scott and the kids slept in the trailer that night to feel like they were truly camping. I was so exhausted from the whole thing I decided to forgo the excitement and sleep in my own bed. So needless to say our experience was not what we were hoping. The battle scars on our trailer show the sad signs of our trial, but it could have been a lot worse, we are just grateful we made it back safely and that everyone has a greater appreciation for many of our blessings!