One of the more memorable trips this year was the camp out with my mom's side of the family. And it wasn't necessarily the camping that was memorable, it was the getting there (and to some degree, getting home.)
First off,the truck gets about three miles to the gallon and has about a three gallon tank. I have very specific rules about gas stations when I am pulling the trailer. No backing, and no angles to start. Add to that, the beast takes diesel and you start to see that the options are quite limited.
We were going up Spanish Fork Canyon, and I started with a full tank. By the time I realized that the full tank want going to get me back off the mountain too, I had already passed all the gas stations. I decided to push ahead, get to camp, unhook and go fill up with just the truck. See, I'm a thinker and a planner.
We followed directions, with Kim and Warren following (or leading, I can't remember and it doesn't matter). We get off the paved road and we are cruising along and come upon uncle Rick. He says we are close, just around a couple of curves and a bridge and we are there. So now we are following him. Going a reasonable speed. He goes around a bend. I swing wide, I always do. Them BOOM it is like a bomb goes off. I gun it, nothing. I hadn't even seen a rock or anything. I look behind me and the trailer is practically resting in the truck. I decide to get out and look. (Rick had continued without realizing I was stuck.)
A kindly old gentleman and his wife come up on a 4-wheeler (I swear, there is one in every camp area in Utah!) And then Warren comes up from behind me, I must have been leading. And not too long later Rick comes back to see where we are. It turns out I hadn't swung quite wide enough and the truck cleared a ditch, but the trailer didn't. The ditch was about 5 feet deep - and empty, luckily.
The old man suggests that we put a rope around the trailer and pull the opposite way from the ditch to keep it from tipping further. Bless his heart...
By this time, there is a huge line of cars behind me. It turns out that there was a ward party up in the area we were headed for. Seriously awesome...this is my real life! I walk away like I had nothing to do with this train wreck. The men decide that we should use the jack (I believe they call this kind of jack a handyman jack or a widowmaker jack) and jack up the back of the trailer until the (excessively flat and bent, brand new) tire is level with where the ground should be and then gun it. Sounds fabulous, right.
Shockingly enough, it totally worked, and there is a super cool reminder forever etched in the back door of the trailer when the jack flew after the trailer as it was gunned out of the hole. And no, I didn't not drive it for that part, I made Warren, he is a trooper and I was super done with my ability to "man up"! We got it out of the road so the ward party could pass, then we changed the tire and got to camp.
Whew! Now to unhook and go get gas. No, the dang jacks on the trailer won't work. And before you go blaming me for breaking those in the crash, you should know that at some point, during a previous year camp out, Jeff had duct taped the jack together. So it wasn't me, it may have been the straw that broke the camel's back, or it may have been the 10 camp outs we did this summer, but those jacks were not coming down. And I am now running on fumes.
Rick had also had a flat tire on the trip up so he decided to go and get a replacement tire, and at the same time buy a gas can and some fuel for me. I won't bore you with all the details, but he got a flat coming down the canyon and spent about an hour on the side of the road waiting for AAA. Life is an adventure, and I have had my share for a while.
