Both my family and Aaron's family go camping over the 4th of July. Usually we just each one every other year. But this year Aaron's family was going a little later so we were able to do both!!! I was a little nervous to do so much camping so close together but Aaron's sister Ashley talked me into it. ;) So the plan was to leave for Flaming Gorge on Friday, July 3rd and stay there until Monday, July 6th and then leave the very next day (Tuesday, July 7th) to head up to Smiley Idaho. Wow huh! And I'm going to mention that they always say bad luck happens in 3's. You'll find out why out say that real soon!
So the day before we were going to head up to Flaming Gorge, Aaron went to fill up the propane tanks and he got in a wreck in the truck. (Bad luck #1) He pulled out into the turning lane right as a lady got in it. (She didn't have her blinker on!) The cop issued it a no fault accident. The lady's car was probably totaled (it was old and had already been wrecked!) and she hit the truck on the passenger side right between the doors and also somehow hit the back tire and slashed a hole in it. Luckily Aaron was able to get a new tire Friday morning. We would wait until our camping trips were over to fix the rest.
Then off to Flaming Gorge! My uncle Doug was able to come visit just in time to go camping with us. I'm sure he hadn't been camping in FOREVER! We broke him right in though I'm sure. Friday was my dad's birthday and also the town of Dutch John's 4th of July festivities so we had lots of yummy food and then went to go watch the fireworks. I was not nearly as entertaining this year during the fireworks. No allergy pill & energy drink cocktail for me!!! ;)
Me and Doug
Saturday was the day to float the river. We woke up to blue skies and it was pretty warm, unlike Friday which was cold and rainy! So perfect day for the river. HA! Usually every year each family wears there assigned color bandanna but this year since it was the 4th of July we got a little more festive. We got all the guys flag swimsuits and us girls all had flag boxers. People would ask if they could take our picture and everything. It was pretty fun!!!
Our raft ended up with all the kids in it because the other rafts wanted to have water fights and I'm sure the babies wouldn't really have cared for that. So we had all the girls, 4 one year olds-Devree, Jacee, Gavin Jaxon, Dax and Sammy-the Bird's dog/kid. ;) We were able to get Dax and Sammy into the other rafts after a little while though. Yia Yia and Kalee ended up holding all the kids while the rest of us paddled.
Not too long after we got going the skies got real dark real fast. Then came the thunder and the lightning, then the rain. I don't think we've ever paddled so fast! Us girls killed the boys, most of the time they were so far back we couldn't even see them. It was raining so hard that it stung when it hit you. We put up umbrellas for a bit but then decided that being on the water with lightning probably wouldn't be the best idea to have the umbrellas up too. That would really be asking for it. So we tried to just cover the babies the best we could. So needless to say that we have never got down the river as fast as we did that day!
Sunday we just hung around camp and ate, and ate, and ate! We always have the best food when we go camping. And Lane made homemade onion rings, fries and some wings. YUM!!!
My dad being Cousin Eddy from the Movie Christmas vacation. haha!
Monday we just got up, ate and started packing up. We got all loaded up and decided to go dump the trailer while everyone was finishing. As we were driving around the camp to get to the dump station Aaron noticed that the tire on the trailer was slanted. So when we stopped he got out out and took the tires off and tightened the bearings (by then the rest of my family was there and my dad, Doug and Derek helped) and then we were off. So we thought.. As we were pulling out the tires were making this horrible screeching sound, so we pulled over and Aaron took all the tires off again and checked everything, it all looked okay so they put it back together and off we went again. We were just cruising along and I looked behind us and I couldn't see my dad behind us anymore, you'd think we'd stop but nope we didn't. So we kept on cruising and I was looking behind us again and I thought I saw smoke. I told Aaron so we both kept watching and we didn't see anything anymore so we didn't think anything of it. Then all of a sudden here comes Derek behind us swerving around, flashing his lights, tyring to get us to pull over. Then we saw the smoke again. We pulled off into a little camp ground on the side of the road and when Aaron got out to look one of the wheels was just a smokin. They pour water on it and it sizzled so loud. So they took it all part again -us girls got out the camping chairs, we figured it was going to be a while this time. And I don't know the correct terminology for what happened but something to do with the bearing pretty much blowing up and completely ruining the axle of the trailer. So we needed a new axle, awesome. All the girls -except my mom, not enough room, so sorry- decided to head home so we could get all the kiddos home since it looked like it was going to be a long time before the trailer was going anywhere.
My dad and Aaron checking everything out.
Yikes
All the kiddos waiting patiently
Aaron has a sister that lives in Wyoming so she got him some numbers of places that might have axles. Of course no one did, except all the way back in Ogden. So they left the trailer, came home, got the new axle-Aaron had to put it together first, then Aaron, my dad, and Derek headed back up to the trailer ( 3 hours away!) and don't worry that they didn't leave until 10 PM. They got it put back together and got home about 7 AM. So this all was bad luck #2.
