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The weather, a few hours after our unsuccessful campground hunting odyssey
I had a nice day today. It was a surprise.
At the beginning of the summer, I’d planned to be on vacation this week. But at the last minute, Pdad’s week of vacation time became a day of vacation time (!) (I shouldn’t complain—his company has always been generous with vacation time. But if I never complained when I shouldn’t, I would be a better person than I am so far.)
Although I hadn’t done the advance planning that I like to do, I was hoping to salvage our plans with a last minute weekend camping trip. Yes, a lot of the sites were reserved, but there are also the first come, first serve sites, right? Um, not really. Although I hurried and drove up there on the ranger’s explanation that the campgrounds would probably fill up about late afternoon on Thursday, I was sorry to discover that in fact they were full already. Apparently, communication between the campgrounds and the rangers is poor. To learn which campgrounds have tent sites available, you must drive to each campground and locate the camp host. So my thought of hurrying up there to nab a spot? Well, it turned into a three hour round trip as we made our way to each campground in succession, finding no luck in the end.
However, it was a very nice ride. I was pleased with myself for having done it as I am such a timid driver. It was an accomplishment. The scenery was gorgeous. I surprised myself by being able to enjoy it even though I was busy trying not to fall off the mountain and not hit other cars, and even though I was having no luck getting a camping spot. Duncan and Kate were wonderfully well-dispositioned and surprisingly cheerful captive passengers and conversationalists (well, Duncan–kudos to Kate for sleeping). Best of all, next time, when I plan ahead, and make reservations well in advance, I know just which campground I will pick. Granite Flat sits just above a pretty turquoise reservoir, and I am already enjoying next summer’s trip in my mind.
Meanwhile, I arrived home just a couple of hours before the the thunder, the lightning, and the rain. I hadn’t checked the forecast when I hatched the last minute camping plan. I am not a fan of rain while camping! No worries though, because I am sleeping in my marvelously soft bed tonight. Yes, it has been a pleasant day.
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3 Responses to “Silver Lining & Rainbow”
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It was a beautiful rainbow, wasn’t it? And I love Granite Flats (but never plan far enough ahead to get a spot there.)
I just made a long (if inconclusive) comment on the second of your kids’ reading posts.
Well it sounds like you had a nice time regardless! That was a great rainbow.
We did the same thing last weekend, only we got lucky. We planned on camping up Big Cottonwood Canyon and got up there by about 4:00, and they told us it was all full. The campground mgr told us that people will come up on Tuesday or Wednesday and reserve a spot for the weekend–they pay for the whole week and only camp one or two days, which really chaps my hide!
Anyway, we had a car packed with camping stuff and we weren’t going to give up yet, so we headed up Guardsman’s pass, next to Brighton, to see if there was anything on the other side of the mountain. I knew that road went over into Midway and Park City, but I had no idea what kind of campgrounds there were. I just figured there had to be fewer people over that way…we drove all the way up over the summit and were nearly down into the valley before we found a campground at Wasatch State Park. The lady said they had one campground left, and we snapped it up right away. It wasn’t the most scenic place I’ve ever camped, but they did have nice facilities (water and electricity at every site, hot and cold water and flush toilets in the bathrooms–they even had showers!). We enjoyed ourselves, but boy, camping is a lot of work! I don’t what we would have done if we hadn’t found that campsite. Probably just have kept on driving and driving….