Case in point, the roadtrip we planned to take over summer break.
Plan A
4 of us would take my car and go on a one week camping road trip. Starting from Denver, we would go to Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Mesa Verde, Petrified Forest, Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Arches, and back to Denver.
And then we found out our vacation was getting extended to a week and a half.
Plan B
In addition to the aforementioned parks, we would also stop at Joshua Tree, Laura's house in LA, and possibly Death Valley.
We would leave the first Sunday of break. A few days before we were scheduled to go, I noticed my car was having issues. Unfortunately it was Labor Day weekend, so not a lot of mechanics were open. In fact, almost none. Finally I found that Firestone would be open throughout the weekend and could fit me in on Saturday.
Unfortunately, after I picked my car up from them, I soon found that it was still not running well, and, if anything, was worse than before. I took it back to Firestone, where the most helpful thing I could get out of him was "cars are complicated these days, I don't know what to tell you." No shit, Sherlock. That's why I paid you to figure it out. But, figure it out they did not.
On the way back home, amidst my angry ranting about how much I hate getting my car fixed in other places because you don't know who to trust and it's so easy to get charged to fix things that aren't broken and how I just wanted to take it to the mechanic in Winner because I know it would actually get fixed for a fair price, Laura suggested that we do just that.
And that is when we formulated...
Plan C
We would drive to Winner that same day, take my car to the shop, and use my parent's car to go on a new camping route which would take us through the parks in Wyoming and Montana. We would loop back around, trade back cars once mine was fixed, and drive back to Denver.
However, the other 2 girls who were planning on going on the roadtrip weren't exactly excited about Plan C. We don't make a lot of money in FEMA Corps, and they didn't really want to spend it on going places they didn't really want to go.
There wasn't really another choice though. I wasn't about to risk driving my broken car through the Arizona desert. So...
Plan D
Laura and I would drive back to SD, take my car to the shop, and in the meantime, until it got fixed, camp in the Black Hills. When it was fixed, we would head back to Denver, pick up the other girls, and go camping with whatever time we had left.
So on Sunday, we drove back to Winner. Luckily, the car made it, although at times I was a little nervous we would have to pop up the tent on the side of the highway in Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska.
Laura's dream, for some reason I am unable to understand, was to see the Mitchell Corn Palace. So on Labor Day we drove to Mitchell and checked it out. On the way home we stopped at my grandma and grandpa's to get some lunch and a batch of my grandma's insanely delicious bars.
Then we headed to the farm roasted our dinner over a bonfire.
On Tuesday we got up early and drove west. We stopped at the Badlands where we purchased our Annual Pass to all the National Parks! Exciting!
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| At the Badlands |
After visiting the Badlands we drove to the Black Hills. On our way to find a campsite we drove past Mt. Rushmore. We were planning on going in for free with our handy dandy pass, but Mt. Rushmore doesn't charge admission. They charge $11 for parking, and the passes don't cover that. That's how they get ya. So instead we saw it from a distance and rolled through to Sheridan Lake, where we got a beautiful campsite right by the water.
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| Our campsite at Sheridan Lake |
We sat up the tent, made a quick lunch of tuna and pita bread, and then went to Deadwood.
We visited the cemetary at Mt. Moriah to pay our respects to Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane and then went back to the campsite, where we met up with my friend Kelsey from high school, who lives in Rapid City.
The next morning we visited the Crazy Horse memorial. This, much to our disappointment, is not a national monument, but a private endeavor, which charges $10 per person to get in. Being broke FEMA Corps members, we decided to admire it from a distance.
Then we drove the scenic Needles Highway and stopped for a short hike to the Cathedral Spires.
Next we drove to Spearfish Canyon and stopped for another short hike at 11th Hour Gulch.
I had received a call from my dad saying that they had figured out what was wrong with my car. It turns out it was the alternator, not the spark plugs and engine filter as Firestone had believed. Funny thing about that is, after a short google search, I had found a guy who was having the exact same troubles with the exact same car as I had, and it had been his alternator. I had chosen to trust the "experts" instead of the internet, and look where that got me. (Note: I later explained to Firestone that my free Google search engine had been more effective than their $105 computer engine analysis, and they agreed to refund me for that at least). So the new alternator was coming and would be there the following day.
Since we had an extra day, we decided to make the drive to Wyoming to see Devil's Tower. We got there and got a spot at a great campsite in the park. And our national park pass actually worked!
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| Devil's Tower, WY |
We noticed a pack of Montana Conservation Corps people at the campground and we ended up talking to a few of them. The Conservation Corps is another AmeriCorps program and one of the girls had actually been in NCCC on the Vinton, IA campus the previous year. The program sounded really cool. Definitely something to keep an eye on for the future.
At night, a thunderstorm slowly started moving in and pretty soon the rain started and we hopped in the tent. Before we knew it the tent was almost blowing over on top of us. We had to hold down the edges until the storm passed, but at least we stayed dry!
On Thursday we hiked Devil's Tower and became Junior Rangers at the park (I have the badge to prove it).
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| A deer we passed on our hike |
Then we made our way back east. We made a pit stop at Wall Drug to get presents for our team - I chose a jackalope to sit on the dashboard of our van. Next, we stopped in Pierre to pay a visit to my brother's family. They made us amazing shrimp and crab enchiladas and I got to rile up my nephew right before bedtime. Then back to Winner.
Plan E
Head to Denver, pick up Denise and Merissa, and hit up Arches, Canyonlands, and Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
We got back Friday, stopping along the way in Cheyenne to eat lunch at Taco John's, because Laura, poor thing, had never had a potato ole before. Since the other girls didn't want to leave Denver until Sunday, we were planning on camping a night in Rocky Mountain National Park. We got there and saw some pretty nasty storm clouds moving in. Remembering how my tent held up against the wind in Wyoming, we thought it might be better to just go back to campus for the night and then head to the mountains the next morning to hike.
And that we did. The next day, after breakfast burritos at Cafe Chihuahua, we hiked to Ouzel Falls. Then we came back to repack the car.
This is when I found out that I had severely overestimated my trunk space. We would have never been able to pack for a week and a half road trip with 4 girls. We could barely fit stuff in for a 4 day trip. My car was packed to the brim.
We headed out Sunday morning and made it to Moab, UT. Camping at Arches National Park was full, but we found a nice campsite a few miles down the Colorado River. It was right on the water and it was beautiful.
After we set up the tent, it started to sprinkle, and it was downhill from there. We were able to build a fire the first evening with only a few light showers here and there. At night, it started to rain. And it never quit.
On Monday we got up, quickly got dressed and ready in the rain, and then headed to Arches. I had tried to pack as light as possible because we had no room, so I didn't have a jacket or sweater. It kind of sucked, because dressed like we were dressed, we couldn't go for a hike or anything without getting soaked. Luckily, Arches is a lot of driving and not so many hiking trails. And it did actually look pretty cool. Not a lot of people get to see Arches in the rain, which is a shame, because when it starts raining waterfalls spring up everywhere and it's actually really pretty.
After seeing the rest of the park, we drove over to Canyonlands. That park is a lot higher than Arches so we just ended up being in the clouds, which meant we could see absolutely nothing except the road in front of us. Everything else was white, dense fog. We gave up and headed back into Moab where we tried to stay dry by grabbing coffee, browsing shops, and having dinner at a restaurant, since we couldn't really use the camp stove or a fire in the pouring rain.
The next morning it was still rainy and foggy, so we packed up and were planning to head to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Once we were able to get cell service and check the weather we realized that was probably pointless. It was raining there, too.
Plan F It
Let's just go back to Denver.
All in all, it turned out nothing like we had originally planned, but we did get to see some cool places, do some fun camping, take some nice hikes, and generally enjoy our vacations by turning off our blackberries and not thinking about FEMA.
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