Camping! and stuff.

So, as I said before, I went camping with a few of my buddies from high school.  Before I left I got this great idea to write a short story about a guy who got buried alive (this is important later in this blog).  So, before I left, I wrote a bunch of it.

To say that the trip was eventful would be a gross understatement.  Let's start before I even get to my buddies house (the beginning of the trip).  As I brought my backpack over me, to sit shotgun, I knocked my rear view mirror hard enough to dislodge it.  To be fair, I should have seen this as the omen that it was, but didn't.

We stayed the night at my buddies and played MW3 until it was time to leave.  We loaded up and drove down to Goblin Valley, where we camped.  The first day was incredibly hot.  Unseasonably hot.  I brought jeans.  Luckily, my buddy let me borrow an extra pair of shorts he brought.  We set up a canopy and tried to nap, first in the tent, which was far too hot, then under the canopy, which was less, but still far too hot.  After I read a little and my buddies went exploring, the wind started to blow a little.  So, we took down the canopy and laid in the tent.

We finally fell asleep a little when the wind blew harder.  I asked my buddy, without opening my eyes, if his tent could handle this kind of wind.  His answer was something like, "Oh my gosh!"  Which opened my eyes to a dust devil there in our tent.  All four of us tried to close tent windows as quickly as we could, but the damage had been done.  The tent that we all tried to keep so clean was filled with dirt.

After a while, we cleaned it out and went hiking around the goblins.  The goblins really are an amazing testament to how amazing erosion can be.  I probably would have enjoyed it more if my left I wasn't constantly watering and burning from allergies (which never really stopped the whole trip, no matter how many pills I took).

We went back to camp, made dinner, and slept through the night.  In the morning, we had planned to go canyoneering down a slot canyon my buddy had looked up on line.  We drove there.  On the way, my friend driving got a speeding ticket.  Yep, one cop on one long road, and he got us.  When we finally arrived, we followed the directions to the letter, and ended up not finding the slot canyon opening, but hiked up and down the canyon.  Don't get me wrong, it was fun, and super pretty, but it sure would have been nice to find that slot canyon.

On our way back we stopped for a bite to eat in Hanksville (super good burger joint, if not a bit overpriced).  We enjoyed the AC and slowly made our way back to camp.  Ominously, one of my friends said something about how we should take the tent down so it doesn't bow away.  We all told him he was mad (not in those words though) and left the ten up.  As we drove up to the campsite we saw my friend's overturned tent.  "Oh well,"  we said, "we'll just have to flip it back over."  Oh no, my dear reader, that wasn't the problem.  The wind had torn the fabric, ripped pole pieces completely apart, and bent several others.

This was it.  With the wind still blowing dust, we gathered our things and drove back home to play more MW3 at my friends house.  Oddly enough, through all the crap, it really was a good campout.  I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Now, I was going to write all this yesterday, but I decided instead to write some more of my buried alive story, which I finished just before this post.  I plan to try and get it published in a magazine.  Wish me luck.