A Glimpse of the Desert

After a camping trip with friends was cancelled last week, we decided we’d still take a trip of our own. Jon took Friday through Tuesday off of work and we headed out the door with the car packed by noon on Saturday. We drove down through Torrey and Capitol Reef NP and found a dispersed camping site all to ourselves a couple of miles east of the Park border. From the moment we stepped out of the car, Ava was running her hands through the sand; I just knew bringing a bucket and shovel was a good idea.















We absolutely love the Fruita campground but thought that we needed to have some space far from others just in case Ava put up a stink around bedtime. Whoever coined the term “parental instinct” absolutely gets it. Boy, that girl sure did wail. I did finally coax her to relax and go to sleep but she woke again in the middle of the night and for several hours we catered to her every whim- giving her light sticks, snacks, drinks, and a bed to lie between us. Finally she passed out again but only on Jon’s shoulder and the rest of the night was rough for him.

The next morning, Ava and I got up for breakfast (not such a happy camper for that as you can see) and then drove back into the Park to let Daddy sleep for a bit. We took a walk to see some petroglyphs but mostly ended up checking out the plethora of tent caterpillars that fall like rain out of the trees this time of year. A caterpillar fell onto the front of her shirt and she let out the funniest squeal of both delight and disgust and did a little wiggly dance until I got it off.

Later that day we took a miniature hike with Ava in the pack but she didn’t want to have much to do with that, either. So we headed back and of course she fell asleep right as we approached the car. Not about to disturb her, we let her sleep in the pack in the front seat of the car.

We actually had a great time the rest of the day, letting Ava play in the water and mud in the river, having homemade pie at the Pioneer House, and stopping for a burger and ice on the way back to camp.








However, when it was time for bed, Ava wasn’t about to have any of that nonsense again. She wouldn’t even go near the tent without a fight, let alone get into her crib. We both tried laying with her and anything else we could think of but since she was near hysterics and we’d just have to pack up in the morning after another sleepless night, we cried uncle. This wasn’t the first time we’ve driven home from camping in the middle of the night- at least this time it was still light while we broke camp. We made it home at 2 a.m., slept late that morning and had the rest of a fun vacation at home. We spent a great day at the park flying a kite, eating lunch, and fooling around. Looks like our family camping days will be more of a challenge than we feared, but call us crazy, we haven’t given up yet.