First Two Days of Actual Camping: Cindy's Perspective

After bidding a cheerful goodbye to Price City we headed down highway 50 towards the Colorado border.  Having not experienced enough of that "Utah hospitality" we decided to take a 111 mile detour to Arches National Park.

Arches is amazing.
Arches is beautiful.
Arches is a sight seen nowhere else in the world.
Arches is HOT - 100+ degrees in the summer!!!  (It was a great reminder of why we left Arizona for the month of July.)

Note the scorching sun.

After seeing the Arches Park Service movie (in a very fancy-dancy theatre), touring the rock formation road, and having lunch in Moab, we headed back to highway 50 and on to Colorado.  We were acutely aware that all the camping areas in Arches were full.  I had to wonder how desperate, ill-informed, or just plain crazy people must be to camp in 100+ degrees with no shade.  So we vowed to stop at each and every camp site in Colorado until we found an open space.

Hooray!  About three hours later we found a lovely spot in the Black Canyon National Forest.  We wanted to set up camp before dark and we surely didn't want to miss the evening ranger presentation!

Our ranger was quite wordy thorough in his presentation about the history of the park service and the distinction between national parks, national recreation sites, and national historic sites insert snoring sounds here.  The presentation put me in the mood for bed...perfect.

Cheech packed pads for us to use under our sleeping bags.  We drew straws and I got the one that was 100 years old.  It had the thickness of a flour tortilla and worked just about as well in offering me some padding.  I got 2.5 hours of sleep that night (and that was after I moved to the front seat of the car... where after all, I do some of my best sleeping).

I woke grumpy  bright eyed and bushy tailed and determined to find the nearest store that sold inflatable mattresses.   We packed coffee, but no pot to boil water - another great reason to hit the stores.  Here's a little formula for novice campers to keep in mind:  No sleep + no coffee = very rough morning.

After hastely packing our gear while I drooled on myself from lack of sleep  we headed towards the park visitor center.  Here we "discovered" that we were camping on the crest of a HUGE canyon.  Our mental acuity is clearly on the decline.  Not sure how we missed the fact that we were camping on a canyon at least half the size of the Grand Canyon.  I can only imagine that it was the same process by which we miss a 2 million acre national park just a few days ago as a result of poorly executed signage.  (The park service REALLY has to work on this!)

Black Canyon  

Next stop- Gunnison River camping area at Blue Mesa.  Cheech and I unloaded our gear, set up the tent, and sped off to the town of Gunnison where we promptly found a Walmart.  I bought an air mattress and Cheech bought a pot to boil water.  I was feeling the good camping vibes now!

After a day of sightseeing in Gunnison hard to believe that there's a day worth of things to do there we were ready to relax at our camp sight.  We had wine, crackers, and cheese.  What more can a person ask for?

Well...the answer to that question could be "a pump for an air mattress".  Much to my surprise the air mattress did not come with a pump.  "No problem" I declare after a few glasses of wine with my usual optimistic attitude.  "I'll just blow it up manually."  (No comments here, please)  About 45 minutes later when I was hallucinating from lack of oxygen the mattress was only 1/20 full,  I knew his was probably not going to work.  We tried the bike pump, a Co2 cartridge, the bike pump with tape, etc. etc. etc.

A mere two hours later the mattress was full, I was exhausted, the wine was gone, and the fire was dying out.  Time to fall into "bed".  I have never felt such a comfortable sleeping surface.  I am in LOVE with my air mattress.

Just goes to show what a "mountain woman" I can be.