Everything that could go wrong...

"I feel like its pulling..." And thus began our fateful camping trip. It was only one night, what could go wrong? Ha. Those words should never leave my mouth. We went camping this weekend at Lake Pleasant, about 45 minutes northwest of Phoenix, just for one night.

Things began going downhill before Ben and I even got home from work on Friday. He mentioned that the car was pulling to one side, but I told him it was just the (unusual) 40 mph winds. Our friends had gone up to the lake earlier in the day, and we were going to pick up Ben's sailboat at their house. We got home and packed all our stuff and the dogs. We got to their house, and as Ben hung up the phone to establish which camping spot they were in, he says, "That tire is going flat." So, we call Discount Tire, (a highly frequented spot of mine) and ask how fast they can fix a flat. They say, "We close at 6." It was 5:57. So that was out. So, we went to Ben's parents' and loaded ALL the stuff into Jay's Pathfinder and got on the road.

We finally got to the campsite around 7:30. At this point, it's just about dark, and still blowing 40 mph wind, and we still need to set up a tent we've never seen before. That was an episode. After much ado, (and redo), we finally got the GIANT tent set up. I knew it was a 4 man tent, but this thing could have had a second floor in it! We took our group picture with everyone standing up in the tent. Huge. Laughable. Plenty of space for me, Ben, Joe, and two dogs. Then we went to get our supper and realized there was a fire restriction and had to do hot dogs and s'mores over the camp stove. Definitely a disappointment.

After spending a night with those crazy dogs, we decided it was too much space. Those dogs spent the entire night wandering around the tent. Tromp, tromp, tromp. Wag, wag, kiss, kiss. Tromp, tromp, tromp. Wag, wag, pant, pant. All night... Then about 4 AM, they decide to start playing ON my feet. Needless to say, it was not the most restful night ever. Way too much space.

Then in the morning, we had a leisurely breakfast overlooking the lake, which was actually very pleasant. After lots of reading and sitting around, the host informed us we had to be out of the campsite by noon. This left us with some choices, given that the boys still wanted to sail and jetski, and some of the girls wanted to get back in time to watch the Final Four at 3 PM. We decided to have a late lunch at Jay and Marilyn's (our grilled cheese and tomato soup) and watch the games there. So, after much ado, (and discussion of how cold the water was-57 degrees), everyone but Ben and Steve decided to pack up and go home.

After getting home around 1, I took the car to Discount and had them fix my tire (30 minutes), went home, showered, and got ready to go watch the games and Jay and Marilyn's. Just as I was about to leave, Darla called and informed me that Steve's jetski never started in the first place and then he locked his keys in his car, and so she was going to take them to him. So she did. 3 hours later, the keys were dropped off, the originals were retrieved, Ben had sailed and gotten totally scraped up on a pully, and the boys were home. To cap everything off, as they rolled into Steve's house to put the boat back, Joe's truck stopped moving. Wouldn't move, clutch didn't push in, etc. So there you have it. A VERY eventful camping trip, but a good time was had anyway, given fantastic scenery and temperatures :-)