Grover Randomness

The night before we left for Grover, Rachel was too excited to sleep. She determined that she'd sleep in the living room with all the camping gear we'd assembled.

Being the mean mom that I am, I said no.

Capitol Gorge (Friday, July 29th)

Even though Rachel whined about not being able to get up because her "eyes just [weren't] working because they just [couldn't] open and so they [couldn't] see anything" and asked that I let her sleep longer, I dragged her out of bed and forced her to go potty.

And thus I didn't have to wash out anything in the shower all day. 

Clearly this was the start of our best day yet!

I helped Rachel get dressed and then directed her to the pavilion to get some breakfast. Along the way she sat down in the sandbox and covered her legs with sand. Then she stood up and said, "There! Now that I'm all dirty I can eat breakfast!"

That's right. We wouldn't want to get too clean now, would we?

Ironically today was probably our "cleanest" day of camping yet. We hiked Capitol Gorge while everyone else hiked Calf Creek. And there was no mud.

Petroglyphs and Sulfur Creek (Thursday, July 28th)

This morning I was the first one awake and I stayed in the tent, waiting for my little people to wake up (more specifically Rachel) so that I could hopefully prevent a bed-wetting accident. Suddenly Rachel sat up in bed and declared, "Oh, no! I wet the bed again!"

She had been sleeping just seconds before.

I found myself, yet again, wishing I had brought a washing machine with me as I scrubbed her pyjamas and bedding, yet again, in the shower.

How ridiculous is that? Rachel hasn't wet the bed in forever! Andrew and I decided that we needed to take preemptive measures and determined that we would wake her up to use the bathroom before we went to bed and that I'd wake her up in the morning before she woke up on her own to use the bathroom again.

We ate breakfast and got ready for the day, fully intending to go hiking. However, we're a little bit slow.

We knew that we wouldn't be joining the rest of our camp on the Sulfur Creek Route (even though that's a lot of fun) but we thought we'd at least be able to hike to Hickman's Bridge or the Pioneer Register. We were wrong, so very wrong.

A picnic in the park was planned for lunch that day and we were carting the picnic (since we weren't doing the Sulfur Creek hike) so we had to be sure we would meet the group coming out of Sulfur Creek in time to feed them before they all died of starvation. Not that that was likely.

We started our day at the petroglyphs and by the time we were finished looking at them it was already past 11:00 and we were supposed to meet in the park at noon. Considering it had taken us nearly 45 minutes to stroll up and down the platform in front of the petroglyphs, we knew then that we wouldn't be able to do a two-mile hike in under an hour, no matter how "easy" or "moderate" it was rated by the rangers.

Goblin Valley and Little Wild Horse Canyon (Wednesday, July 27)

We got up in the morning with the sun, basically. There aren't a whole lot of other options when your tent heats up to a million degrees the minute the sun peeps over the horizon. Miriam had moved to our bed in the middle of the night—she was cold—and she was the first one to wake up. Since she was still dry I hurried and took her out of the tent to go potty. I don't really expect her to stay dry at night yet (and we still put her to bed in diapers) but it's kind of a treat when she does stay dry.

After going potty we went away from the tents to play quietly together.

About half an hour later I heard Rachel crying.

She had wet the bed.

And I forgot to pack the washing machine.

*sigh*

So I washed her pyjamas and bedding in the shower and hung them out to dry. Then we had breakfast and set out to visit Goblin Valley. I have only been to Goblin Valley one other time (7 years ago) and it was approximately a billion degrees (or just 112°F (45°C)) and the rocks were hot enough to melt the flesh off your hand. Needless to say, we didn't do much exploring then.

Grover, Day 1 (Tuesday, July 26)

Well, we're back from camping and I have bucket loads of stories to share. I suppose I'll begin when we pulled up to Aunt Dorothy's cabin. But first maybe I'll say that one day I want a cabin. Or at least yearly access to a cabin. It's nice to be able to go the same place year after year after year.

I first went to Grover seven years ago, before Andrew and I got married, while he was still on his mission, and his family wanted to make me fall in love with them so that I'd fall in love with him. Or something like that. I'm not really sure what their plan was but Andrew and I are married today.

It doesn't really seem that long ago that I infiltrated his family's anual vacation but then I saw Phillip step out of the car. Phillip is the neighbour boy. He also went to Grover seven years ago. Do you know how old he was seven years ago? I'll tell you. He was seven.

Not a whole lot has changed about me in seven years, at least...not that I can tell.

But I can tell you a whole lot has changed about Phillip in seven years.

For one thing, he's not a baby anymore. He's a gangly teenager.

That kind of shook my world. I was like, "Wait! When did he grow up? We just went to Grover seven years ago and he was just a little kid!"

I mean, I knew he grew up because he lives down the street, right? But for some reason realizing that seven years ago he was seven made me feel...old. Except that I haven't changed. Except that now I'm bringing along two little girls to Grover. And where did those little girls come from? Weren't they babies the last time we went to Grover?

Anyway, we pulled up to the cabin and I helped Rachel out of the van and set her on the stone path leading up to the cabin where Grandma was standing in the doorway smiling and waving. I gave her a little nudge forward and said, "Go on into the cabin with Grandma."

Instead of going into the cabin though, Rachel started twirling around in circles, looking rather disoriented. Finally she started walking off to nowhere.

"Rachel," I asked, "Where are you going?"