Worst camping trip EVER.

Earlier this year, in the throes of Winter, Adam and I reserved a campsite in Pike National Forest, about two hours away. Even though we didn't want to, we had to book the entire weekend, Friday to Monday, due to the holiday. I guess we should have known then that this trip wasn't going to turn out to be one of our favorites.

I think you could say that our troubles started Thursday night. The company that installed our air conditioning only sent one person, not two like they were supposed to. So the poor guy was at our house until after 6pm, at which point we were hungry and cranky, and still needed to get groceries for our camping trip. Needless to say, that was one fun trip to Walmart.

The plan was originally to leave Friday night after dropping the dog off at the boarder's, but as I drove home from work I realized it was going to take a lot longer than two hours to get to our campsite if we had to sit in Friday night rush hour/Memorial Day weekend traffic. We decided to stay home and leave early Saturday morning.

We got off to a slightly rough start. My breakfast order was wrong, and then we realized we'd forgotten a few things at home so we turned around to pick them up. No big deal - we were camping! No rigid schedules to follow! We got to the campsite, set up our tent, and then headed out to find Hackett Mountain.

Adam really, really wanted to make it to the top of Hackett Mountain, and this is where our day got a little...harder. The directions he found online took us through private property, which was gated. Then we realized we had the mountain top's coordinates, so we plugged those into our GPS and backtracked. A few hours after leaving the campground, we had arrived to the middle of nowhere. When I asked where the trail was, Adam said, "there is no trail! We have to bushwhack to the top." I'll go ahead and admit that my reaction was not one of my finer moments. But, we did make it to the top and back without any problems, aside from Adam walking into a tree branch and slashing the side of his nose. At the top, it was crazy windy (FORESHADOWING!), so we didn't stick around long.

When we got back to the campsite, Adam went on a little hike by himself and I read a book in the tent because we had forgotten to pack chairs. It was super uncomfortable though, because remember that wind I mentioned? Our campsite had a beautiful view, but it was on the edge of the campground at the top of the valley, and the constant wind that had been battering us on top of Hackett Mountain was now threatening to flatten our tent and possibly blow it away.

The wind also meant that we couldn't start a fire, so when Adam came back he pulled out our camping stove only to find that the propane tank was empty. We had nothing to eat for dinner, and the nearest town was 30 minutes away.

That's when we decided to go home.




I felt a little sad, but that night after taking a shower and climbing into my comfy bed (in my air-conditioned house, no less), I knew it was definitely the right thing to do. Hopefully things will go better next time.