September 13 - Utah

September 13

Man… it’s hard to keep up with the days of the week…  I mean… I remember everything that has happened, but without a time clock to punch, no Monday through Friday alarm clocks. no designated two days off on a weekend, no real structural time frame I must fit into… ‘time’ just doesn’t work the same…  just saying…

I stayed at a primitive campground last night outside of Moab called Onion Creek Recreational area.  It was fairly recently upgraded with flat parking pads, graded areas, picnic tables, a fire pit and an open toilet.  I had just returned from traveling about an hour away to check out another site nearby but it was not accessible and no camping was allowed.  So I turned around and headed back to Moab and to this campsite.  by this time I was really exhausted because I wasn’t planning on spending as much time as I did on the road, but that’s the way things worked out…

The view out my side doors...

There was only one other camper at the site when I got there, so it seemed that I could setup there and be okay.  But…

As soon as I opened the doors, a small army of flies invaded my space.  I did get my screens up pretty quickly but it seems I only managed to trap them all inside.  This seems to be one of the inherent problems when staying at a designated campground, but I dealt with it, it comes with the territory.  I went ahead and setup my awning and put up my shower tent and settled in to relax as best as I could…

I had practically no signal on my phone so I was unaware of a storm coming my way.  There were some gusty winds but not too unusual, and then all of a sudden this ‘tsunami’ wind gust hit and I was not prepared.  The awning was blown off it’s pole supports and flailed like a flag on a flagpole and about the same time the shower tent went partially airborne.  Fortunately I got to the tent before it took off.  One tent stake was all that was holding it back, and mind you the tent had all of my bathing and bathroom supplies already inside, so this wind was pretty fierce…

All I could do was to hang on to this tent kite and at the same time, do my best to break it down to that it would collapse and be less of a wind sail, which I managed to do somehow.  I then drug it around to the side of the van using the van as a windbreak, got it fully collapsed on top of all the stuff inside and headed back to the awning.  I threw the two support poles on top of the shower tent and finally got the awning rolled up and temporarily strapped down until the winds subsided later…

I was really tired, fighting a belligerent group of enthusiastic flies, lost my lounging area outside the van, and no place to shower or change now, and I really was looking forward to that shower, then a pelting rain set in along with a gusty wind… 

Earlier I had stopped at a Wendy’s to use their free WiFi, and I dutifully bought a spicy chicken sandwich and some fries to show my appreciation for using their WiFi.  Bad decision all around.  The WiFi was so slow it was useless, and now my stomach was rejecting this foreign substance I had dumped into it’s domain in a very abrupt manner.  In other words, I had to go to the bathroom, now!  And my toilet was buried in the tent when I collapsed it…

So feeling the impending disaster, I dashed outside in the wind and rain and managed to find the zippered door of the tent and slowly worked the toilet out of the tent door and ran back into the van.  I had that thing setup fast and furious. I barely made it to the seat before it hit.  Oh, and the resident flies really loved me now…

Sometimes all you can do is laugh, and I did, a lot…

After all of the extreme weather, the double rainbows seemed like the universe's way of saying things would be okay...

Another double rainbow...

Again, I made it through this new challenge, and once the rain stopped and the winds calmed down it ended up being a very nice night.  The flies must have gone to the two new neighbors who came in with lots of goodies right before the tsunami hit because they weren’t around.  The skies cleared up and I was able to sit outside and really enjoy the night.  I saw the milky way again, several meteorites flashed across the sky, and I was just totally immersed in this sea of stars, incredible view…

I put on some soothing music, parked the speakers at the side door, and stretched out on the picnic table to stare at the sky.  It was a wonderful night…