Our Wasatch Back or Father & Sons Campout 2.0
So last weekend was the big Wasatch Back (Ragnar Relay) Race. 188 miles from Logan to Park City winding over mountains and along backroads in the valleys of the Wasatch Mountains. I'm sure you know my Meemer was running it again this year. Since they start running early Friday morning, and finish Saturday afternoon, I had the weekend with my boys!
I decided it would be a good chance to take all my boys camping. Harry and Chilly went with me on the Father & Sons campout last month, and had a blast, and I figured Fussy would be happy as a clam in the dirt, rocks and trees too. Meemer thought I was crazy to take our three boys camping (especially as it was the first time for Fuss), but I was sure we'd be fine!
Thursday, I came home a bit early to help Meemer get packed up, and we dropped her off with some of her teammates to head up to the starting line. Fussy fell asleep in the van, but the other two boys said their goodbyes and we came home. After dinner, we tried to get most of the cleaning done so the house would be basically clean when we came home with mom on Saturday.
Fussy was really good. He was happy and played pretty well with his brothers. When we were getting ready for bed he kept asking "where's mom?" How do you explain to a two year old? "Mom's running?" "No, she's getting ready to run." "Mom's at church?" "No, she's with her friends getting ready to run." He kept repeating the questions. It was clear, that the only time mom leaves him is when she's running (and even then he's usually with her in the jogger), or when she's at the church for a meeting, or a basketball/footsal game. He never really cried, just snuggled up with me and went to sleep.
Friday, I got the older boys up and ready for school. This is usually fun, since I'm the back-up parent in this scenario, I usually do things differently than mom, and I hear about it. That said, everybody had breakfast, Harry had his lunch, and we picked up their cousins on time, and everyone was at school fed, fully clothed, and on time. (Not bragging, just showing my basic competence).
I couldn't talk Fussy into going in the jogger, but that is probably just as well. I spent the morning packing clothes for all four of us, and the camping gear. After Chilly got home from kindergarten, we hit the store to pick up the stuff we were missing. (Marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate, etc.) We got home, took care of the food, and then went to pick up Harry and his cousin from school.
After dropping off his cousin, we got busy. While I finished packing the van, the older two unloaded the dishwasher, then loaded the dirty dishes, made their beds, cleaned their rooms, (basically done last night) and picked up the rest of the toys around the house. At school, Harry had passed out invites for his birthday party, but one of his friends is off-track, so we loaded up in the van hit the post office, then dropped off the invite at his friend's house, and headed for the mountains. Just after 2pm! Not too bad...
At this point, let me just say that in addition to the Wasatch Back Relay, there was some kind of cycling race too. Plus this is June in Utah. What this all adds up to, is most of the campgrounds I looked at were booked. I ended up looking at a couple that were further from the course than I wanted, but found a couple reasonably close to the finish line, but still a two-hour drive from home. (I mention this, because not reserving a campground in advance comes in to play later).
Blessings continue, and Fussy crashes 15 minutes into our drive, and sleeps until we have the tent up! We're relegated to a "fee area" on the road to Mirror Lake. This basically means we have to pay $6 just to drive to the campground. Even with that fee, the campground is still $12. What do you do? I didn't book early, so I don't complain. Until I find out that this US Forest Service Campground does NOT have water! Now I've done a good amount of camping in my time, and there are 3 kinds of campgrounds:
1- Primitive camping. Typically in National Forests, this is, as it's name indicates, primitive. You have to provide everything you need.
2- Improved campgrounds. Usually State Parks or National Forests. Include a picnic table and firepit in each site as well as permanent outhouses and potable water.
3- RV campgrounds. Everything from KOA's to Parks, Forests, etc. Sites include picnic tables, firepits, and hook-ups that vary from electric only to electric, water, sewer, WiFi, and cable TV!
This was not primitive camping. Yet no water. No signs saying there was no water at this campground. I'm sure someone is getting a good laugh over the note wrote on the payment envelope. (We stayed since we had already setup camp before we failed to find water). Luckily, I had filled a water bottle for each of us, and nobody drank all of it, so we had water for making dinner. On the plus side, it was a pretty campsite by a stream with, what Chilly described as "billions of trees!"
After dinner, more exploring the forest!
Then we loaded in the van to go cheer mom on during her second leg of the race. (After missing all of the race last year, we were determined to see her and cheer for her this year). We found the course, and watched and waited.
Meemer came up the hill and took a quick break to greet us, then we cheered as she headed in to her handoff.
From there, we headed to the small town grocery store, bought four gallons of water, and headed back to camp. It was a bit after 10pm when we finally got there, and Fussy had fallen asleep 30 minutes earlier. We lit the fire that Harry had built before we left, and enjoyed hot chocolate and smores and an amazing canopy of stars!
I got Fuss out of the van, into his pj's and we piled in the tent and crashed. With the white noise of the stream, and the subtle light of glow sticks, we had a pretty good, if late, night. Fussy slept pretty well, overall, and was one of the first one's up.
Saturday morning, we had breakfast, and cleaned the dishes. I must point out, that it was Chilly, who helped me do the dishes! There was some more exploring, but then the rain came. And went. And came back. Harder. I between sprinkles I had packed up everything but the tent. (Naively hoping it would clear up long enough to dry out the tent before I had to take it down). Finally around noon, the boys were done playing in the rain, and we took the tent down in record time, packed it in the back of the van, and headed for Park City, and the finish line!
The worst part of the Ragnar Wasatch Back Relay, is getting to the finish. Sometimes I think the runners have an easier time getting there than any family or friends who just want to watch them cross the finish line! We drive out of the canyon and get on the main road right at the finish line site, then drive into Park City, where we park, wait in line for an hour, and ride a shuttle bus back to the finish line... Yeah, we were not happy. Well once finally on the bus, Fussy was thrilled, and talked animatedly about riding the bus, and all he could see out the windows.
So as we walk from the bus to the finish line, I call Meemer to see where they are, and when they expect to finish. This is where my Blackberry, aka worst phone ever (another rant for another time), say's the radio is off, do I want to reconnect? Radio? I thought it was a phone. Of course what this really meant, is that when a cell phone is in the middle of nowhere, it switches to analog mode, which eats up the battery. When a Blackberry's battery gets low, it shuts off everything it can to prevent it's immanent death.
If you read Meemer's race report (http://meemersworld.blogspot.com/), you can probably guess what this phone call sounded like. In my defense, I had checked my phone to see if I'd missed any calls, and when you're tracking 3 boys in a forest and trying to break camp in the rain, you can get a little distracted. That said, I still should have called earlier. Like as soon as we got to a better signal, or at least when we parked the van in Park City. Still I would be punished for this slight later... See, it turns out we were there early. Like by a couple of hours. With the brutal nature of the race, the late changes in the legs, the rainy weather, and the recent substitution of team members, Meemer's team was behind their predicted finish time.
So the boys played on a playground. Until Fussy started beating other kids up. I left the older two to play, and took Fuss down the hill to watch teams come across the finish line. We stayed low to avoid the wind, and managed to dry out the umbrellas. Watching the sky, I could see we were 5 or 10 minutes from more than a sprinkle, so we grabbed the other two, and headed across the field of tents, opting for the overhang of the only permanent structure, a concession/restroom building. My phone rang as we approached the building, so I knew Meemer was here somewhere. I tried to answer my phone, (back to the Blackberry rant) it ignored my button-pushing. It would do nothing. After missing all her calls this morning, I knew this was bad. After the longest 5 minutes of my life, pulling the battery, waiting, replacing, booting, retrying, repeatedly, until finally, the spinning hourglass of death was gone, and I could make a call!
It was raining when she got to us, we hung out for a while, as it was raining pretty hard, and was rather cold. The rain came and went. Eventually the rest of her team showed up, and they went to wait for the final runner to come in. (Then the whole team joins in for the last hundred yards or so and crosses the finish line together.) I took the boys over to the finish line, and we waited. It started to rain again. Here they come! We cheer, and in the rain and the rush, I failed to get any really good pictures.
It started raining harder. Meemer and her team got their medals, had their pictures taken, and then came to find us. It started raining really hard. We started running. Was that hail? Sleet? Who cares, it sucks 'cause it's coming down hard! A Meemer reported, I ran with Fussy screaming, she ran with her backpack and sleeping bag, the older boys froze with their inside out, exploded umbrellas. I get to the line for the bus with Fuss, the other boys come soon after, and I realize they had left the umbrellas to mom, already overloaded. When she gets there, it's pandemonium. She takes fussy and huddle under her blanket, I take her backpack and open the sleeping bag to protect me and the two older boys as we wait for the bus. (The umbrellas didn't make it).
By the time we get in the van and start heading home, the shock has passed, and though cold and wet, the boys talk about how much fun camping was. (And how much the sleet sucked). We had a late dinner, and went to bed late, but surprisingly happy. Boys like adventure. Even when it wasn't fun to be in the middle of it, it's fun to re-tell the tale! Fortunately, the boys' version of events focuses on the trees, and not the rain.
posted by big d @ 11:49 AM
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