Disclaimer: No C, B or K was injured during this event

July 14

For those of our avid followers who have been noting with increasing disbelief at how fortunate we have been during this epic adventure, the following tale might set your mind at ease. (We are, in fact, mortal and our trip is not perfect no matter how hard we try to blog it that way.) It is to be expected on a cross country road trip that some sort of car mishap should occur. After all, we have travelled over 5,000 miles already.

We awoke from our night under the stars in the stunning Zion Park. The heat from the night before had lifted and we were able to enjoy sunrise over the cliffs. Since we had missed hiking the day before, and because we had such a short drive ahead of us, we decided to go for a short hike into the park to explore. We packed the car in record time and were about to move it to the public lot when we noticed something was a little off… FLAT TIRE?! Like well prepared travelers, we promptly pulled the car over, shut off the engine and called AAA. The tow truck came and pumped up the tire so we could follow it to the mechanic’s shop in Springdale, just 5 minutes away. He put the car up on a lift and, upon inspecting the tire, discovered a huge nail! Somewhere in the course of arriving at Zion and leaving the park we had acquired this new “friend.” Unfortunately the mechanic could neither repair the old tire nor did he have a new one of the same brand available. A quick call to our go to car expert (K’s mom) gave us the name of a tire center 30 miles away with a matching wheel. With this information, we made the executive decision to put on the spare tire and drive to Washington, UT to get a replacement. Pulling into Good Ole Boys (& Girls) Tire Center we prepared ourselves for the worst.

After a few minutes wait we heard the good news that the punctured tire could, in fact, be repaired! (The nail had only pierced the outer side wall of the tire where there is only rubber, no cord – easy fix.) Thrilled we wouldn’t have to buy a whole new tire, we settled in to the waiting room with our lunch. Less than 15 minutes later however, the tire was fixed and we were back on the road. Unfortunately the tire mishap took up all the time we had allotted to explore Zion so we had to leave that park for some other day. All of us agreed that it was certainly a park we would like to come back to another time.

From Washington to the Grand Canyon’s North Rim was an uneventful trip and rather short. We were running against the clock for campsites as there were few campgrounds available on the upper side of the Canyon. Pulling into Jacob’s Lake Visitor’s Center, K managed to acquire the phone number of a campground just outside of the park’s entrance through a bit of persistence (those pushy Yanks!). When she called to find out if there were any tenting sites available still, she learned that there were but “6 cars just pulled in!” Determined to get one of the few remaining sites, we (carefully) sped (under the speed limit) to the campground and used our tried and true method of finding an open site and leaving a member behind (C) to defend it while the others went to see if a better one existed. We were able to snag the second to last spot just as an RV pulled out of it!

While C & K set up the tent and made dinner, B went off to find firewood. (It’s surprisingly cool and foresty on the Northern side of the Grand Canyon.) The camp’s caretaker had just sold the last bundle of wood but informed B that luckily, she’s “in a forest!” To C & K’s surprise, B turned up at the site with an entire tree slung over her shoulders! Lumberjack B promptly began sawing the wood into more manageable pieces (with some help from apprentice lumberjack K). It was a slow process but a friendly neighbor brought out his power saw and made fast work of the log. Soon we had a roaring fire & we decided to try out our “Perfect S’more” method again. Circumstances lead us to make the “poor man’s” version, comprised of M&Ms, broken graham crackers, & marshmallow goop ( easily created by letting marshmallows sit in a hot car for too long). The results were surprisingly good, though thoroughly messy!

Finished with our delicious creations, we cleaned up our dishes and went to bed so we could get an early start exploring the crown jewel of our National Park Experiences, the GRAND CANYON!

Mileage to date: 5,062

States Visited: Utah, Arizona

Yellow Car Count:

C – 161

B – 173

K – 220

Highs and Lows:

Group High – Sniping one of the last campsites at Grand Canyon

Group Low – Flat tire

C High – Watching the sunrise in Zion

C Low – not getting to hike in Zion

B High – Becoming a lumberjack

B Low – Missing out on Zion

K High – Poor man’s s’mores

K Low – Flat Tire, mixing Asian and Mexican for dinner