On the Road Again

We haven't been camping for almost two years. This year we had nothing holding us back. We loaded up the van with our children, an extra child, and headed down to Panguitch Lake, Utah for a family reunion. 

Everybody awake and alert as we roll out of town at 7:30 a.m.

A couple hours later the early morning start and liberal doses of Dramamine caught up with them. We got a lot of driving done with only a stop or two for gas.

As the afternoon wore on everyone was a little more alert, so we stopped for lunch at a roadside park, emptied our bladders and started on our journey again. The new-to-us van was traveling well, the kids were squished but content, and we were flying down the freeway.

Unfortunately, our sleeping bags decided they wanted to fly as well. They were in the completely sealed cartop carrier that has traveled the northwest extensively with us. Nevertheless, as we were zooming down the freeway outside Fillmore, Utah, we noticed something fly off the top of the van. Michael pulled over and I jogged down the freeway, hoping the orange item we saw fly did not in fact belong to us. Half a mile back, I discovered it did in fact belong to us. It was Grace's sleeping bag. Michael, meanwhile, had opened the carrier (that was still locked) and discovered we were in fact missing two sleeping bags. We found the other in the median, mostly unscathed. We fought the brutal wind, and managed to reload the sleeping bags. Michael tried to put an extra strap around the shell, but the wind kept whipping the strap away. I also was not excited about still being stopped alongside the freeway.

We went another 10 miles down the road to the next exit and pulled over for gas. One of the orange slippery sleeping bags was again trying to snake out of the carrier. We were able to put an extra strap on and continue on our way with no further incident. We can only theorize that the strong wind was compressing the carrier, creating a small gap that allowed the sleeping bags to make a bid for their freedom.

We made it to our final destination at 5:30pm, with no further incidents.

Grace's sleeping bag has a significant amount of road rash but still was functional. Sam's was only a little dirty. They slept soundly in them, despite my aunt theorizing that the only way the sleeping bags could have escaped was if they were possessed. There was no further evidence of sleeping bag possession for the rest of the trip.