Campground Hunting Part 2: The Sad Part

From my favorite campground ever!

We left off in Part 1 terrified by the Pioneer Cemetery somewhere in Eastern Oregon. I assume the majority of the Donner Party was buried there, but I have absolutely no desire to fact check that statement. That evening turned out to be one of our two drive straight through night's on the trip. With a long stop to shower and relax for a bit at a truck stop, we were able to cover the 16 driving hours trip from Redwoods to Yellowstone in about 19 hours. We were exhausted by the time we reached the Yellowstone gates around 5:00 PM that day, but we had come so far we were at least going to get a sneak peak of the park before searching out a campground. Within a few miles we saw a huge buck galloping across a field and a family of bison enjoying a relaxing day in a meadow.

Given our experience at Yosemite, we were pretty nervous about finding a campground near the park so we called it a really early evening and started our search for the night's home. We turned at the first campground sign we saw for "Madison Arm Resort". After driving for what seemed like forever on a gravel road, my only thought was "I hope we didn't waste precious time driving out here." Luckily, the campground wasn't full on a Wednesday.

Just as we began to set up our tent, rain started hitting for the 4th time in 6 campgrounds. This was the first time we had been at a campsite early enough to still have daylight. It would be the first time we got to sit in the tent holding each other and just enjoying the sounds of the rain. It was intimate, private, and beautiful. It was also one of my favorite moments of the trip. When the rain passed we got out of the tent to finish retrieving our stuff from the car. One of the near by groups of campers yelled to us that we had to go down to the lake to see the rainbow. I had to avoid my desire to sound like "the double rainbow guy" in that viral video after witnessing this:

My photography skills are weak, but you can see the hint of the double-rainbow

We gasped as we turned from that view to the contrasting sunset over the Rockies (the top picture). We marveled at all the colors and contrasts of the scenery around us as we spotted a family of deer across the lake. I don't know if I have ever been more awe-struck by nature's beauty than I was in those moments.

We spent the evening doing washing clothes in the resort's laundry facility. Sadly, this had to be done rather than sitting around a campfire enjoying some marshmallows. But we made the most of it. We sit up our camp chairs outside the door and watched the sun go down while we ate microwave chimichangas from the general store. I'm sure the camping purists will hate that, but it was a special time in my eyes.

After spending the day in Yellowstone and the evening stopping to take in the amazing landscapes of our trip down the Rocky Mountains, we were on the road for the second drive straight through night. I felt terrible that we had spent so much of our Thursday in Yellowstone because my parent's expected us to arrive early Friday morning. We were still 9 hours away at 8:30 at night! As much as I just wanted to set up camp, I knew that wasn't right to do. We managed to get 3 hours of sleep in the car at a rest stop near Glendive, MT. I have to say sleeping at rest stops is EXACTLY as creepy as I thought it would be. I tried to park all the way at the end of the lot so cars wouldn't come near by, but for some strange (suspicious) reason cars would keep parking just a few spaces away. Add that to the list of near horror movie endings to our lives. 

Since the next two nights were spent sleeping in my high school bedroom, I won't expand much on them. For me these were actually the two worst nights of sleep. I remember waking up throughout the night and muttering "We can't sleep now. We have to get to the next stop." This happened several times during the night. My copilot had her odd sleep moment too, as she was laying in bed staring up at her two hands clasped together, trying to scroll the page on the phantom phone she imagined was in her hands. I'm still not sure if she was sleep texting or sleep snapchatting, but the phone was about 3 feet away on the nightstand. 

Our next camping stop would come in the Black Hills just past Mount Rushmore. We set up at Oreville campground near Custer, SD. There's not a lot to say about this stop either, except that the stars were so clear! We kept the tent roof open while we laid on the air mattress staring up at them. The copilot was always quick to fall asleep once her head hit the pillow. I was content to just lay there in the dark, staring at the universe in all its' glory, while I held her in my arms. If only I had known this might be the second to last time this ever happened, I would have held a lot tighter.

The final stop came after a long day's drive from Custer to Moab, UT. There were so many times during this section that I just wanted to stop and set up camp. The only problem was that we were heading into the last day of the trip and Moab was still 7 hours from Phoenix. The copilot drove for a while through Colorado and I took over somewhere near Grand Junction. I pushed on late into the night until we reached Moab. 

We found a campground at Slickrock Recreational Area around 2:30 in the morning. The campgrounds were pretty empty because it was a Monday night (Tuesday morning). I was nervous about setting up in an empty campground, so I searched until I found a few RVs in the same area. We pitched the tent and were stunned to see the Milky Way. Sadly, we are iPhone photographers so the pics didn't work out. We began to lay down for the night. Suddenly, we both thought we heard someone walking around our tent. We yelled to back away and got out to try to track the perpetrator down. We found nothing. The copilot made me throw a big rock into the nearby bush to try to scare anyone out. Nothing. I think the lack of sleep had gotten to us because it was probably just the sound of the tent roof flapping.

This was the truly sad part of our campground hunts. It was the last one we would do on the trip. We got to the campground at 2:30 and left by 7:30. Other than staring up at the Milky Way and being terrified by the tent roof, nothing special happened that night. This is sad because it might be the last night we ever spend together. Just like at Oreville, I wish I had hugged her tighter while we slept. Had I known where things were headed when we got back, I'm not sure I would have ever let go. To think these moments were so uneventful is such a terrible truth.