Memorial Day weekend isn't supposed to be like this. Especially in Arizona. We went camping near Stoneman Lake (about 30 minutes south of Flagstaff) to avoid the 110 degree heat that we had last week. What we didn't plan on was the cold front that came through the entire state. So, while everyone back at home had nice rain and temps in the 80s, we had rain, cold, snow, and lots of mud!
Tony had some vacation time to "use or lose", so we headed up north on Wednesday to spend a beautiful day in Sedona. We were able to spend the night at my grandparents' house since they are currently in Iowa.
Thursday wasn't too bad. It was a little chilly while we set up the camper, but then Friday came. All day long it switched between raining and snowing. In Arizona in late May! We made the best of it by playing a lot of Go Fish, Hangman, and Clue Jr. We also had a lot of hot chocolate to stay warm. Thank goodness for the camper heater. It ran constantly because I don't think it got above 45 degrees all day. And I don't know how cold it got at night. I could feel the cold coming up through the mattress.
Saturday morning wasn't as wet, but it was still cold and the girls wouldn't play outside. Tony tried to take them out to play so I could have some space to make breakfast, and they just cried outside the door begging to come back in. And, even though they didn't spend a lot of time outside, the constant slow rain just produced mud that got all over our shoes, pants, and then tracked into the camper.
By late morning we had "camper fever" and had to get out. Since it was so wet and cold, we decided to take a drive and see what was in the area--basically nothing. So, we decided take out our Arizona map and follow the forest service roads back to camp. What I didn't notice was that some of the roads were brownish orange, and the others were orangish brown. The former stands for forest service dirt roads, and the others were high clearance 4x4 high clearance Jeep trails. After two hours of nail biting rock climbing and sliding on the mud to the point of almost hitting a few trees, we came across a fallen tree blocking our "road". Only then did we pull out all our maps and GPSs, only to find that our best plan of getting out of this mess was to turn around and go back the way we came. My truck is 4x4, but it's really a Mom mobile made for trips to the mall and soccer carpool. It was a quiet and tense ride and after the fact, Tony admitted he was very glad it had been my idea in the first place to take the back roads.
Arriving back at camp we succumbed to the fact that it wasn't going to get warmer or drier, and we were just facing another cold night in the camper. We ended up packing up and heading home a day early.
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