Expert Level Trip for Novice Campers

Inspirational song: Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)

We have been back from our epic camping trip for 24 hours, and I am still not recovered enough to expect my brain to form coherent sentences about the whole experience. I'll try, but you'll get what you get. 

Mr S-P was determined to get us (particularly Valerie) down to the path of totality for this month's annular eclipse. For us, that meant driving down to the Four Corners region, and camping under the stars on a stranger's farm. (Well, a family farm of an acquaintance. But still.) The person who lives on the neighboring claim from Mr S-P's mountain cabin also joined us, and if she had not been there, wrangling kids and dogs would have been exponentially more difficult.

We left early Friday morning, and with breaks for small legs to stretch out, it still took us until after dark to reach the farm. It was getting chilly, and we threw down the tent as quickly as possible and burrowed under blankets with the babies. They were exhausted and cranky from the drive, and all thoughts of s'mores or stargazing were right out. Someone forgot to pack the pillows I set out, and I suffered for it. I barely slept all night from not being able to get comfortable. But seeing the kids watch the dawn was decent consolation.

I didn't get a decent photo of the eclipse. I didn't have the right filters to make my phone camera worth a damn. But I got pictures of us watching it, which was just fine. Dmitri and I stayed behind so he could nap as the eclipse waned, and everyone else wandered down to explore an ancient pueblo kiva. I don't have enough data on it to really describe it. My main understanding is that the path to it was covered in cactus and sticker bushes, and Valerie did not survive the trip unscathed. See, Val, this is why grandma doesn't grow cacti with her other houseplants.

We left around noon, determined to get home faster than we took to get down there. We stopped at Wolf Creek pass for photos, and once in Fairplay for the most disappointing dinner, but for the most part, we raced home. We made it by 10, in time for kids and grandparents to have showers before crashing in our own respective beds. None of us want to be in a car any time soon. This was a rough one.