Making the Best of a Bad Situation (Day 6)

The kids were sad to leave Zion Ponderosa. Jake had a great time hanging out on his own last night (he even met a girl... haha.... of course he met a girl...) and had made new friends there. Tanner and Faith had been loving the time with Brian learning how to play pool and pingpong and also having the freedom to be in the resort on their own. Brian and I were ready to move on, though, to second to last stop on the trip: Moab. Moab is where my mom grew up so I had some ghosts to chase (as my mom would say) and wanted to see the house where my Grammy and Grampy had lived- which I had last seen when I was 11 years old. I wanted to go to Milts- the diner my mom worked at in high school and where we used to go get milkshakes when we visited Moab as children. We also wanted to get to the last two national parks on our agenda: Canyonlands and Arches. The kids had a day and a half to recoup and prepare for some more hiking and we were all looking forward to the Hummer tour the next morning.

If you read the last post you know that Brian already had concerns about the place I booked. But when we got there it was beautiful with amazing views and the tents were very upscale. However...

As mentioned earlier in this blog, Faith seems to be going though some anxiety lately. She is afraid to do things (really almost anything that is slightly scary or something she hasn't done before) and she is also become deathly afraid of storms. She freaks out if there is high wind or thunder, or (god forbid) lightening. It has become worrisome in the last few months and is fairly reminiscent of our eldest child's foray into anxiety (which started right around age 7.5).  So, given this recent weather anxiety, it may not have been the best idea to book a canvas tent "glamping" site that had Brian and I in one large canvas tent with a king size bed and bathroom and the kids in a canvas teepee right next to us. To be honest, I'm not sure what I was thinking because, of course, as we drove into the Moab Under Canvas site it began to rain and then the thunder began and within second Faith was completely freaking out and crying and screaming and begging to go home and saying that she wished we had never come to Utah. Right away we realized that the idea of them sleeping in a tent that was not connected to ours, with the threat of the storm continuing through the night, was not going to happen. So much for Plan A. Time to think of a Plan B. Plan B either had to be completely forgoing the reserved tents and trying to get a motel in town or moving the kids bunks into our tent, completely forgoing any idea of romantic vacation or even comfortable sleeping arrangements.

After 30 minutes of tense decision making negotiations (while Faith continued to freak out) and a quick look on the internet for other Moab motels nearby with vacancies (0) we decided to move the furniture around inside our tent to make room for the three kids cots. It was probably really, really silly (and an unrealistic expectation) that we could have any sort of romantic moment while traveling with three children. So now we are full to the brim and ready for a good nights sleep in our safari tent. 

Once that was settled we head into Moab to check it out, get a good dinner, and try to see some of the old places mentioned above. We were successful on all three counts (and even got some homemade tiramisu to take back to the tent for later). Oh, yeah... and a bottle opener. We've been traveling with four beers on ice for days but don't have a bottle opener to actually make them drinkable. In half an hour or so I fully intend to be relaxing on the front porch of our tent sipping a nice cool beer, admiring the 360 degree view of the redrocks, and putting the weather freak out behind me. It's early to bed tonight for all (for one thing, we have no electricity...) since we have to be up early for our Hummer tour of Canyonlands.