A Day in the Life

Goblin Valley; Round 3

March 13, 2023

Winter has been brutally long; five solid months of terrible weather and an awful lot of snow. Last year, we took our first real campout to Goblin Valley near the end of March. The weather at home was pleasant, but the weather camping was perfect.

A few months back we planned another adventure to Goblin Valley in March yet again, but a few weeks earlier. When planning, we didn’t think it would be that big of a deal to be a few days early. Winter had another idea. It just kept on snowing. The week – heck, just a few days before leaving it was snowing! Always snowing! I probably should’ve cancelled the trip altogether, but I needed to get out of winter. I couldn’t stand it any longer.

So we left! A day later than planned (to avoid driving Hwy 6 in a snowstorm) but we left. About 2 hours in we stopped at a Rest Stop that’s a good halfway point. Everyone rushed to the bathroom… and then Emmett had to jump off the seat and throw up.

Sigh. We stayed at the Rest Stop for about an hour waiting for Emmett to feel better, or worse. Who wants to be sick and throwing up while camping? Ultimately, we decided to keep going, Emmett was feeling good enough to travel.

A few hours later we made it to Goblin Valley just a little bit before dark… and then Emmett threw up again. And again. And again. His stomach was determined to have nothing to do with food. Or water. Whatever went down came right back up. Poor guy. It was a rough night. While he laid out feeling pretty crummy, the girls and I played games and had some noisy fun in the camper. It was too dark and cold to be outside.

The next morning, we cautiously fed Emmett some breakfast and it stayed down! Whatever he had had run its’ course and we were back in business! The weather was mostly great; we hung out outside, played in the sand, and had a great time. It did end up sprinkling a few times, but all in all the weather was quite cooperative. I finally escaped winter. Take that, ya stupid season!