The family and I took an impromptu camping trip on Friday last. We headed up Farmington (Utah) Canyon, Natalie at the helm of the mini-van. She made her way skillfully up the twisting, narrow, dirt, bumpity road and up to Bountiful Peak Camp Ground.

In short order we had our tent set up and a camp fire burning. Tin foil wrapped dinners and corn on the cob, in the shuck were tossed on the fire to sizzle away. Honestly, I’ve never tased such good food from a camp fire.

Natalie took the kids to bed in the ten o’clock (their usual bed time is 7pm) and returned to watch for shooting stars. She saw one, but I didn’t stay up late enough.

We’d originally planned on staying through Sunday, but didn’t bring enough blankets or enough firewood to get us through the following night, so we packed up camp and headed down the mountain. That’s when the power steering got all “ookie” on us. We opted not to head out again that night.

This morning we learned that our gas pump is failing, the transmission fluid is burned, and the power steering fluid pump is shot… Not good things to happen… but we’re counting our lucky stars that things didn’t explode on the way down the mountain.