Cory's Birthday Adventure :)

So I decided to plan Cory a surprise birthday camping trip. Everything seemed to be planned perfectly, so I thought. My plan was to take Cory camping in Flagstaff, AZ, that night go the the Lowell observatory to look at the stars, and then in the morning I was going to take him to the Grand Canyon for the first time. To give you an idea of how this trip turned out, below I have listed the top 5 lessons I learned this weekend:

Lesson #1: Check the weather forecast before you plan the location of the camping trip.

• As we were driving towards flagstaff, AZ (about 2 hours from our house) we began to notice black clouds in the sky. The closer we got to Flagstaff, the darker the clouds got. Then we started to notice the mist coming down from the clouds. At this point we called our friend Karen and asked her to look up the weather forecast for us. This was her report: Thunder and lightening!!! all day Saturday and Sunday. Of course the day we left was Saturday. Our first thought was "hey, we are from Washington, rain can't stop us." So we continued on our journey. I had done my research and we had several campsites we could stay at. We had decided earlier on to check out a few by the lake and then would move to the county fairgrounds if those didn't work out. We turned off the freeway about 15 minutes before Flagstaff and went on some back roads towards the lake. The road ended up becoming a bumpy dirt road. As we were driving on it, we saw lots of people camping off the side of the road, and about 20 minutes into our drive, we started to get rained on. I am not talking seattle drizzle, I am talking down poor. Then it started hailing...and these were huge pieces of hail. They were like the size of gumballs. It was crazy. Then as we were about to get to the campsite, we began to hear/see major thunder and lightening. The lightening was right above our heads. At this point we started to worry a little. We finally made it to our campsite and of course, the forests there are nothing like the woods in WA. The sites were wide open. We figured by the time we set up camp we and the tent would be soaked. This is when we decided look for greener pastures....

Lesson #2: When you climb 6000 feet in elevation, the weather will most likely be different than the weather in the lower elevation.

• (*Note: Because this was a surprise trip, I did all the packing) As we were driving through the rain, Cory said, "Athena, did you by any chance pack me a rain coat?" My response was, "No, but I packed my rain coat..." haha....I was just not expecting it to be like this. I was totally thinking the weather would just be a little cooler. After I made Cory aware that he was in need of rain gear, we went to Big 5 to pick up a poncho for him. (Keep in mind this is supposed to be a fun and relaxing trip for Cory's birthday, not a stressful one) We looked all over for one there and when we finally asked someone who worked there if they had any he said, "No we are all out, it has been raining all week and people from Phoenix have been coming to go camping and they haven't been prepared for this rain." Boy did we feel dumb, because we were one of those people he was describing. We then ran over to Walmart and found a poncho for Cory. At this point, we knew making dinner in the rain was not going to happen so we went and got some food....

Lesson #3: It is probably not a good idea to plan on camping at the county park the same weekend as AA.

• Finally we decided to check out the campgrounds at the county fairgrounds. Earlier when I was planning the night I had tried calling to see if there were any open campsites. I had noticed that AA was having an event there that weekend, but I thought we would give it a try. As we were driving through the campgrounds, we could not believe how packed it was. There were hundreds and hundreds of people camping there, all for the AA event. After we left, we realized it was probably a good thing we didn't stay because Cory had packed a few beers with us so he could have some while camping...that would not have gone over too well.

Lesson #4: Just because it is raining in a city that is 6000 feet in elevation, does not mean that it is suddenly raining back where you came from, there is no need to cry ;).

• After we had driven around for so long, we just could not figure out how this would work. I was still focused on the fact that I wanted to take him to the observatory (which would have not been fun considering the clouds were covering the stars) and taking him to the Grand Canyon for the first time. I told him we could get a hotel for the night, but we both agreed it would cost too much, when our apartment was only two hours away and we could stay there for free. At this point Cory suggests we just go home. As you can imagine, I was very sad and felt like I had let Cory down on his birthday weekend. So I just start sobbing. I had not cried like that in a long time. I was shaking and it is already hard for me to breathe with my lungs being so compressed from being pregnant. Cory was laughing at me and trying to console me at the same time. He reminded me that even if we went to the Grand Canyon the next day, it would most likely be rainy and we could go back another time. After I finally calmed down, and as we were heading south towards phoenix, we started to notice the weather was getting better. After about an hour into our drive home, the sky was blue and it was about 80 degrees outside. We then realized, hey, we could camp here :). It was like we fell into the trap of thinking it was raining all over Arizona, but really it was just Flagstaff. So we went on an adventure and found a beautiful campsite in Camp Verde near a creek. We were able to get a spot there and went swimming and had a wonderful time.

Lesson #5: When bringing marshmellows on a camping trip in Arizona, remember that it is not a good idea to leave them in the car for 12 hours before leaving.

• We decided to load the car the night before we left, not thinking about the fact that Phoenix is hot! So after we finally found a new campsite and set up camp, we decided to play some games. After Cory beat me in a game of cribbage and I beat him in a game of yahtzee, we decided to roast some marshmellows. Cory went to grab the bag out of our camping tub and we soon realized that we no longer had 30-40 medium sized marshmellows, but instead had a huge one :). We basically just tore off little chunks and roasted them anyway

So as you can see, our trip did not end up disasterous like we thought it might. We ended up going to Montezuma's castle and enjoying the scenery in Camp Verde. Now we know of a campsite only an hour and a half away from our apartment, and we got to go camping. All those tears for nothing. Most importantly, Cory had a GREAT time and he is heading into is 25th year, a quarter of a century, tomorrow, June 2nd.

Happy Birthday to the love of my life and my very best friend, Cory!