Camping at Current Creek

Well, it was an event filled weekend. We got ready to leave on Saturday morning.....after a fabulous breakfast at Denny's, we got on the road. Up Provo canyon to Strawberry resevoir and then down a dirt road to a camp spot somewhere near Current Creek. Sounds simple enough.... We got to Provo canyon, where we got stopped for the Tour of Utah bicyle race. Those guys were going very fast down the canyon. So that delayed us a while, then as we got closer to Strawberry Resevoir, we got stopped in a one lane closure on a two lane road construction. After one wrong turn, we found the right road to Current Creek. Every thing was good and then.....the explorer transmission slipped and we couldn't get a gear. It's like being in neutral. So Travis hooked us up to his truck and decided no matter what, we'll just tow it to a flat spot and figure it out. So that's what they did. Remember that this is the new transmission that went in less than 3 weeks ago. So we got to a flat spot and opened the hood to see what was wrong. Nothing....so we let it sit for a while and then started it up and we had a gear... So we decided as long as we had a gear, let's go. So we went down a road and went through a mud puddle and as soon as we got all four tires in the mud puddle, the transmission slipped and we lost the only gear we could get. So Travis again came to the rescue and pulled us out. At this point, we found that the secondary transmission filter was in backwards and the transmission fluid was brown and burnt not red like it should be. I think the bouncing around pushed all the stuff it was supposed to keeped in the filter out and into the transimssion. So we fixed that, dumped a few new bottles of transmission fluid in it and low and behold, we had gear again. So we turned around, went back through the mud puddle, past the two older guys camped just on the other side of the river, who didn't think we would actually make it out of there and laughed when we got stuck, and down the road. Once we got back to the main dirt road, we were in the lead and from under the hood comes a sound that nobody should ever have to hear and smoke pouring out from under the hood. Now we have no power and the engine won't turn over. So Dustyn hooks his truck up to us and pulls us down the road to hopefully a camping spot. We finally found a camping spot, but we had to be towed to it. Thanks to Dusty for towing us up a 4-wheeler trail. However, we had a perfect camping spot. It was back in the trees, with lots of space and a creek running between our camp spot and the road, including what Libbi called a "swimming pool." In fact that's what she said when we walked up to it, "Look Mommy, it's a swimming pool!" After we got camp set up, (thanks Mom and Dad for your tent!) They started into figuring out why the truck stopped running. As Amanda and Sheri and I started dinner, Kyle pulled the alternater out and took it apart. He found the problem, the ball bearing in the alternator had seized, causing the pulley moving the serpintine belt to stop moving. That was the problem. Too bad we couldn't fix it at the camp site, we needed a new alternator. Since it was already 7, there wasn't much we could do. We had dinner and hung out around the camp fire. Libbi even had her little potty in the jungle. That's what she called it. On a side note, we had a conversation in the truck about the fact that monkeys live in the jungle trees. She was so funny about her little potty in the woods. But that, in it's self, is a story. We went to bed on an air matteress and woke up on the ground. That didn't go well for sleeping. Besides, it was freezing in the mountains! After we had breakfast, the boys loaded up in Dusty's explorer and headed to Heber city to get a new alternator. While they were gone, we put Libbi's swim suit on her and let her play in the "swimming pool." Despite my best efforts to keep her slathered in sunscreen, she got a little swim suit burn, I have a new farmer tan line, it's red. Libbi started a water fight with me and with Manda, she lost, like always, but we had fun playing in the creek. It took the boys (Dusty, Travis, Cody and Kyle) 3 hours to get down and back. But we are greatful for the help from our Samuelson friends. Because the new alternator did the trick. We had power and then we had gear. They even fixed it in enough time that Kyle could still play in the mud hole next to camp. We broke down camp and cleaned up everything we brought in, including the bag of dirt that we had saturated with transmission fluid. As we were getting ready to put the tent down, we noticed we had a butterfly in our tent. He was calm enough to let Libbi hold him on her hand. That was super neat to watch. She loved it and after everybody had looked at it and seen how still it would sit on Libbi's hand, he flew away. She is still talking about the butterfly on her hand. We literally were getting ready to pull out and Libbi was on the drivers side of the explorer and tried to open the door and it closed on her fingers. It took us a few seconds to figure out what was going on. We got her fingers out and looked at them. They are fine, we got her some ice and some medicine and before we had pulled onto the road, she was asleep. We mad it to the paved road and to the construction where we had to sit for 20 minutes. All I wanted to do was make it home without being towed. That we did, it was a scary drive home, that's for sure. But here we are safe and sound and home from our grand adventure of camping. Even with all the problems, we had a fabulous time and Libbi keeps asking us if we can go camping again in the mountains!